FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov 18, 2004

SFA professor serving as consultant to fledgling Chinese blueberry industry

It would take all the rice in China to make Dr. David Creech give up on his dream of making blueberries that country’s number one crop. Creech, an agriculture professor at Stephen F. Austin State University, has spent six weeks in China during the past few months serving as a consultant to Chinese agricultural leaders who share his dream.

Creech said China’s soil, climate and economy are all selling points for increasing production of the berries.

“There are plenty of reasons an SFA-China blueberry connection makes sense,” Creech said. “As far as culture of the plant, China has many areas with similar climate and soils. As far as the market, China’s hot economy has resulted in a large population of citizens with plenty of spending money. Blueberries should be able to go from a delicacy available only in the five star hotels and restaurants to some kind of mainstream commodity.”

Pioneering blueberries is somewhat of an old habit for Creech, who, as an undergraduate student assistant at Texas A&M University, helped plant the very first blueberries in Texas at a plot near Buna.

“At that time, the idea of growing rabbiteye blueberries in East Texas was just the dream of Dr. Hollis Bowen, my undergraduate adviser and boss,” Creech said. “It’s been great helping a fruit crop go from nothing in the 1970s into a sizeable and publicly recognized industry at the start of the 21st century.”

When Creech joined the SFA faculty in 1978, he brought his blueberry interest with him.

“We’ve made a couple of contributions to blueberry research here at SFA that we’re especially proud of,” Creech explained. “Dr. Leon Young, our soils professor, and I developed nutritional guidelines for blueberry soil, leaf tissue and irrigation water – benchmarks that are still in use today across the South. We’ve learned how to grow blueberries and how to deal with problems.”

Creech said that while 20 percent of China’s population is wealthy, 80 percent of the people are considered peasants. Producing blueberries instead of rice could increase substantially the income of peasant farmers.

“There’s just more money in blueberries,” Creech explained. “The Chinese are mainly interested in producing for the frozen blueberry industry. They would be harvesting by hand. Where we look for flat land and plant crops in rows, they plant on terraced land; our harvesting equipment could not even go there.”

SFA is part of the USDA’s Southern Region Blueberry Germplasm Evaluation Program and, since the early 1980s, has rated the latest breeding lines and advanced selections.

“We propagate and distribute the rest to researchers and farmers for further in-field testing,” Creech said. “The germplasm we’re testing here will provide the foundation for the varieties of the future.”

SFA research, enhanced through a cooperative relationship with Mill Creek Blueberries and the S.B. Hayter Trust, is conducted on a one-acre plot that is a part of a high performance 70-acre field about six miles west of Nacogdoches.

While Creech is interested in increasing China’s blueberry intake, he also would like to increase the popularity of blueberries in the United States.

“We eat more blueberries than ever before, but we’re still at about one pound per person per year,” Creech admitted. “That’s way below other fruits, like apples or grapes. The discovery that blueberries are loaded with antioxidants created a real boost in demand. Recent research indicates that blueberries also have value in delaying Alzheimer’s and there are positive benefits for those with macular degeneration.”

In addition to their nutritional value, Creech said blueberries also have recreational application.

“Not very many people know this, but on June 5, 1992, we set a Guiness record for the world’s longest streudel – 2,040 feet long! As far as I’m concerned, that was the high spot that year at the Blueberry Festival in downtown Nacogdoches,” Creech recalled. “This record held until, I believe, 1998, when Australia came in with a peach streudel, and they only whipped us by a few hundred feet. With a good grass roots effort, a bunch of volunteers, and some smart planning, we can take that record back for Nacogdoches.”

Creech’s success in China, however, might increase the competition.