HOPE and APPLETON — If you've ever wondered how Maine wild blueberries get from the barrens to the farm stand, we visited two locations where members and friends of the Boyington family of Appleton were busy locally Friday picking, sorting and packaging the tiny blue spheres of healthy goodness.

It's a sure bet on the last day in July in Downeast and Midcoast Maine that you'll find open, rolling fields of short, dark green plants teeming with well-tanned groups of people, often kids, bent at the knees or hunched over, raking blueberries. Blueberry barrens aren't planted in rows, like other agriculture. No, these plants grow wild alright, and are just as happy growing across acres of uninterrupted soil as they are rooting between rock-and boulder-covered fields and slopes.

Maine has 44,000 acres of harvestable blueberry barrens, according to the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, as well as private backyard barrens, abandoned fields and hillside pockets of wild blueberry bushes.

And when you're in the commercial business of harvesting wild blueberries in Maine, it's easiest to harvest those in more accessible locations, like fields. That's true whether you are relying on the age-old harvesting method of raking them by hand or using new-fangled machinery to do the back-breaking work.

Raking blueberries is one of those great jobs for youth, and it is often a summer rite of passage for young Mainers and summer residents alike. But blueberry growers and harvesters also rely on hundreds of migrant and foreign workers to annually pick the bulk of the commercial crop. The Maine Department of Labor estimates that about 1,200 seasonal workers travel to Maine annually to help harvest not only blueberries, but apples, broccoli and other vegetables as they ripen across the state.

Wild blueberries are a major crop for the state of Maine, with last year's yield a record 104 million pounds picked. For comparison, in 1924, the earliest state records kept, the pounds picked totaled 4 million.

Since 2010, the annual yield and price per pound was 83,000 pounds at 61 cents (2010), 79,900 pounds at 91 cents (2011), 91,100 pounds at 76 cents(2012), 87,130 pounds at 75 cents (2013) and 104,420 pounds at 60 cents (2014).

For John Boyington, whose crews began harvesting blueberries July 30 for his family's Ridgeberry Farm business in Appleton, last year was his best too.

"This year will be above average, but last year was a banner year for us. We harvested a half-million pounds last year," said Boyington. "We don't expect records on the first day, and we only have about 16,000 pounds since we started, which was yesterday."

Boyington followed this with a laugh, because 16,000 pounds of harvested blueberries is not too shabby for day one.

"The season looks good, I have no complaints," said Boyington.

John Boyington and his wife, Allison, are the owners and operators of Ridgeberry Farm on Appleton Ridge in Appleton. Allison is also the processing manager. Their farm is a family affair, and their daughter, Jessica Davis, not only works the processing line but handles sales and ordering. Her husband, Tim Davis, is a Camden Police officer by night and the blueberry raking manager by day, among other tasks.

John said that Jessica and Tim manage the fresh packing portion of the business. But as a family-run business, everybody ultimately pitches in wherever help is needed.

The family has been harvesting blueberries since 1981. In addition to owning their own field, the family leases and works a total of about 18 fields.

"We harvest about 250 acres, about 125 crop fields, each year," said John.

Blueberries are harvested every other year, which is why half the fields the Boyingtons harvest from are crop fields in a given year.

In addition to employing family and friends and neighbors, the Boyingtons employ migrant workers to get the work done each summer.

Last year, out of the half-million blueberries they harvested, the family sold 22,000 pounds out of the fresh processing and farm stand location. Ridgeberry Farm also sells blueberries through farm stands in Lewiston, Auburn, Damariscotta and Scarborough, and they have a distributor who buys them to resell in Boston, New York and Chicago.

On Friday, everybody was busy at the job of moving this year's blueberry crop out of the barrens and into the fresh processing operation, set up in a tidy converted two-vehicle garage off the family house that sits high atop Appleton Ridge.

In Hope, along Route 17, John was working to help a crew of four get underway harvesting from a leased field. In teams of two, one man drove the tractor and its picker over the bushes and the other stood on a caged platform attached to the back of the tractor and reloaded filled trays of berries as they spilled out of the picker.

John said the machine picker is more efficient than hand rakers.

"We use both machines and rakers, and we started using the machines about four years ago," said John. "Cost is a benefit of the machine; the job is better and we get a higher percentage of berries off the vine than with rakers."

In terms of how much detritus, in the form of small branch and leaves, comes along with the berries, he said there is little difference between the products harvested by hand and machine.

"They both do the same job," said John.

In Maine, honeybees are a huge part of the blueberry industry, as they are relied on to pollinate the blossoms as they emerge and bloom.

John said he rents honeybees, like many of the state's blueberry growers, but also uses bumblebees.

"I rent some honeybees but we use a lot of bumblebees," said John. “They are gone now, as they die in the middle of July."

With the teams of tractors slowly making their way around the field in Hope, John stayed and waited to load up the harvest to deliver to the team at the farm in Appleton.

Up on the Ridge, Tim Davis was just arriving with a Kubota four-wheeler loaded with berries. His crew was group a half-dozen hand rakers. He said they were comprised of either family members or friend, and they were all kids. Smiling and still horsing around a bit, after they unloaded the trays of berries into the processing area, they wiped the sweat from their brows, rehydrated and got on their phones to call for rides home.

"We started around 8 a.m. and we don't get much work out of them after noon," said Davis.

Anyone who has worked even one day in an agriculture field, especially on a blazing hot sunny day, raking blueberries, de-tasseling corn or picking tomatoes, can tell you it's best to start very early in the day so you can also finish early in the day.

As the trays of just-picked blueberries were stacked up behind the teenager at the beginning of the fresh pack line, she kept slowly pouring the berries onto the conveyor belt that pulled them through a wind tunnel that blew off leaves and small branches.

Down the line, the blueberries ran across a grate, with space between the tines that allowed smaller, usually unripe berries to drop through and out of the line. Next, six people - Friday's group was all females - lined up three on each side of the next conveyor belt and hand-picked as much of any unwanted product out before the perfect little blueberries rolled off and into cardboard containers for shipping and/or sale.

The Boyington family's blueberries can be purchased on site daily during the season. FMI: Call 207-542-6904 or email jess@ridgeberryfarm.com.

Related link:

• Union Fair and Maine Wild Blueberry Festival Aug. 22-29

Reach Editorial Director Holly S. Edwards at hollyedwards@penbaypilot.com and 706-6655