February 2020 - 14

It was a big change for the family.
Although Jessica had a degree in
agriculture business and Dan said the
two were prepared for the long hours,
he had previously worked in the tech
industry. The first year was a lot of
time spent outdoors putting together
irrigation systems.
" As a tech person, you can see the
Blackberry
bloom
New grower shares struggles,
successes in starting new farm
Dan and Jessica Perdue with their children Rabun, age 11; Eleanor, 9; and Thomas, 5. Photos: Perdue Blackberry Farms
By Stephen Kloosterman
Associate Editor
Young growers' enthusiasm and
energy for the job were shared in
January at the Southeast Regional
Fruit and Vegetable Conference in
Savannah, Georgia.
Dan and Jessica Perdue discussed
their first years of efforts in starting a
blackberry farm in Perry, Georgia, with
attendees of the caneberry education
sessions. A fledgling blackberry grower
who's been mentored by other larger
growers in the area, Perdue gave a full
picture of some of the highs and lows he
hit since they started the farm in 2015.
" I've wanted to work for myself
for a long time, but I also thought
blackberry farming was a good
opportunity to make good money, "
he said. " We had higher expectations
of revenue and income than we
should have, but you know, I don't
regret that decision. We found
mentors who could mentor us in this,
and just went from there. "
fruit of your labor pretty quickly, and
you can undo it if you don't like it and
you can do it differently pretty quickly
and pretty easily with very little cost, "
he said. " Whereas growing produce,
if you don't do something correctly
you may not know it for six or eight
months, and it's difficult to go back
and change that. "
Fruitful and brutal years
Dan Perdue started with planting
just 10 acres of Ouachita blackberries
in the red clay soil of Perry, Georgia.
The Georgia blueberry market was
found to be saturated, whereas the
blackberry market still had room for
growth. Perdue decided that Ouachita
was a good variety all-around and it's
done well for the farm. Some initial
plantings of Natchez have suffered
from over cropping, and new canes
were eaten by deer.
Perdue laid down drip irrigation fed
with well water. The plants were laid out
with a T-style trellis, rather than rotating
cross-arm trellis - which Perdue said
would have been costly to operate and
made the rows too narrow for his tractor.
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14 | FruitGrowersNews.com
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February 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of February 2020