Cranberries may offer local profits

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September 26, 2009

By DENISE A. RAYMO The Press Republican Sat Sep 26, 2009, 11:28 PM EDT

BOMBAY— A Massachusetts man believes he has a gold mine at the end of a dead-end road in Bombay.

Peter Paquin is growing cranberries on 67 acres there and has four plots in different stages of growth.

He can harvest between 20,000 and 25,000 pounds of berries per acre, and at 45 to 50 cents per pound, the profits from those tangy berries are pretty sweet.

He actually made 80 cents a pound last year when the market was good.

Paquin recently conducted a tour of his operation, attracting more than 35 people from as far away as Rainbow Lake, Ausable and Sodus.

They bundled in long sleeves and fleece jackets against the 48-degree temperatures and learned how to plant and harvest small bogs of their own.

Paquin said he started out in 1976 as a logger and sawmill owner not far from Plymouth, Mass., "where I would buy the land, cut logs and sell the land again.

"One place I bought had about four acres of cranberry bogs on it. It didn't take long before I found out I could make more money on cranberries than I was making at the sawmill."

He said Massachusetts has a long tradition of growing cranberries and that he grew up with the business all around him. He even made cranberry wine.

Now, he has a successful 80-acre parcel producing tons of cranberries there and purchased the Bombay land about four years ago.

Paquin plants 1½ tons of cranberries per acre and harvests about 25,000 pounds of fruit per acre at his Massachusetts site.

The plants are small, low-growing clusters with tiny red leaves that trail in all directions and produce small roots, or uprights, on which the fruit grows.

Despite the portrayal in a television commercial of two men dressed in chest waders standing in high water amid a sea of floating cranberries, the fields are only flooded at harvest.

The ripened fruit floats to the surface and is scooped off of the bog into a special machine that separates the leaves from berries, which are then measured into hundredweight quantities the same as milk.

They are not suspended in liquid. The berries are shipped in 1,000-pound crates and frozen upon delivery to New York markets as well as those in Canada, he said.

Paquin believes the cranberry industry could thrive in the North Country because of its unique soil, water supplies and extreme seasonal weather.

The pH level of the clay on his property seems ideal for his purpose and creates a foundation for a 6-inch to 7-inch layer of sand spread on top. Irrigation ditches surround each bog and the sprinkler system arcs streams of water all over the youngest planting fields.

"There's a better yield here, and the climate is better here," Paquin said.

He has 40 bee hives situated about one per acre throughout the property for pollination.

His land has frontage on the St. Regis River for an inexhaustible supply of available water. "We have our own canals that feed the bogs, but we also have the river," he said.

Plantings are done in May, "no later than Memorial Day," Paquin said.

A planting machine pokes a few inches deep into the ground and inserts the stems, and a rolling weight follows the auger blades to cover them.

The stems are watered frequently, and each produces 200 uprights per square foot as their runners extend.

Paquin said cranberries root easily and produce the first crop the third year after planting. He said very little waste is produced, few weeds grow and deer don't eat too many berries.

However, they do trek through the patches of growth and crush the delicate plants, he said. Harvest begins in mid-October and takes about 10 days.

If there is a chance an early North Country frost could get the plants, "I run the sprinklers to keep them from freezing," he said.

The fields are frozen after harvest by flooding them by Dec. 15.

A month later, the water is drained off, leaving an optimum 8-inch-thick layer of ice to protect the plants.

"There is oxygen under the ice," Paquin said.

The plants can also be kept under a consistent 8 inches of snow, but if the snow melts during a mid-winter thaw and the plants are exposed, they die.

The berry plants remain frozen until the spring thaw, usually around March 15, and the next growing season begins.

He said that with the equipment and plants needed, it costs between $18,000 and $20,000 an acre to start a large cranberry operation.

"But if you can wait the three years, the crop you'll have in the fourth year will be as valuable as what you put into it," Paquin said. "And it lasts forever."

E-mail Denise A. Raymo at: draymo@pressrepublican.com