Water Talk
Water Talk is a national podcast about all things Water hosted by Drs. Mallika Nocco (University of Wisconsin–Madison Extension), Faith Kearns (Arizona State University), and Sam Sandoval (University of California, Davis; University of California Agriculture & Natural Resources)
Water Talk
Ep 78: Inside the Working Cranberry Marsh
A conversation with Professors Leslie Holland and Amaya Atucha (University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension) about cranberry production, water use, recycling, and enjoyment. Released November 14, 2025.
Hello, Water Talk listeners. Today we are talking about cranberries. And we thought that it would be fun to talk about cranberries in advance of the holiday season. We know that there are a lot of cranberries on holiday dinner tables and such. And specifically, coming back to Wisconsin for me has been really fun because Wisconsin's actually the number one cranberry production state in the country. So I've been trying to learn a lot more about cranberries. And from a hydrological point, they're just a pretty cool and interesting crop to think about. There's like a lot of really innovative uses of water in cranberry production. So we thought that would be neat. I came of age during a time that everybody was drinking cosmopolitans, in addition to the, you know, cranberries on the dinner table at the holidays. That was one of my other big cranberry moments. And then the dried cranberries that we see in salads, rice dishes and stuff have been in my life. And of course, for your urinary tract health, I think we're all familiar with drinking cranberry juice. But they're definitely a fruit that gets pigeonholed into like these very specific uses. So I thought it'd be fun to just learn more about it. How about you, Faith Sam? Do you have any any thoughts about cranberries? I will say I love a cranberry. I really do.
Faith Kearns:I really do. It's one of those funny things where, you know, I grew up, my mom, I grew up in a very sort of hippie, dippy family. And my mom always used to make fresh cranberry relish, which is controversial and not very many people actually like it, where you just kind of take the cranberries and some orange and sugar and you like blend them together. And most people like the cooked or canned version, but I really am a big fan of the fresh stuff to the point that I saw cranberries at the store yesterday and I almost bought them, but to wait a minute. And so yeah, it was super interesting to learn about the Wisconsin piece and that y'all are the biggest producer because, of course, in your mind, right, there's all these commercials playing about wherever. So it was just super, it was just super interesting to learn more about how they grow. I mean, I really had no idea and how they're cultivated and harvested and all of that. Super, super interesting and fun.
Mallika Nocco:Yeah, fun. How about you, Sam?
Samuel Sandoval:Yeah, for me it was the same to learn that this is a native fruit. So that was good. Also, I mean, where in Thanksgiving where the cranberry uh sauce come. One other thing that uh in terms of a primer, I was thinking the difference between box and marshes. If I get it correct, uh marshes is how they are the agricultural system is mentioned referred in Wisconsin. And it's a little bit more uniform and managed, while the box is mostly uh less uh uniform and referred outside of Wisconsin. I think they are going to explain us pretty well about bugs and marshes.
Mallika Nocco:Yes, and then I think we should also mention, too, that cranberry bogs and cranberry marshes are different from how they're ecologically or hydrologically defined. So, in just you know, an introduction to hydrology type of course, you would learn that a marsh is a wetland, it's dominated by herbaceous plants and small shrubs on the perimeter. I always think of bogs as very acidic. So bogs are considered acidic, low oxygen wetlands that have really high organic material, and the accumulation of the organic material is occurring faster than decay. And because of this water logging and low oxygen environment. So those are the ecosystem differences between them, but that is not how we are using them in this episode. In this episode, we're talking about them as different styles or types of cranberry cultivation. So that I think is a very thank you for bringing that up, Sam, a very good primer point for everybody to know.
Samuel Sandoval:And it really threw me off when we were during the conversation. So everyone, please be aware of because when someone talks about marshes, I was more referring to the natural stage than this one. Also, one one thing as a primer, please, everyone, be aware that there will be some recipes by the end of the episode. So, really for everyone, kind of gearing towards Thanksgiving, happy Thanksgiving.
Mallika Nocco:All right. So, without further ado, let's talk with Leslie Holland and Amaya Atucha. In today's episode, we are talking about cranberries and water with professors and fruit crop experts Amaya Atucha and Leslie Holland at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Amaya Atucha is a professor and the Gotschalk Endowed Chair for Cranberry Research in the Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences. Her work addresses a broad set of questions in perennial fruit crop systems with emphasis on crop ecophysiology, plant nutrition, and fruit quality. Leslie Holland is an assistant professor and extension specialist in the Department of Plant Pathology. Her work focuses on understanding the biology and management of diseases of fruit crops using applied and basic research. Both Amaya and Leslie are part of the Fruit Extension Program in Wisconsin, collaborating closely with cranberry growers. Welcome to Water Talk, Amaya and Leslie. Thanks for being on the show. Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. So we're really excited to have you both on, and especially this close to the holidays. We have we've all started to get cranberries on our mind around this time. Honestly, we should have cranberries on our mind maybe more often. I bet the two of you do. But that's one of our goals of today is think a little bit more about the mighty and also humble cranberry. So can you, before we get going, just to kind of get into the spirit of water, I'm wondering if each of you can tell us what your favorite body of water is. Like if there is a lake or a river or a stream or an ocean that's close to your heart. How about you, Amaya?
Amaya Atucha:The Pacific Ocean in the Southern Hemisphere. I'm originally from Chile, grew up like two blocks from the beach. And so I miss the roughness and the saltiness of the Pacific, which is very ironic ocean. I really I really miss also that smell.
Mallika Nocco:Oh, that's amazing. I have not been, but on my list for sure. How about you, Leslie?
Leslie Holland:Oh man, that's a good answer. It's a good question. I think now that I'm back in the Midwest after about a decade out west, I'm starting to really appreciate and warm up to Lake Michigan. It's not very warm. I'm starting to really appreciate it again. And it's been a nice part of being back in the Midwest.
Mallika Nocco:Absolutely, absolutely. It's got a certain energy, especially in the summer. Yes. So we have a lot of early career listeners. So we were wondering if you could tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that led you on the professional path that you ended up on. What sparked your interests in fruits or sustainability or horticulture? How about you, Leslie?
Leslie Holland:Yeah, that's a good question. I think I've had a lot of pivotal moments along this path. But I think, yeah, maybe just specifically fruits in general. I think they represent a nice intersection of culture as well as tasty things you get to eat, which is nice, ecology and then community as well. I think a lot of the fruit crops I've had the pleasure to work on really represent kind of a lot of community values or cultural values and identities in certain places.
Mallika Nocco:How about you, Amaya?
Amaya Atucha:For me, I've always sort of been a little bit connected with the fruit industry. My parents own an avocado orchard in South America. So, I mean, I didn't grow up in the orchard, but I was very much involved. So I always felt that connection. And then I think that maybe one of the things that, you know, was a little bit different for me was the idea of going to grad school and going to grad school abroad. That was probably one of a really big change of career, just deciding to become a researcher. And since then, I think one of the things that I enjoy the most with from this community. And overall, the fruit research community is a fantastic community. And the industries and stakeholders that we work with are so supportive. And we're talking about cranberries today. And I would say specifically, you know, the cranberry growers uh here in Wisconsin, that's what really keeps us doing the work. So I think that for early career folks, thinking about who do you want to work with and what kind of impact you want to do could guide you to make you know good decisions about where's the best spot for you to be at.
Mallika Nocco:Yeah, absolutely. And I think for both of you, there was like a research origin story there, but then there's also an extension origin story that came out too. Like in both of your answers, I could hear this extension heart coming through.
Faith Kearns:Thank you both so much. I guess we're ready to dive right into the topic of cranberries. So, Leslie, can you tell us a little bit about the cranberry just as a plant and some of its history, how it's cultivated today?
Leslie Holland:Absolutely. Yeah, I will try and stick to a little bit. It's hard because cranberry is such a cool crop. And of course, Amaya, feel free to jump in if I miss anything, since they have such a long and really interesting and distinct history. But it's one of the only native fruits to North America, and that's actually commercially grown here now. And I think maybe blueberries and conquer grapes also fit into that group of native fruits to North America. And it's got a really rich history. So a lot of indigenous nations, so I think the Wampanoag is one of the most key ones that we think about when we think about cranberries across the Northeast have a really long history with using wild cranberries. So this could be for food, medicine, different traditions and ceremonies. And then, of course, they play a really important role in their domestication and then value of this cropping system. Yeah, their history is really rich. They started to be commercially cultivated in the 1800s, and this was actually first in Massachusetts. One of my favorite stories about this is Captain Henry Hall, who first discovered that you we actually use sand to help the cranberry vines grow. He noticed that vines outside of his house, those that received kind of this wind-driven sand, actually produce a lot better than those that didn't receive sand. And so now sanding is a really critical part of cranberry production. And so that's one of my favorite stories. And this practice allowed it to really expand to beyond Massachusetts, to Wisconsin, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington, where they've been commercially produced since the early 1800s. So I always think that's a really cool fact about cranberries. And the plants themselves are also really interesting. They grow on these very low-lying kind of sandy beds or soils, and so beds are what are the individual production units. And then in an entire farm, we would call that a marsh here in Wisconsin, typically called a bog out in the northeast. And another interesting fact about cranberries is that they are perennial vines. They're not bushes. I thought they were bushes before seeing them many years ago, but they are just vines that grow in a bed and they can live for decades. And so now, as they're cultivated today, they use a lot of traditional kind of technologies or knowledge, as well as modern technologies, which I also really appreciate about this industry. A lot of things are custom made by growers, which is very fascinating because the beds are so unique in terms of their structure, but they also have a lot of modern technologies they use for making pesticide or nutrient applications as well. And they are managers of water, which we'll certainly get into, managers of soil, manager of nutrients and the like as well in these systems.
Mallika Nocco:So I have a follow-up question. This bog versus marsh thing, is it because are they different in the terms of what the beds are, or is it just culturally people call them a marsh or people call them a bog?
Amaya Atucha:This is such a contentious issue. If you are you are a Wisconsin and you were to like say bog, like Malika, never say bog if you go and talk to the cranberry growers. Okay, I'm glad we warned you.
Mallika Nocco:I was gonna, I'm so glad because I'm gonna go to a cranberry event. I'm gonna go to a cranberry event and I was definitely gonna say bog. So I'm really we warn you, don't do it.
Amaya Atucha:And then when you go to another region to Massachusetts and you're talking to the growers and you say Marsh, they're like give you a little bit of the look. I think it's a regional thing, but also there's some differences because when we think about Massachusetts, Leslie talk about a bed. So here in Wisconsin, this bed, which is this you know, production unit, which is basically let me think about how to describe it, is sort of like a very long rectangular field that is sunken and is surrounded by dikes. So that's when you see we'll we'll probably talk about a little bit about this, but this is where you see, you know, that they're full of water. You see these little pools. And so in Wisconsin, they have like a very defined structure, they're rectangular and all very similar. In places like Massachusetts, those are more like natural. And so they have different shapes, they're not necessarily, you know, all rectangular, all the same. They there are kind of like more related with the surrounding landscape. So you can have like really big units of production, you can have them rectangular, you can have them undefined shape. And so I think that that looks a little bit more like natural, and that's why a bog is a better description. And when we think about marshes, they tend to be a lot more like homogeneous in terms of like every single bed has almost the same dimension, and that has a lot to do with the efficiency of production. Yeah, you can use an equipment that works for every single one, and so you can sort of standardize applications, anything that you have to do when you have homogeneous sizes of beds. So I think that that also plays into what's a bog and what's a marsh. But this is my interpretation from an ecological point of view. I have no idea.
Mallika Nocco:Yes, we'll cover that.
Samuel Sandoval:And uh Amaya, bienvenida. I think it's super cool that we are doing the mythbusters, and I think this is uh, I mean, between the bugs and the marshes, or how to properly address it. This is also another question, a tiny bit on going towards those ways. So we always see photos of cranberries floating during harvest and hear that this is a common misconception, that they are always underwater. Can you tell us how the cranberry water cycle works?
Amaya Atucha:Yeah, yeah, that's true. I mean, almost everybody thinks that you know these plants are sort of like rice, that they just are always flooded, but that's not the case at all. And I think that Leslie pointed out a little bit of the description of the plant itself. What is really cool about cranberries is that, first of all, they're a perennial vine, and they're also an evergreen vine, which is very cool because if we think about a lot of our evergreen crops, we think about avocados and citrus, none of them are grown on cold climates. So cranberries are especially cool because they are these evergreen perennial vines that grow in these freezing conditions. So let me tell you about the water. Water in cranberry is incredibly important and is used in many, many, many different ways. But everybody relates it with that beautiful picture of harvest and all those red berries floating there. And the reason why, well, first of all, people associate that because that's what you see in the ocean spray commercials.
Mallika Nocco:I'm not gonna lie, we're definitely gonna put one of those photos up with this podcast episode.
Amaya Atucha:Like you wouldn't believe, like, there's I think there's a really cool Red Bull commercial in which I think that there's there's there's this guy doing like water skiing in a cranberry bed full of like cranberries. So you can do all sorts of cool things with that. But the reason why we associated it is because cranberries are harvested, what we call wet harvest. And the reason for that is because the berries itself, if you were to cut a berry and look at the inside of the structure of the berry, it has these four locules that they're hollow and they're full of air. And so that's one of the reasons why the berries float. The other reason why they float is because they have really, really low density. The pulp itself is not very dense. I don't know if you ever like if you've ever eaten a fresh one. It's just it's you know, it doesn't have a lot of flesh in it. And the third reason why they float is because they have very, very low content of sugar. When you have a lot of sugar, sugar makes things heavier. And so they are overall incredibly light. And so growers figure out that if you flood the beds and you strip the berries out of the vine with a harvester, the berries would float, which makes really easy to corral them all and then just use a pump to lift all the berries and collect them, versus the way that they would do it before, that it was with these rakes that it would take forever to harvest them. And so that's the reason why we associate them with water and we think that they grow in water, but there there's only a couple of instances in which those beds are flooded. Those are for harvesting, for protecting them from cold in the winter. That's another reason why cranberries are very cold. I mean, very cool and cold, is because they survive the winter under a layer of ice that is produced by, you know, in the winter by flooding them and cover them with ice so that it acts as a little blanket and insulation. And then we use water for irrigation as any other crop needs water during the growing season. But that's it. During the growing season, they are not flooded at all.
Mallika Nocco:Amaya, can we ask a follow-up on this ice thing? So on Water Talk, we have done a couple of episodes where we've talked about wine grapes and we've talked about frost protection in wine grapes and you know, using irrigation to help protect wine grapes from frost. And I think it's different. This is different when cranberries. That's it's it's a different mechanism. Can you tell us a little bit about how the actual ice is protecting the cranberry or how that the use of the ice is working to keep the cranberries protected? Yeah.
Amaya Atucha:So in this case, when people think about those beds that we've described, they're full of water. You think about that commercial and you see the berries. Okay, think about it. The harvest is done. We're getting into fall, temperatures are getting cold. I mean, here in Wisconsin, it gets really cold. We can get, like, you know, minus 20, minus 30. It gets really, really cold. We have this really dry, cold air that desiccates these plants. As I was saying before, one of the rare features about cranberries is that they are an evergreen. So they keep their leaves. So these are plants that have leaves. If you expose them to really cold temperatures, they have to be able to adjust to be able to withstand the freezing conditions and also not to desiccate via just regular transpiration because the air is so dry when the temperatures get so low. So one of the things, when you look at cranberries in the wild, the way that the plants survive the winter is because of the snow. The snow completely covers them. They are understory. These are vines that don't grow, I mean, they don't grow much. And so if you were to look at cranberries in the wild, in wild bogs with cranberries, you will see that they are covered by snow. Yeah, and snow is an insulator. Exactly. So you're under the snow, you're protected by from the cold, you're protected from the wind. But in commercial settings, snow sometimes is not enough. And so to mimic that same effect of trying to protect them, what the growers will do is they will fill up the beds with water, just as when they harvest them, when the temperatures are gonna get very cold, and that water freezes into ice. So on the very top of the vine, there's a really thick layer of ice. And so the vines are underneath, and that is protecting them from temperatures getting extremely cold. We put sensors underneath the ice to measure the difference between the air temperature and the temperature under the ice, and we see like substantial amounts of a difference. Obviously, when it gets to minus 30, the air temperature, the temperature under the ice drops under the freezing point, and you know, it can get you know to somewhere around 10. But there's no wind, so they're also protected from desiccation. These leaves are not being desiccated, and so it's just a wonderful management practice to protect them from those freezing mounts. And then when temperatures start to warm up in the spring, the ice just melts and the plants you know start again perceiving the air temperature and breaking dormancy and start growing all over again. So it's a very, very interesting thing to see.
Samuel Sandoval:And I think, I mean, perhaps following on that water management. So we have heard that the water is recycled and reused between marshes or bogs. Can you either or both of you describe or help us visualize how the water recycle occurs?
Leslie Holland:A lot of growers here in Wisconsin have their own reservoirs on site. So when we think about cranberry acreage, part of the acreage that's built into that is the acreage that includes the reservoir where that water is contained. And so that water is brought in and out of cranberry for the various reasons that Amaya just mentioned. So for that winter flooding, for the irrigation needs of the plant during the growing season, frost protection, et cetera, harvest, right? All those different reasons. And so it's brought in and out during those periods from those reservoirs and really recycled. And, you know, I've talked to some growers who have reservoirs that are mainly only for harvest and maybe winter flooding, and then another reservoir that's only for irrigating during the growing season. So they can kind of partition them in those different manners. But that's typically how water is brought in and out. And there's I think Amaya, you alluded to it earlier, but these kind of different uh water systems and dikes and ditches that are used to bring water in and out of the beds as well. I mean, in a lot of ways, they're farming water as much as they're farming cranberries, which always really fascinates me about cranberry.
Amaya Atucha:Well, one of the things that is surprising about what Leslie was talking about, you know, the acreage and the reservoirs, but also I don't know where I got this number from. It was probably some of my predecessors that gave me this information, but I think that for every acre of production, you need about 10 acres of support land. And so a lot of these marshes are their very big properties and they have the reservoirs and they have like woods. And so you you need all of that to be able to collect this water to farm them.
Faith Kearns:Yeah, I wanted to just ask that as a quick follow-up. Well, I've just been wondering this whole time as we're talking about visualizing these cranberry bogs, beds, marshes, what is the size of one of these things? You know, again, because you see these pictures and they seem relatively small, but then you're also describing sort of a whole farm or or whatever kind of situation with them. So yeah, just wondering what what kind of acreage these things take.
Amaya Atucha:There's a whole range of you can be like a small grower that can have maybe like 40 acres, or you can be like a really large grower. I think some of the larger growers here in Wisconsin have close to a thousand. So they're they're you know, the full range.
Mallika Nocco:Yeah, but I think in the grand scheme of ag, that's still small.
Amaya Atucha:Yes, of course. We are a specialty crop. Well it's pretty small. Yes.
Mallika Nocco:I want to turn a little bit to this idea of plant diseases. So, Leslie, I know that there can be relationships between water that's in the soil or humidity in the air and the presence or absence of plant diseases. And I'm wondering, is this something that you consider in cranberries? Like, are you factoring in water or moisture or humidity into your disease management advice for farmers?
Leslie Holland:Yes, yes, and yes. Yeah. Water. I mean, when I think about any disease, I and plus especially as a plant pathologist, I always think back to our disease triangle, which means disease happens when three things coincide. The first is a susceptible host, so check cranberry. The next is a virulent pathogen, and there's plenty of those around. And the third, and arguably most important, is the environment. And cranberry, as you we just talked about, uh, is quite a moist and wet environment, which is really conducive to a lot of pathogens, especially fungal pathogens. So, yeah, water is really central to disease development, but also disease management as well. So, for instance, one of the biggest pathogen systems that my lab works on, and we've certainly roped in Amaya these last few years to also work on it with us, is fruit rot. And so, fruit rot is a fungal disease complex. It's a bunch of different fungal species that essentially all cause a rotting or breakdown of the fruits. And it's a huge fruit quality issue, it's a huge yield issue for growers. It's probably the largest issue for disease issue for growers across North America, honestly. And so these fungal pathogens that are associated with this disease really thrive under prolonged wet and humid conditions. So when we think about things like irrigation or canopy density, or even how long a vine is gonna stay wet after rainfall or even after irrigating, these are all gonna influence different levels of disease risk. So when thinking about advising growers and how they manage water, right, it's not only like a tool that you can use, but it's also a potential stressor as well, leaving it on too long, over-irrigating, not irrigating enough, right? So it's it's it's it's a it can be a good and a bad thing. And so, of course, we have things like weather stations that can tell us how the weather's looking in the area. We also can look at things like field scouting to understand how water needs of the plant are being met or not, and then factor that all into into management. But yeah, I think it's really all about timing, right? There's water that's used to support the crop needs. There's also making sure that you're minimizing leaf wetness over time. So it's it's a tool and a potential stressor, let's put it that way.
Mallika Nocco:Okay. No, that's super helpful. And that makes me feel good too to apply that to another crop because that's usually when I'm talking about irrigation and everyone's like, oh, what's the what's the harm in irrigating a little extra? Then I'm like, well, there's some harm.
Leslie Holland:You just see those as budding plant pathologists, right?
Amaya Atucha:And I think in the case of cranberries, especially true because most of the irrigation is through overhead irrigation. So every time you irrigate, you are, you know, you're getting the foliage wet. And so that is a lot more conducive for diseases. And then here in Wisconsin, and I would say, you know, in the other growing regions in the eastern part, like Massachusetts and New Jersey, we tend to have really humid summers, which is something that you don't see out west. So you have a humid summer, you're irrigating them, like you're irrigating the canopy, and so that generates like a lot of moisture in, and that is very conducive for diseases.
Faith Kearns:Well, given given everything that you all have just talked about, it seems like potentially climate change could have an effect on cranberries. And maybe starting with you, Amaya, I'm just wondering about you know the yeah, just the effects of climate change on cranberries, cranberry cultivation, etc.
Amaya Atucha:Yeah, we can go back to talking about the cold winters. That is that's an area um I love cold, and my lab works a lot on cold hardiness. So that's why I always talk about this topic. But it's it's truly a big issue for the industry here in Wisconsin when it comes to cold management. And so I explain the ice and the wonderful idea of having this ice protect the vines. However, with you know, these changes and this unpredictable weather that we're having nowadays, and that I've been able to experience in the 11 years that I've been working here in Wisconsin, when I started to work the winters, and now they're very different. And so it used to be that temperatures would get cold enough to be able to make this layer of ice somewhere in mid-December, and then the ice would stay until close to March, maybe mid-March, depending on how cold the and long the winter is going to be. Now what we're seeing is that the falls are getting warmer and warmer and warmer, which basically is delaying when they can make ice and they can cover and protect the vines. And then we're having these warm temperatures in the middle of the winter. So a couple of years ago, I remember the ice melt in mid-February. And here in mid-February, we still have two more months of winter. So temperatures are gonna get Yeah.
Mallika Nocco:I usually think of mid-February is like the safest time to plan like a cross-country ski trip in Western. Exactly.
Amaya Atucha:Well, it it just got really warm, and so the beds, the vines were exposed because the ice melt. And so here's where like the growers like, what do we do? We know it's gonna get cold again. And so one of the things that growers would do is flood and put water on. These vines are dormant, and so the They kind of are somehow a lot more resistant to flooding them and protecting them by putting them underwater. But then, as Leslie was saying, like you can't keep them underwater for an incredibly long period of time because eventually, you know, you're consuming all the oxygen that is in that water and the plants are still respiring. So they need that oxygen. You know, the microorganisms in the soil are also consuming that oxygen. So here's where the game starts. It's like, how long can we leave the flood? And can we reflood again without getting the plants stressed? And is it are the cold hard enough? Next week it's gonna get cold. Do we and so growers don't know what to do? Well, before there was just ice, so everybody was like, okay, as long as there's ice, we're fine. And so that's one of the ways that we've seen that you know, this this change in climate change is affecting our winter management and putting our vines into a lot more stress. Then I would say that the other thing that is coming our way, maybe we've been a little bit more protected because of our geography, has been you know, heat stress. It's the opposite. But I think that Leslie can talk a little bit about this as well. We've seen more instances in which we have you know really, really warm temperatures, days with very warm temperatures. And cranberries are a plant that is, you know, native from this northern part of the US and also from Canada, that are not, that they didn't evolve in places where it was very warm. So they're not very good at transpiring, they're not very good at mechanisms that plants would have to be able to cope with really high temperatures. So they get stressed really easy and they drop the rate of photosynthesis, which obviously affect our yield perspective and our fruit quality. So just a tiny little bit of stress and really like high temperatures are just gonna partially shut down the plants. And so that has a repercussion in the yield of this year, and because we're talking about perennial crop, the potential yield for the following year. And I'll let you know, Leslie talk a little bit about how that affects diseases as well.
Leslie Holland:Absolutely. I mean, yeah, and we have the ongoing work that Amaya's lab's leading looking at actually heat stress and the impact, uh, both acute and chronic, on cranberry fruit rot development. And so one of the biggest differences in our production systems here in Wisconsin compared to the Northeast is that they get a lot warmer than we do during the growing season, although we're starting to see that shift where we are having warmer weeks during the summer. And so that heat stress is likely, in some ways, kind of activating or triggering some of these infections of fruit rot we suspect. So the pathogens, to our knowledge, seem to be pretty omnipresent throughout cranberry. They're there. Sometimes we find them in even like a sound, healthy fruit, we find them in a rotted fruit. But the interesting part about that is just because the fruit contains the fungus doesn't necessarily mean that the fruit's always going to rot. And so we started to explore other ways of understanding what's triggering the development of these rot symptoms. And we believe heat stress may be one of them. And to Omaya's point, right, that the plant is stressed, it's not able to function how it normally functions. And then you've got this fungal pathogen that can really just kind of take advantage of it because it's already there. And so we suspect that that may be something we're gonna continue to see as we have these warmer seasons. And generally speaking, I think warmer temperatures will likely accelerate pathogen life cycles moving forward. It may extend growing seasons, which is more activity time for these pathogens, which certainly will have detrimental effects. So, and another thing I think about as a Maya's talked about the cold, right? If we're gonna have potentially warmer winters at some point, the cold is a great way to knock some things back, you know, me included, because I don't love the cold, um, but also pathogens. So if we're having these more moderate winters, that may allow some more um extended kind of survival windows for some of these pathogens that may not have survived incredibly well during these colder temperatures. So I think we're gonna see a lot of potential shifts as we start to deal with all these changes across the seasons.
Amaya Atucha:If I can add something else, I mean, because climate change affects so many things, but I was gonna say that something that maybe relates to many, many crops is that we also see like water stress. You wouldn't think about water stress in cranberries, but you know, we we do see drought. So before it was very predictable that we would have precipitation, very common during the, especially during the spring and during the summer, we would have like almost every week we would have a thunderstorm and there will be enough precipitation. Now there's been some periods in which the growers have to heavily irrigate and keep you know good tracks of irrigation and knowing how much to irrigate. And well, before that was something that we didn't worry so much about, especially you know, these changes in precipitation which we see in the spring, for example, that we have so much precipitation. And then we can go to July and August and then have no precipitation. And so that unpredictability in terms of water and precipitation is also kind of like changing how growers are managing the crop and you know, requiring us to be a lot more precise for something that we maybe in the past we're a little bit more relaxed because it was never a stressor. Now it's now it's becoming and I know about other regions, our neighbors in Canada. I mean, the the Quebec region also produces quite a bit of cranberries, and they were telling me that they've suffered in the last two years heavily with drought. And so that's that's another problem that we're facing.
Mallika Nocco:Well, yeah, I mean, I am thankful that we have amazing scientists and extension folks like you two working on these problems. You mean job security? Yeah, job security, right? But I want to ask the two of you. We always like to ask our guests if there's anything more that you just want people to know about your work and how all of us and our listeners can support your efforts and the work that you do. And feel free to share a favorite cranberry dish or recipe in this section, too, if you like.
Amaya Atucha:I think that people should consume more cranberries. There's a lot of more interesting ways of eating cranberry. I know that this is the time. You start seeing like all the little cans of cranberry sauce uh at the grocery stores, and you start seeing the fresh cranberries. There's a lot of ways, including eating smoothies. It's so healthy, like they have so many benefits. So I would say people need to consume more cranberries. They are one of our native fruits here in the United States. So you should consume it because of that. It's uh it's incredibly healthy uh for you. And recipe-wise, I love making every single uh Thanksgiving. I make my own cranberry sauce, which is incredibly simple. I like to mix it sometimes with other berries. I put raspberries and cranberries, and it's delicious. And I always put orange juice. So it's like a fist of multiple different fruits into that cranberry sauce. But yeah, cranberry sauce, and I eat the cranberry sauce with yogurt. That's the thing that I love. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but when I have too much left flour and I always mix it with that. Uh but uh yeah, you can always mix it with cocktails. There's so many things that you can do and with salads, you know, that's the other way that I consume a lot of what we call the sweet and dry cranberries. Uh, that's probably my favorite way of eating them. I always add uh, you know, a handful of them to my salads.
Mallika Nocco:That sounds really good.
Leslie Holland:How about you, Leslie? I'm I'm hungry now. Wow. Okay, so so something I think I'd want other folks to know, and I think this kind of covers a lot of the work that Amai and I do, is right, we have these specific projects that are very specific to a certain pathosystem or question, maybe that we have horticulturally speaking. But I think it's important to know that the questions we're asking are really about trying to support the much larger food system. So all these projects maybe feel small or just have a few objectives, they're really trying to support an entire food system and help growers make decisions for these problems that they're having. So that's something I think I'd want more people to know. It's more than just identifying plant diseases for me. And then in terms of food, which is probably my favorite topic, so I completely agree with the Maya. I think citrus or orange flavoring with cranberry is always a favorite dish for me. I really enjoy that. But recently, living in Wisconsin for five years now, I was recently introduced. So if you want to make cranberries a little unhealthy, introduced to like a cranberry, it was like a cream cheese dip. I don't know, I had it at an event with crackers. And there was, it was like, I think jalapenos were in it too to kind of add some spice. I need to get that recipe. I think about it. This is the thing. I have a recipe for you, Leslie.
Mallika Nocco:Yes, but this is like a Wisconsin thing. Okay, yes. Okay, so yes, I need it. You take a block of cream cheese and then you make it's essentially like a cranberry salsa, and but then you put the cranberry salsa on the block of cream cheese. This is like a thing at holiday parties in the Midwest. And then it comes to room temperature, and then you can like slice a cracker and put it on.
Leslie Holland:And it's so delicious. That needs to be in the show notes, I feel, because it's so for sure.
Mallika Nocco:All right. Well, this is a fantastic episode to kind of lighten it all up and talk about something really cool before the holidays. And I very much appreciate having the two of you on. Thanks for your time.
Leslie Holland:Yeah, thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. A lot of fun.
Mallika Nocco:Well, that was a fun episode. What are our parting gifts? Anything jump out to either of you to take away, Faith or Sam?
Samuel Sandoval:So for me, there are two parting gifts. So one was related with water management and the frost protection practices. Like you think about frost, and I mean, there is some ways that you get to know it, but I mean to literally submerge the plants and make sure that there is ice on top of it and how to protect it. So that was the first parting gift. The second one is the droughts and a not so fun parting gift that how it is affecting now everywhere and how we are dealing with conditions that even in a short period of time, 11, 10 years, have changed dramatically. Some of those two things to consider. What about you, Malika Fate?
Faith Kearns:Yeah, I think for me, I'd probably go with the same thing in terms of thinking about climate change. I think when you think about something like a cranberry, are all just these really delicate berries, you know, and I hadn't really thought about cranberries in that way yet and did not know anything about the frost protection issue. So, you know, even as they were describing the way that that ice is used, I was just thinking, how, you know, how how does how does this work? And so even more than some of the other crops like cherries or whatever that we hear about being pretty sensitive, I was like, this is a this seems to be a pretty sensitive system. Very hardy at the same time, but just in terms of thinking about the way that they're, you know, talking about how it already is sort of at the limits of where they can grow, right? If if you can grow something in Canada, then I think the further south you go, you're already a little bit at the limits of what you can really grow. So yeah, that was a little bit concerning, I guess, and interesting. I'm glad we have folks like them working to figure out how to adapt to some of these changes.
Mallika Nocco:Yeah, absolutely. You know, I agree with those parting gifts for sure. The the other one that I thought was really interesting is just how the geospatial part of this or the the mapping or the landscape person in me is just really interested in like how planning a farm or planning an orchard or planning, you know, an agricultural operation as the space in which you plant your crop. But it is so much more than that. It's becoming so much more than that. It has been so much more than that. And it was just so interesting to hear that one acre of the actual production space, there's another 10 acres of planning for all of the movement of water and all the conveyance that happens. And I thought that was really interesting.
Samuel Sandoval:Mallika, perhaps one last parting give. What a good conversation with other two extension specialists. Good conversations and a couple of recipes. So a lot of good parting gifts.
Faith Kearns:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for listening to the Water Talk Podcast. I'm Faith Kearns and I'm the Director of Research Communications with the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative at Arizona State University.
Samuel Sandoval:My name is Samuel Sandoval. I'm a professor at UC Davis and a cooperative extension specialist in water resources management at the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Mallika Nocco:I'm Mallika Nocco, Assistant Professor and State Extension Specialist in Agricultural Water Management at the University of Wisconsin Madison. If you enjoy our show, please review, listen, like, and subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Please find transcripts and additional content at WaterTalkPodcast.com. Original music by Paloma Herrera Thomas.