tl;dr: Native Americans would burn the Maine grassland to stimulate blueberry production. Most of the plant is below the surface as rhizomes, and cutting or burning the above-ground part of the plant will stimulate the plant and boost harvests. Burning is preferable to cutting because it also kills funguses and insects.
Field across the road used to be a blueberry field, and one of Wyman's huge freezer facilities is a few miles down the road, along a now discontinued rail line.
Now its a high school. Ahh, goodbye nice friendly traffic pattern, I miss you.
That said, I don't think they've actually stopped burning blueberry fields, every so often I hear someone talk about it. It doesn't seem to be a lost art, just a lesser practiced ones. The kind of wild blueberries we have up here (not those fat ugly tasteless ones other states grow) seem to require it from time to time.
> Field across the road used to be a blueberry field, and one of Wyman's huge freezer facilities is a few miles down the road, along a now discontinued rail line.
> Now its a high school. Ahh, goodbye nice friendly traffic pattern, I miss you.
I think I know exactly the town you're talking about.
During my time Downeast I was told I should cut down the wild berry bushes we had growing all around our driveway every autumn. Hell with that, said I. Next year, with no berries, I figured they might have a point.
Burning is preferable to cutting because it also kills funguses and insects.
So what's interesting is that article says that many (most? all?) other bluberry growers also burn, but they spray oil which burns very hot. This includes modern Native American tribes. The grower featured in the article burns straw, which is the traditional way of doing it.
The article follows one grower. For more info I found the UMaine extension program document useful: https://extension.umaine.edu/blueberries/factsheets/producti...