Hot weather brings early start to blueberry season

Some farmers in New Brunswick are seeing an early start to the blueberry season this year aftera stretch of unusually warm weather in the spring that has helped ripen the berries about 10 days ahead of schedule.

David Hatt, owner ofGranite Town Farms in St. George, said despite some concerns at the beginning of the season, the blueberries are thriving.

"We did have a cold week, or 10 days there, right in the middle of pollination that it kind of slowed things down and spread it out to the point where we had ripe (blueberries) early and still had some green. That made the season kind of catch up because we have to wait for those green ones to ripen," Hatt said.

"It was almost a scary boost at first because we're scared of frost in the spring... We're a week to 10 days ahead now, this last rain the weekend really swelled them up and juiced them up and gave them a lot of flavour too."

Hatt says because the berries ripened so quickly, the blueberry season will probably end about a week or two early as well.

He says if the weather cooperates with some rain over the next five to six weeks, the season should be a good one.

Some Nova Scotia blueberry farmershave also been reporting an early startto the season.