Will Brubacher can expect to keep his wits about him well into his old age – he grows blueberries and eats lots of the fruit that has been shown by researchers at Tufts University in the US to make old rats more coordinated, learn faster and to have improved their motor skills. Perhaps more work needs to be done, but in the meantime the same researchers are making sure they get their cup of blueberries a day.
Blueberries, because of their high levels of antioxidants, have also been found to lower cholesterol levels – without the side-effects of drugs prescribed for the task. And the antioxidants remain when the fruit is made into wine, as Will does under his Poverty Point Wines label.
Not that Will and his partner Elaine Reeves were aware of any of that when they took over, in 1991, the first blueberry farm in Tasmania, Tassie Blue – planted by Les Kingston in 1981. Will happily gave up work as a carpenter for a lifestyle that has its peaks of activity – from 7am to 7pm seven days a week over summer – but also leaves plenty of time to play golf at other times of the year.
“Blueberries are a friendly sort of crop,†he says. “The bush has no thorns and, if you prune properly, they are not too tall or too short for comfortable picking.†A reasonable degree of comfort is important, because, unlike grapes or currants, blueberries are not picked by the bunch, but one by one by hand as they become ripe. Pickers at the patch at Petcheys Bay south of Cygnet work through the 2000 bushes as many as five times at intervals over the peak season in
January and February.
Since 2001, Tassie Blue has been certified organic with NASAA. It means brush-cutting all the grass and weeds instead of using a herbicide and using only organic fertiliser, but as Will had been farming that way for years it seemed sensible to formalise things with certification.
Will looks after the pruning in winter by himself, and plants and harvests garlic and strawberries, but when the blueberry canes are weighed down with fruit, a team of 10 or 12 pickers and packers comes in to work the long summer days.
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