Doc Anderson could be called the dean of blueberries in his area around Covert in Southwest Michigan.
Even with a 21-year career in the military, Anderson has managed to grow blueberries for more than 30 years.
“I’ve been doing it (growing blueberries) for 32 years now. I’m probably one of the oldest ones here,” Anderson said.
Anderson has served as mentor to minority growers looking to get started in blueberries. He’s the current treasurer of the Southern Michigan Farmers’ Co-op that includes approximately 26 black and Hispanic growers of blueberries and vegetables. This cooperative has existed for more than a year and saves members money on items such as fertilizer.
Anderson was born in Mississippi, married as a teenager and traveled a lot during his military career. He was living in Harvey, Ill., near Chicago, and his wife was in real estate when 40 acres became available in the Covert area.
“I didn’t have much money. I put down $10,000,” Anderson said.
He made enough money growing blueberries that first year – 1973 – to pay off his investment, hooking him to a new lifestyle of growing blueberries. At that time there were only six acres of producing blueberries.
Anderson said he had a friend who taught him about growing blueberries.
“I could see that blueberries were a long range thing,” he said, noting that blueberries can take seven years to come into full production.
Anderson today grows 165 acres of producing blueberries. Today he produces more than one million pounds of blueberries per year – a quantity he has maintained for quite awhile.
Anderson said his assets have grown to more than $5 million. Today he sells to local buyers – whoever is paying the most money.
Anderson said he saves a lot of money by growing his own plants in a greenhouse.
“We can grow them for about 40 cents a plant,” he said. “This is ideal ground. The soil is ideal for blueberries.”
Over the years, his variety mix has changed somewhat. Today he grows mostly Bluecrop, Jersey, Elliott and Rubel with blueberry rows set 10 feet apart. He uses a South Haven, Mich., crop dusting company to do all of his spraying.
“The only sprays we do are weed sprays,” Anderson said.
During the summer Anderson relies on eight full-time workers. During harvest the number of employees jumps to 80 to 100 workers. He said he has never had trouble finding workers, as he pays more than minimum wage.
Anderson said he is pleased with this year’s blueberry crop.
“We had a good season this year. East of M-140 it was really dry over there. A couple of fields over there we couldn’t even pick. Production was up a little bit this year. We had a good crop,” he said.
In mid-September Anderson was busy cleaning the blueberry fields, cutting the middles and going back through with herbicide. As soon as there are a couple of frosts, the pruning starts – one of the biggest chores in blueberry growing, Anderson said. He prunes one-third of his blueberries each year. Fifty percent of his crop is hand-picked, the rest is machine harvested.
Last year he grew one-half million pounds of hand-picked blueberries for which he was paid 95 cents per pound “right out of the field.”
Despite the fact that a lot of land in Southwest Michigan is being sold for vacation property, Anderson said he is staying put. With Lake Michigan one mile away and a lot of wooded lots available, land prices are “going up sky high.”
“I’ll be here until they put dirt on my head,” Anderson said.
