Brothers Manage 1,300-Acre Blueberry Farm
DAVE LEFEVER
Lancaster Farming Staff
HAMMONTON, N.J. In 1935, five Galetta brothers
began propagating blueberry plants and selling the fruit
from three acres in this area of the Pinelands National
Reserve.
The Galetta brothers’ new venture, which in the early
years also included cranberries, steadily increased in acre
age and sales. In 1949 the brothers purchased Atlantic
Blueberry Company, which today is home to 1,300 acres
of blueberry bushes and modem packing facilities run by
six Galettas sons of the original five brothers.
“As far as we know, we have the largest cultivated
blueberry farm anywhere,” said AI Galetta, one of four
senior partners at Atlantic Blueberry Company.
The Galettas ship blueberries across the U.S. and Cana
da. Some of their berries are even exported to England
and Europe.
Atlantic Blueberry Company fruit also ends up in a lot
of Dannon yogurt, Mrs. Smith’s pies, and other items
such as McDonalds and Kraft products, Galetta said.
Originally home to pine and oak trees, the sandy, acidic
soils of Atlantic Blueberry Farm are well-suited to grow
ing the berries, which prefer soil pH around 4.5-5.0. The
Galettas grow a range of varieties, from early-season to
late, to maximize the harvest period.
About 60 percent of the berries are picked by the hands
of -2,000 seasonal workers. The other 40 percent are har
vested by tall, blue, three-wheel machines that straddle
the row and coax the berries from the shrubs by flexible,
orbiting ‘fingers” that rotate on two vertical cylinders.
The berries fall onto conveyors which carry them to the
rear of the machine, where they drop into crates which
are then stacked by a worker.
Most of the berries are harvested by hand
when they first ripen. “It’s best to go into all our
fields the first and second time by hand,” Al Ga
letta said. However, some varieties are better
suited to a later mechanical picking.
The earliest varieties ripen in mid-June and
the season continues until September with the
late-maturing kinds. More than a dozen total va
rieties keep the harvesting season going for more
than two months.
After picking, blueberries destined for fresh
eating are brought to the packing house where
they are washed, sorted, and packaged into
“ckunshell” containers. These pints are then
packed in crates for shipping.
The sorting on conveyor belts is done both by
hand and electronically, through photo cells that
detect differences in berry color. Unacceptable
fruit is sorted out by means of a computer that
instructs tiny, targeted water jets inside a roller
to shoot the bad berries out of the batch.
Fruit for processing is washed, sorted, and
then frozen in an ammonia-based closed system
called “individual-quick-freeze.” In this process,
the berries pass through a tunnel where they are
frozen solid in about nine seconds, Galetta said.
They are then automatically destemmed and
packed into 10-, 20-, or 30-pound boxes for ship
ping.
This machine picks blueberries by
means of flexible orbiting .“fingers”
on the two vertical cylinders.
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The frozen berries for processing can keep for more
than a year, Galetta said. Fresh berries have a shelf life of
two to three weeks.
Several blueberry varieties were developed on Atlantic
Blueberry Farm, including ‘Duke’ named after Al’s
uncle Duke Galetta, one of the original five Galetta broth
ers in the blueberry business. ‘Duke’ berries are well-suit
ed for machine harvesting, A 1 said. ‘Bluetta’ is another
popular variety, taking its name from a combination of
“blue” and “Galetta.”
Duke did a lot of research on the farm, including blue
berry trials conducted with the help of USDA and Rutg
ers University, A 1 said. Ways in which varieties can differ
from each other include how sweet, firm, and big the ber
ries are. The structure of the crown on the fruit is another
factor.
The blueberry bushes are irrigated through solidset
pipe and spray irrigation, with the water drawn from sev
eral wells on the farm and transported by a canal system
to the fields. According to Galetta, water supply is not a
problem.
“South New Jersey has one of the biggest aquifers any
where,” he said.
During the growing season the Galettas adhere to a
7-10 day spraying schedule to control disease and harmful
insects such as blueberry maggot, leafrollers, and fruit
worms. Hand pruning 1,300 acres of blueberry bushes is
another big job which keeps part of the workforce on the
farm through the winter. Pruning out dead and less pro
ductive branches begins in the fall and is finished around
March.
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 1,2003, Grower & Marketer-Ell
Early-season ‘Weymouth’ blueberries
ripening on the Atlantic Blueberry Compa
ny farm.
As in all types of fanning, markets are “hard to pre
dict” in the blueberry business, Galetta said. However, the
supply-and-demand market generally starts high early in
the season and “drops accordingly.”
With their company’s long history and substantial list
of buyers, the Galettas take blueberry orders long before
the first fruit ripens. Late last May, A 1 commented on the
status of the 2002 crop.
“All our berries are sold,” he said.