How New Jersey Tamed The Wild Blueberry | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

huh, never knew this

Nearly every plant that we now depend on for food — from wheat to beans to tomatoes — comes from ancestors that once grew wild on hills and in forests.

In most cases, we don't know who, exactly, tamed those plants. We don't know which inventive farmer, thousands of years ago, first selected seeds and planted them for food.

The blueberry, though, is different. We know exactly who brought it in from the wild, and where.

It happened in the pine barrens of New Jersey.

This land is called barren for a reason. "It's sandy soils, acidic soils, tough conditions," says Mark Ehlenfeldt, a blueberry breeder with the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "It's not suitable for most agriculture, short of cranberries and blueberries."

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