N.J. grows $20M of cranberries each year. Drought is threatening our ruby red crop.

Most years, the cranberry harvest in New Jersey is a carnival of colors. Ruby red berries bubble to the surface of cerulean blue bogs framed by the autumn foliage nestled inside the Pine Barrens.

Farmers wade out into the bogs in waste-high water and delicately rake the berries across the water’s surface before they are collected onto conveyor belts for processing.

But this year, water is scarce. Months without meaningful rainfall in the Garden State have left reservoirs high and dry while underground wells are pumped for their last drops.

Farming amidst a drought is difficult for any crop, but the “rubies of the pines” are particularly reliant on water during each phase of the farming process.

A prolonged dry spell across areas of New Jersey has made harvesting cranberries slow, expensive and almost impossible for many farmers as reservoirs dry up, water tables shrink and a general lack of moisture delays deliveries and threatens vines.

“This season has been exceptionally tough,” Bill Haines of Pine Island Cranberry company in Chatsworth said on a phone call last week. “This is as dry an October as I can remember.”

Haines said the current drought is the worst he has dealt with since he started working on cranberry farms in 1976.

“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.”

Last Friday, the national drought status report identified the Pinelands areas of Burlington, Atlantic and Ocean counties where many of the state’s cranberry farms are located, as under a severe drought.

The dry conditions have slowed the cranberry harvest and threatened to delay deliveries to Ocean Spray and other purchasers of one of New Jersey’s largest crop.

Water is an essential component of the cranberry harvest, according to the New Jersey Farm Bureau. Cranberries grow on vines and each fall when the crop is ready for harvest, the fields are flooded to allow the berries to float to the surface, where they are shaken from the vines, according to the Pinelands Preservation Alliance.

Many farmers maintain reservoirs to help flood cranberry bogs during the harvest season, but reservoir levels are dependent on rainfall to help maintain water levels, Pete Furey, the executive director of the NJ Farm Bureau said in a phone call last week.

Steve Lee of Lee Brothers Farms in Chatsworth, a smaller to medium size grower in the Pinelands, said Monday he has a reservoir that is virtually empty and has relied on a well that the farm has been using almost exclusively to help fill bogs for the harvest.

“The well typically sits at about six to eight feet below the ground,” Lee said. “I checked it late last week and it was at about 20 feet.”

The Garden State is the nation’s second largest cranberry supplier behind Massachusetts and produced about 580,000 barrels in 2023, generating about $20 million in revenue, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“The lack of rain has not been helpful to cranberry farmers as they are using well water to meet the harvest demand, which makes the harvest process longer than normal,” a state Department of Agriculture spokesperson said last week. “There have been requests to Ocean Spray for more time and we expect those requests to be granted.”

Ocean Spray is a farmer owned co-op of approximately 700 family-owned farms around the country. Ocean Spray did not return a request for comment on the challenges facing the New Jersey harvest.

Furey, Executive Director of the New Jersey Farm Bureau said that despite the harsh harvest conditions, he didn’t expect New Jersey crops to be penalized by purchasers.

Haines of Pine Island Cranberry said deadlines for crop deliveries are always flexible and he has been in contact with the receiving station for Ocean Spray almost daily. He doesn’t expect any crops will be turned away, he said.

Drought conditions in New Jersey have reached concerning levels in recent weeks as the state Department of Environmental Protection has issued advisories for residents to voluntarily begin conserving water.

The DEP issued a statewide drought watch on Oct. 17 based on warmer-than-average temperatures and persistent dry conditions, and asked residents to voluntarily conserve water. If conditions don’t improve, the agency warned that a drought warning or emergency could be issued and mandatory water use restrictions could be necessary.

“During the past three months, New Jersey has experienced significantly below-average rainfall, which has contributed to diminished streamflow, reservoir and groundwater levels,” the DEP said in the announcement.

Given the forecast of continued dry weather, New Jersey is expected to set new drought records.

“On the heels of the third driest September since records commenced in 1895, virtually no precipitation has fallen across New Jersey during the first half of October,” said State Climatologist David Robinson last week. “With little rain expected for the second half, the potential exists for not only the driest October on record but perhaps the driest of any month.”

In order to account for the lack of rain, Haines said he has had to recycle reservoirs from flooded bogs, as well as use well water to sufficiently flood the bogs.

“Besides the lack of water to fill bogs, we’ve been running sprinklers overnight the past week to keep berries from freezing,” Lee added.

Lee and Haines are fortunate to have wells they can draw from. Lee said he knows some independent farmers that don’t have wells and are really struggling to find solutions for the 2024 harvest.

Both Lee and Haines said they expected to fully harvest their crops, but that the process has been slow and expensive.

And how New Jersey’s dry spell will impact the cost of cranberry delights at holiday meals is unknown.