Blueberries are becoming big business in Georgia. University experts plan to use a $1.7 million U.S. Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Research Initiative grant to lead an effort to make the Southeast the leading producer of the fruit.

The U.S. has 75,000 acres of cultivated blueberries. A third of that land is in the South. The region is on track to become the hub of U.S. blueberry production within the next five years, said Harald Scherm, a plant pathologist with the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

A spring freeze severely damaged Georgia’s blueberry crop in 2007. But the 2006 crop was worth $75.8 million. The berry has the potential to add millions of dollars more to rural economies, said Gerard Krewer, a Cooperative Extension fruit crop horticulturalist.

“Blueberries are grown in rural areas, areas that really need economic boosting,” he said. “Blueberries are becoming a major horticultural commodity in southeast Georgia.”

Scherm will lead a team that includes Krewer and CAES horticulturists Dan MacLean and Anish Malladi, plant pathologist Phil Brannen, food scientist Rob Shewfelt and engineer Changying Li.

The team will collaborate with colleagues in Florida, North Carolina, West Virginia and Mississippi.

The team will try to harvest the berries mechanically while not damaging or dropping the fruit. The team will also try to genetically improve fruit quality and fight diseases now starting to plague blueberry bushes.

- University News Service