Day 4: Wisconsin Cranberry Discovery Center by Bree

 

On our fourth day into our Ag tour, the first stop of the day was the Wisconsin Cranberry Discovery Center. There we found out about all thing's cranberries as Mrs. Jenny Walworth explained the way they harvest cranberry, different ways of processing cranberries based on what their final product is going to be, and the history of cranberry farming.

When we first got there, they first took us down to the basement of the Discovery Center and we watched a video about the top ten facts of cranberry farming such as:

• cranberries are native to North America. 
• cranberries were at first hand-picked, later turning into flooding the fields and machines which is now the most common and found to be the easiest way to harvest the cranberries. 
• The cranberries were able to float in the water because of these 4 little pockets that hold hair inside the fruit allowing them to float. 
• Depending on the use of fruit they used different machines for fresh fruit to be packaged in bags and sold they will use a Felton cranberry picker which is not as intense on the fruit, unlike the Harrow which is used if the cranberries were being used to be turned into products because the Harrow would leave bruises on the fruit whereas for juice as an example it doesn’t matter if they get bruised because there won’t be any type of taste difference.

Old-time packaging line replica.

 After the video, Mrs. Walworth told us about her 4th generation marsh that she grows and harvests for Ocean Spray for cranberry products as well as how it was started in 1898. The work that has to be done for the cranberry farm is all year round whether that is in the off-season they mow the bunks or during the growing season they constantly are checking the water lines to make sure the bunks are moist and in perfect condition for the cranberry’s otherwise there would be a massive brown spot causing a loss in their business. In the cranberry business there are multiple levels to the berries deciding on what products can be created such as the white cranberry can only be used to make the white juice or if they are certain sizes that affect what the cranberries will be used for.

When it came to the sales of cranberries there were a ton of different sizes the berries are sold in as well as showing what cranberry farmers used to sort the fruit and package the fruit from way back when. Some of the many machines that we saw were the rakes used to hand pick the berries, dibble sticks to plant the vines, cars with spotlights to be used to check that their water lines were running correctly, machines that sorted berries, and the old packaging lines. 

The two types of devices that were used to sort the berries were called the Bailey mill and the fanning mill. The Bailey mill you would drop the berries in the top and the ones that bounced out would be sold as fresh berries and the others that stayed and dropped down would be used for other products. Contrary to the Bailey mill you had the fanning mill which you would drop the cranberries in the top as well but it would just vibrate instead of having them bounce out had them to where if they shook through the grate they were used for juices and if they stayed up top fell into the basket they would be used for fruit. 

                    

The Bailey they used to sort berries back in the day!

There are so many cranberries, and even more being created as she had shown us today along with allowing us to try the cranberry ice cream they make with their berries. The Cranberry Discovery Center was genuinely informative and an amazing experience to see all the nooks and crannies of the Cranberry world.