'Blue gold' blues: Mother Nature putting Sudbury blueberry crops to the test

Sometimes called "blue gold", wild blueberries in Greater Sudbury can sell for upwards of $20 per litre.

But, professional and recreational blueberry pickers alike have been left bitterly disappointed by what they've come across this summer.

Arthur Choquette, who has been selling wild blueberries along the side of the highway for over 30 years, is among them.

He said a combination of unusual circumstance have combined to create a inhospitable summer for the little berry.

"[We had] a long, cool spring, then along came the caterpillars," said Choquette, referring to this year's surge of tent caterpillars, billions of which hatched as part of the insect's 10-year cycle.

"They came down from the trees and went into the blueberry patches, and wiped out quite a bit of them."

The coup de grâce, he thinks, has been multiple weeks of extreme heat mixed with the absence of any sustained rain.

"I'm down to two pickers," said Choquette about the impact it's had on his business. "The rest have all given up the ghost. There's nothing out there to pick. It's not worth it. They've got to go further and further into the bush to find them.

"At the beginning of the season, there wasn't much, and it wasn't improving so they said, 'That's it, we're finished for the season.'"

Choquette said at the best of times the competition among pickers can be fierce. He said one of his workers had a near-full basket of blueberries stolen last week — and with it, a full day's worth of work.

Choquette said it's been taking pickers eight to 10 hours to fill up a 10-litre basket, a job that would normally take four to five hours in an average season.

"The size is not there either this year," explains Choquette. "Normally, they'd be the size of my small finger or your middle finger, that's the size they'd get to, and now they're very, very piddly things."

Choquette says he and other vendors along the highway have been packing up early each day this summer after selling whatever baskets they have.

Taking a hike

Greater Sudbury resident Marc Noiseux has been picking blueberries all his life. Now, he's passing the passion on to his children, and enjoys sharing the fruits of his labour with family and friends.

Noiseux has gone hunting for blueberries about a dozen times at a few of his favourite secret spots this year. Although he's not coming up empty, he said he's also falling well short of his usual harvest.

But he adds there's an upside: he's getting way more exercise than he used to.

"Where I could walk for 10 minutes in some places [to find blueberries], now I'm walking a half-hour to find them," said Noiseux. "You do get some good bushes in places. All it takes is a few people picking to sell, and you know, they'll just clean it out. They're there all day."

Choquette said that light rain over the next few weeks could still help salvage the end of this year's blueberry season, which normally lasts until mid-September.

Noiseux is hoping for much of the same.

"I went out with my daughter this week and it may be one of the last times this year," he said. 

"I say that, but I may just go out and try to find some more," he added with a chuckle. "There's always the hope."