The Dreaded Mummyberry
Walked in the woods today. It was very hot and humid with temps in the 90's. Flies and the sounds of summer in full bloom in New England. The reason I ventured into the woods today was two fold. Firstly I wanted to take My furry friend Jack for his daily romp though the woods. He doesn't seem to care how hot or cold it is as long as there are a few tweety birds to chase. He goes pretty hard at em, but I don't think he's ever been within 10ft.
Secondly I wanted to inspect the wild high bush blueberries that populate the boggy area's nearby. I was concerned this year as I was last that the dreaded mummy berry was still present. Well indeed it looks as though the dreaded disease of Mummy Berry which causes the berries to turn into a little white husk that sort of looks like, well.. a mummy of a blueberry, hence the name. It seems as if the disease hasn't run it's course, I suppose it could take years for it to go away since it reproduces in such a varied way including tricking bee's by changing the color of the leaves, making them think they are landing on flowers, they pick up spores and spread them. Or if that isn't good enough then the mummies drop to the ground and make tiny mushrooms that spread millions of tiny spores. It's truly insidious and very difficult to eradicate once a patch is infected. It is a fungus and commercial blueberry growers use fungicides in attempts to control it. Sometimes they are forced to absorb more than a 50% loss in crops due to it or destroy them all together. In mother nature every year it's a roll of the dice. I'm not sure if the last few mild winters and rainy spring times have made the problem worse but I think the old 2 weeks of sub zero temperatures in January and a drier spring might have a beneficial effect. I'm not going to rant on global warming but I can assure you that the last few winters have been warmer than usual, not that I'm complaining since the price of heating fuel has gone through the roof and I am getting older so I seem to feel the cold more in my bones. However I will say that over the last 45 yrs. or so that I have been cognizant, the fact is that the last few years have been markedly different as far as temperatures go. It has been somewhat warmer. Sure we had some snow and a couple cold day's but nothing like the 2 solid weeks of 5 to 10 below that we used to get every yr. in January when I was a kid. That was the time when Sebago Lake froze over and it was time to go ice fishing. The last two yr's there was no ice on the lake except for a few smaller coves and inlets. In fact over the last 10 yr's the Sebago Lake ice fishing derby had to be canceled at least 3 times maybe more, I'm not sure since I'm not such an avid ice fisherman as I used to be and haven't keep up on it lately. Hmm come to think of it I can remember a time when there was no such a derby. It's really to bad though since it has grown to quite an event drawing anglers from around the country to compete for big prizes. Anyway's it's time to get back to the topic of mummy berry, the scourge of the wild blueberry harvester. It was last yr. when I first found out about the existence of such a thing and what a grim discovery it was., When I made my first acquaintance with mummy berry I had no idea what I was looking at except that it was a bunch of dried out tiny white or brown balls where those green blueberries had been growing two weeks before. At first I was dumbfounded not fully understanding the devastation I was looking at, as far as I could see every bush in sight had been affected to some degree. After a few minutes I gathered my thoughts and began to inspect some of the plants. I even took a few pictures with my old Sony camera I was carrying at the time. Then discouraged but determined I headed off to hit the internet and see what I could find. This was one of those times I was really glad to have an internet connection. So after a quick search on blue berry diseases, there it was, a picture identical to mine. Mummy berry it said in the caption and I knew I had found my nemesis. Mummy berry has a real scientific name Moniliia Vaccinii-Corymbosi but most folks call it mummyberry for obvious reasons. It clearly affects some varieties of plant more than others. I have 3 or 4 distinct varieties in my area. the bad news is that the big powdered blue ones that are the sweetest and have that true "blue" smell to them are the ones that are most affected. So now I suppose I'll just have to wait see what the rest of the season brings, maybe check out a couple bogs a little further in the woods and see if they are infected. Jack will be happy to explore some new turf. We need about 7 or 8 day's of dry weather and then it will be time to hit the brush hopefully we get at least a fair season out of it. In the meantime if you're really craving some blueberry try this delicious juice from Dynamic Health.
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