This year’s wild blueberry crops are not just sparse, but also shorter-lived, according to area growers.

For Henrickson’s Farm in Oxford, this means two winnowing machines purchased last fall are not being used to capacity.

The machines are a far cry from an antique winnower used on the farm for generations.

The old winnower, said Julie Bergeron, who today owns the Henrickson blueberry fields with her brother, Eric, was hand cranked in the field by her relatives 60 or 70 years ago. Eventually it was adapted for use with kerosene and then electricity.

While most loose leaves and bits of grass were blown from the berries with the old winnower, green and over-ripe berries were often left behind. This meant batches of winnowed fruit still needed to be sorted through.

Today’s winnowers, said Bergeron’s mother, Carol Henrickson, “make the berries table-ready.”

“People like them because they don’t have to pick (the berries) over,” she said as she asked Bergeron to show off the new machines.

Today, the old winnower – painted a rustic, weathered blue – sits up on a hill outside a barn. It once sat down by the house, but the Henricksons’ blueberry sorting operations have moved closer to the new machines. The shiny metal contraptions gleam inside the barn door.

Like older models, the new winnowers use a fan to blow loose leaves and grass from raked berries. But instead of dumping the unsorted berries into a bucket, the winnowers use a series of conveyor belts to help weed out crushed or unripe berries. Then the fruit is reviewed by human eyes as it makes its way down a last belt toward cardboard flats.

The winnowing process is not necessarily quicker, Bergeron said, but it does mean cleaner fruit.

Unfortunately, because of the weather, a harvesting season that began just Sunday may be over in a week, Bergeron said. The new winnowing machines have had their debut in an off-year.

In the barn, empty cartons with blueberry pictures imprinted on the sides are stacked high. Many won’t be used this season, said Bergeron’s father, Roy Henrickson.

Bergeron said, “Everybody’s having a tough year this year.” She was waiting for a late batch of berries, held up by rainy weather, to come in from the field.

“It’s sparse crop because of the bitter cold and temperatures in January and the lack of snow cover, which insulates and protects the berry bushes,” Bergeron said. Rainy weather has made things worse because the wild bushes should not be raked when wet.

David Yarborough, a blueberry specialist with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, said Wednesday that this year’s blueberry crops are expected to be one-third below normal.

Growers in the state typically raise a total crop valued at $80 million. This year no more than $54 million in revenues is expected from the blueberry harvest.

The only good news may be that rainy weather could help the state’s blueberry bushes next year.

“The rain we’re getting this year is going to produce a bumper crop next year – if they get through this winter,” Yarborough said.

Gail Smedberg of Crystal Spring Farm on Route 26 said she’s had no trouble getting blueberries from local growers this season, despite reports of low yields. The only difficulty is finding people who are still willing to hand-pick the fruit. She hadn’t heard of the Henricksons’ new winnowing machine, and said old winnowers leave too much debris in the berry cartons.

“We don’t ever buy the ones that have been raked and then winnowed,” she said.