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Harvesting some of the rectangular bogs on the Bennett Cranberry farm, which is an Ocean Spray Cranberry co-op. Ocean Spray controls over 50% of the U.S. cranberry market. Each member gets profit dividends according to the number of barrels of cranberries they deliver to Ocean Spray each year. Fresh berry consumption has not changed, but is now only 3% of the market. The current owner has seen field production increase by 50% in the past twenty years, due mostly to plantings of new hybrid varieties of cranberry, many of them developed in cooperation with Rutgers University.

The cranberry bogs in Wisconsin are much flatter and carved into rectangles which allows them to be much more efficient to farm than the cranberry bogs in Massachusetts, where cranberry cultivation began. Here they can use machines to fertilize, clear the straight edges, and move water more efficiently to irrigate and harvest.

Here the crews have collected the floating cranberries with a floating barrier, pumped onto a truck, and taken to the Ocean Spray collection depot in nearby Babcock, WI, to be washed and flash frozen. Wet harvested berries will be converted to juice, jelly, and dried fruit.

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21st Century Agriculture
Harvesting some of the rectangular bogs on the Bennett Cranberry farm, which is an Ocean Spray Cranberry co-op. Ocean Spray controls over 50% of the U.S. cranberry market. Each member gets profit dividends according to the number of barrels of cranberries they deliver to Ocean Spray each year. Fresh berry consumption has not changed, but is now only 3% of the market. The current owner has seen field production increase by 50% in the past twenty years, due mostly to plantings of new hybrid varieties of cranberry, many of them developed in cooperation with Rutgers University.<br /> <br /> The cranberry bogs in Wisconsin are much flatter and carved into rectangles which allows them to be much more efficient to farm than the cranberry bogs in Massachusetts, where cranberry cultivation began. Here they can use machines to fertilize, clear the straight edges, and move water more efficiently to irrigate and harvest.<br /> <br /> Here the crews have collected the floating cranberries with a floating barrier, pumped onto a truck, and taken to the Ocean Spray collection depot in nearby Babcock, WI, to be washed and flash frozen. Wet harvested berries will be converted to juice, jelly, and dried fruit.

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