BANGOR (AP) – Expectations were low as the harvest of Maine’s wild blueberry crop got off to a late start Sunday and Monday.

“It just doesn’t look that good anywhere,” said Del Emerson, farm manager at the University of Maine’s Blueberry Hill experimental station in Jonesboro. “Most people are reporting spotty fields.”

Weeks before the harvesting machines and raking crews arrived in eastern Maine’s blueberry land, growers, processors and other experts were predicting a poor harvest, with some saying the total could be half of last year’s 81 million pounds.

The brutally cold winter, which took a toll on many of the blueberry plants, disease and a cold, wet spring that impeded pollination are seen as the primary culprits.

Down East blueberry harvests usually start around Aug. 1 or even the last week of July. But this year the crop is ripening later, especially closer to the coast, where cooler temperatures, sea breezes and fog have slowed the process.

The state’s largest grower and processor, Cherryfield Foods Inc., planned to send crews into its fields Monday, and another major grower, Jasper Wyman & Son of Milbridge, started harvesting Sunday. But growers near the coast are still four or five days from getting started.

The smaller crop could take as little as two weeks harvest, which could take two or three weeks worth of work away from the 5,000 to 7,000 harvesters.

“It cuts down on rakers’ income if they’re bringing in fewer boxes” of blueberries, said Emerson. “They may be getting paid more per box, but they’re still not going to earn the same. They still have to rake the whole field and cover the same amount of ground.”

Many of the harvesters are Indians from Canada and Hispanic farm workers who migrate north for the season.