Why One Thanksgiving Staple Could Be Hard To Come by This Year
A lack of adequate rain in New Jersey this season may make one of your favorite Thanksgiving side dishes hard to come by this year.
The state typically produces about $20 million worth of cranberries every year—second only to Mass.—but depleted reservoirs and dry lands may put a significant dent in that number this time around, according to a new report from NJ.com. With a heavy reliance on water at every step of their growth and harvesting cycles, producing a crop fit for retail has become a slow and expensive process, if not altogether impossible.
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“This season has been exceptionally tough,” Bill Haines, who works for Pine Island Cranberry in Chatsworth, NJ, told the publication recently, calling it "as dry an October as I can remember.” Haines has worked in the cranberry industry since 1976, and considers this to be the worst drought he's seen since.
“We’ve been able to manage. We actually have a good crop, but water is precious,” Haines added. “We haven’t had any significant rainfall since early July.”
Steve Lee, of Lee Brothers Farms in the same town, told the publication that his reservoir usually sits at "about six to eight feet below the ground," but last time he checked, it was at "about 20 feet."
Many of the states' berries are intended for Ocean Spray products, with local farms submitting requests for "more time" to the co-op, though it's still too early to say how the drought may affect availability—or cost—for cranberry sauce later this month.
Next: 44 Recipes That Use Fresh and Dried Cranberries This Holiday Season
