# Blueberries and blackberries



## TurtleToo (Aug 23, 2013)

Hello, fellow berry lovers,

Does anyone here have any insight into the growing of blueberries and blackberries in Mexico? Specifically, I am curious about the huge price difference. I'm in Michoacán, and blueberries here cost at least four times what blackberries do (and sometimes up to six times the cost.) Recently ten pesos buys me about two cups of blackberries, while a smaller container of blueberries, perhaps a cup and a half, usually costs 30 to 35 pesos. 

I'm very fond of blueberries, but have adapted my taste to blackberries because of the current price difference. (I'm happy enough, just curious!) Does anyone know something about berry culture, growing difficulties, transportation, (or anything else) that would account for the difference? In my home state of Maine, blackberries ripen earlier than blueberries, but I don't know about growing seasons in Mexico. (The blueberries are a different variety anyway.) But perhaps it's now the season for blackberries, and we just have to wait a while longer for in-season blueberries?

This is my third winter in Mexico, but I haven't paid attention before now. I've just recently acquired this craving for daily blueberry pancakes and muffins!

.


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

Traditional blueberry varieties need a cold-winter climate, although a quick search on the internet tells me that new varieties are being developed that can thrive in a frost-free climate. But this explains why there is no blueberry-growing _tradition_ in Mexico – the minimum temperatures are too warm to suit the traditional varieties.

Blackberry plants, on the other hand, have long had varieties that grow happily in semi-tropical climates. We have a blackberry bush (_zarzamora_) in our garden in Mexico City, and it grows like a weed. If I didn’t prune it vigorously, it would have taken over most of the yard by now.


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## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

I remember picking wild blueberries, and also being able to buy them from other pickers at roadside stands. Those had FLAVOR. The commercial varieties are larger, but comparatively tasteless. They are a high bush variety, making them easier to harvest. My taste buds have memory, and the commercial variety just doesn't do anything for me at all; just bland and blah!
My wife, who is younger and from a 'frost free zone', has never had the experience of beating the bears to wild blueberries up north, and has never tasted them. So, she thinks the commercial blueberries are just fine.....poor thing.


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

maesonna said:


> Blackberry plants, on the other hand, have long had varieties that grow happily in semi-tropical climates. We have a blackberry bush (_zarzamora_) in our garden in Mexico City, and it grows like a weed. If I didn’t prune it vigorously, it would have taken over most of the yard by now.


Forgot to mention, another curious thing is that it has two crops per year – a larger spring crop and a slightly smaller autumn crop, but the flavour of the spring berries is much better.


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## TurtleToo (Aug 23, 2013)

What a great expression, RV: "My taste buds have memory." 

I, too, am used to the small, wild berries, bursting with tart flavor, that we grew in Maine. As a child I could walk to the back field of our farm where it gave way to the low wild berry bushes. Tasked with picking enough berries for a pie, my brothers and I would return home with half full pails, and purple lips and teeth from eating most of what we picked. As adults we'd see the large, fat, bland commercial berries from New Jersey (sorry, New Jerseyites!) appear in the stores. The small, wild berries were (and still are) sold at stands along the side of the road and out of the backs of pickup trucks.

Maesonna, I think that must be part, or maybe all, of the answer--the cold weather needs of rthe traditional varieties of blueberry. I hadn't thought of blackberries as different in that respect, since our Maine blackberries go through the same freezing winter conditions as the rest of us. But even there they can be very prolific and weed like. 

.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

We have lots of raspberries in Jalisco, however in Chiapas we have no raspberries but we have some berries that are a cross between raspberries and blakberries, however they are not as good as blackberries and really bad if you expect raspberries.. They look like a dark blue rasberry..


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## TurtleToo (Aug 23, 2013)

citlali said:


> We have lots of raspberries in Jalisco, however in Chiapas we have no raspberries but we have some berries that are a cross between raspberries and blakberries, however they are not as good as blackberries and really bad if you expect raspberries.. They look like a dark blue rasberry..


They sound like a berry we call a "black raspberry" in Maine. The size and shape of a raspberry, but similar in color to a blackberry. I agree--they aren't as good as either raspberries or blackberries. I love regular red raspberries. I don't see raspberries in the mercado here in Pátzcuaro, but I may have seen them at Soriana. 

.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Driscoll , I believe is the largest company producing raspberries and they are n Jocotopec on Lake Chapala .. They sell the rejects or overripe fruit on the street around Lake Chapala and they are cheap and delicious.


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## yamabob (May 23, 2018)

I don't know if the blueberry plants need the cold but here in southern Jersey August is harvest time. Down the road from me Near Atlantic City is a huge agricultural region for blueberries and cranberries. We only get 1 pick. Behind my home up here is 800 acres with so many wild blackberries and blueberries its crazy. Around july 4th is when the blackberries seem to ripen for the pick and early blueberries- but usually they are best in August. By September they are gone


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

yamabob said:


> I don't know if the blueberry plants need the cold but here in southern Jersey August is harvest time. Down the road from me Near Atlantic City is a huge agricultural region for blueberries and cranberries. We only get 1 pick. Behind my home up here is 800 acres with so many wild blackberries and blueberries its crazy. Around july 4th is when the blackberries seem to ripen for the pick and early blueberries- but usually they are best in August. By September they are gone


When I lived outside of Philadelphia as a child, in the summer my father would drive us to Jersey to buy blueberries from one of the many roadside produce stands. They were delicious! And to this day, blueberries are my favorite berries.


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## yamabob (May 23, 2018)

Your memory serves you well-they are. . We aren’t the garden state for nothing. I will surely miss that aspect when we go down in 2 years. And to think it’s our tomatoes that are the best.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

yamabob said:


> Your memory serves you well-they are. . We aren’t the garden state for nothing. I will surely miss that aspect when we go down in 2 years. And to think it’s our tomatoes that are the best.


Until my father started to grow our own tomatoes, we would also buy them in Jersey. The family got spoiled by the wonderfulness of "real" tomatoes and in the winter refused to buy the awful ones flown in from California available in the supermarket.


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## MtnWoman (Apr 6, 2010)

Blueberries are grown on the west side of Lake Chapala and in Michoacan, and are currently sold pretty much year round. They were more seasonal in years past, but apparently they have figured out a nearly year round growing season. The raspberries and blackberries are also grown on the west and south side of the Lake in cloth-covered greenhouses. I haven't seen the blueberry fields but I am guessing the set-up and labor are more expensive to account for the extra cost.

Here is some information from the Driscoll Web site.
https://www.driscolls.com/about/our-practices/our-farmers/carmen-perez
https://www.driscolls.com/about/our-practices/where-we-grow


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