Are cranberry bogs filled with spiders?
While the berries are growing, budding, and flowering, the spiders make home in the vines, cleaning the vines of any insects. When the bogs are flooded, the spiders float to the surface and run across the tops of the berries to stay dry.
“Why are there spiders in the bog?” I gasped. “We use wolf spiders as natural predators to eat the insects.”
After the harvest and just before winter temperatures become dangerous to the cranberry vines, the cranberry bogs are flooded to protect the the plants from sub-zero temperatures and frigid winter winds.
This shrub, native to much of Canada, is fast growing, and its fruit can be eaten raw or cooked into a sauce. Bog Cranberry is a native, ground cover species. These plants generally produce one crop per year in summer.
Most often, pesticides (herbicides, fungicides, insecticide), as well as fertilizers, are applied to cranberry bogs through the water sprinkler irrigation system. This process is referred to as “chemigation.” Pesticides are sometimes also applied by hand sprayers or wipers. Occasionally helicopters may be used.
While you might be tempted to squish one of these spiders with your broom, think again. If your target happens to be an egg-carrying female, it might release hundreds of spiderlings onto your floor. If you encounter a wolf spider in your home, trap it using glue boards and get rid of it.
When wolf spider eggs hatch, the spiderlings climb on the mother's back and she carries them until they're large enough to hunt for themselves. If you squish a wolf spider that's carrying her young, you may inadvertently send dozens of her babies into different cracks and crevices of your home.
Pros for wolf spiders
First, they eat bugs. We're talking about common house-infesting insects including crickets and roaches. Second, they don't build webs. Since wolf spiders are hunters that stalk their prey (now their name makes sense, right?)
The U.S. states of Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin grow the majority of cranberries in the United States. There are also wild cranberry bogs. One of the southernmost is found in Ducktown in Polk County Tennessee.
Wisconsin is the nation's leading producer of cranberries, harvesting more than 60 percent of the country's crop. The little red berry, Wisconsin's official state fruit, is the state's number one fruit crop, both in size and economic value.
How long does a cranberry bog last?
Normally, growers do not replant each year since an undamaged cranberry vine will survive indefinitely. Some vines on Cape Cod are more than 150 years old and are still bearing fruit.
As noted, harvestmen are omnivores and are classified as both predators and scavengers. They use fang-like mouthparts known as “chelicerae” to grasp and chew their food. However, harvestmen aren't known to bite humans and are not considered a danger to households.
The common name, daddy-longlegs, likely came about because of their small oval body and long legs, and the name harvestman because they are most often seen in large numbers in the fall around harvest time.
Cranberries are well suited to grow in wet marshy areas called bogs. It's uniquely able to thrive in colder temperatures.
Yes, it's safe to eat raw cranberries, though you'll likely want to include them in a recipe, like a smoothie, sauce, or relish, because their extreme tanginess can be off-putting to some people.
It inhibits food borne pathogens. Native Americans also used the cranberry to make dye for their rugs and blankets and found the cranberry plant to be valuable for medicinal purposes, using it both to treat wounds (as a poultice) and to help prevent certain illnesses.
Bog cranberry is a small creeping shrub, appearing in single to densely clustered stalks as a ground cover. It has small evergreen leaves (3-10 mm) with a leathery texture and alternating growth pattern. They are deep green and shiny on the surface, grey-waxy underneath, and have rolled under edges.
The cranberry supplies food and shelter to many animals. Birds residing on bogs find the cranberry to be a very good food source. Birds like jays, chickadees, woodpeckers, wrens, and warblers all enjoy eating the berries.
The abandoned cranberry bog behind our house in Waquoit is classic habitat for snakes and has quite a healthy population of the northern water snake, as well as garter, green, and black racers. Others species are most likely living there. Many people fear snakes.
Wet Harvesting
The bog is flooded with up to 18 inches of water the night before the berries are to be harvested. The growers then use water reels, nicknamed “eggbeaters,” to churn the water and loosen the cranberries from the vine. Each berry has tiny pockets of air that allow it to float to the surface of the water.
What kills wolf spiders instantly?
Boric acid is a common powdered chemical used for pest control in general, but it's particularly effective against wolf spiders. Sprinkling it along wall edges, old cardboard boxes, yard debris, and cracks are a really effective way to get rid of wolf spiders.
Predators of Wolf Spiders include birds, reptiles, and rodents.
Wolf Spiders Jump
Fortunately, they aren't prone to pouncing on humans. While wolf spiders are interesting creatures, this doesn't make it any nicer to have these hunter spiders crawling around inside your home.
When you squish a wolf spider to death, the babies try to release it from the mother's body and spread everywhere.
They may only jump if they feel cornered or threatened. Moreover, since they are nocturnal creatures, they only come out at night, so the chances of a wolf spider jumping at you are extremely low.
If a perceived threat is spotted, they break from their roaming state, and chase the player and are not easy to outrun.
Wolf spiders ambush brown recluses, black widows, and other venomous spiders without the fear of being injected with the venom. Nevertheless, they only eat such spiders when there are very limited food options. Wolf spiders prefer going after smaller spiders, sometimes even baby brown recluses and black widows.
Wolf spiders don't pose a threat to people. It is possible to be allergic to a wolf spider's venom, but they are not poisonous. Since wolf spiders are large, their bite may be painful. If you have mild pain, swelling, or itchiness around the bite, it shouldn't last long.
Wolf spiders will bite if they are provoked or feel threatened in some way. While their venom isn't poisonous to humans, it can cause harm to pets and livestock. If you have small pets in your home, the wolf spider venom is likely to prove fatal.
Most cranberry bogs are privately owned, and are best viewed as you drive down local roads. But there are a few public spots where you can get a close-up view of a cranberry bog. We've highlighted 13 local trails where you can take a walk by a cranberry bog. Check out one of these spots this fall and enjoy the view!
Can I visit a cranberry bog?
At their Harwich farm, they offer Cranberry Bog Tours throughout spring, summer, and fall. The times vary, but daily tours are offered from April through October and last about 1.5 hours. During each tour, the growers teach you about the 12-month bog operation, and you get to see the equipment that they use.
Just five states grow almost all of the country's supply of the tart berries: Wisconsin produces more than half of all cranberries in the United States, Massachusetts harvests another third, and New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington produce much of the rest.
Cranberry farming began on Nantucket in 1857 with the formation of the Milestone bog. In fact, a one point in its history, Milestone had 234 acres under cultivation making it the largest contiguous bog in the world!
As with the reclamation of tidal marshes, cranberry bogs required the control and use of local water supplies. However, cranberry bogs utilized fresh water instead of salt or brackish water. Today, cranberry growers still follow many of the same principles used by nineteenth and early twentieth century growers.
Cranberry bogs have a surprisingly long growing season, from April to November, and benefit from the freezing of the ground for a brief dormant period. Fall is the best time to come observe the berries in all their ripened glory.
The fall sun warmed our shoulders. Atlantic breezes carried the salty pungent scent of the cranberry bogs, and maybe pine, making swirling whirlpools in the tall grass. Cranberries are one of only three fruits native to North America - the other two are blueberries and Concord grapes.
Cranberries are perennial, and once planted they'll keep producing crops year after year even with minimal care. Our small 8×8 cranberry bed produces enough to keep our family supplied all winter long, and all it takes is occasional weeding and sand mulch once per year.
On the first day, water is released onto the bog, flooding it with enough water to just cover the vine tips. On the second day, water reels are driven onto the bog, knocking the fruit from the vines. On the third day, the fruit is corralled and taken off the bogs with pumps or conveyors into waiting trucks.
For protection, harvestmen can produce defensive chemicals that taste and smell bad. Small red mites often are found hanging onto the legs or bodies of harvestmen.
Additionally, harvestmen do not regenerate their legs even if lost before maturity34, contrary to other arthropods that regenerate legs after molting. Despite having eight legs, harvestmen move using six legs in an alternate-tripod gait35,36, similar to terrestrial insects36–39.
Why is a harvestman not a spider?
Daddy longlegs, or harvestmen, are familiar Missouri animals. They are not spiders, but opilionids. Unlike spiders, they have a fused body form and lack silk and venom glands. In harvestmen, the body is a simple oval, and it's usually hard to tell where the “head” ends and the segmented “abdomen” begins.
Daddy-longlegs spiders (Pholcidae) - Here, the myth is incorrect at least in making claims that have no basis in known facts. There is no reference to any pholcid spider biting a human and causing any detrimental reaction.
Daddy long legs, also known as cellar spiders, contain venom and possess fangs, but there has been no evidence of their fangs being too short to cut through human skin or of their venoms being deadly and poisonous to humans. In reality, daddy long legs are not poisonous or dangerous to humans and are not known to bite.
Sexual dimorphism (difference in appearance between males and females) can be seen in various species of daddy longlegs. Differences may occur, for example, in the size and characteristics of chelicerae, pedipalps, and other structures. In a few species, males are smaller than females.
Edible Qualities: The fruits/drupes can be eaten raw (though not very tasty that way) or cooked, and like cranberries, they are rich in vitamin C and so have a tart, acid taste (the taste is best after a frost and when picked slightly under-ripe).
Fresh cranberries are harvested using what is known as the “dry method,” which is exactly as it sounds. The bog isn't flooded, but rather, is mechanically harvested and not as efficient, but the berries experience less damage.
If you expect to keep them under water, cover them with something to weigh them down. Change the water used with cranberries if it becomes murky or clouded. In water, cranberries should last about two weeks.
Gnaphosa microps is by no means a star of the spider world but we still know a fair bit about it. It is a holarctic species meaning it can be found in almost all of the northern hemisphere, even as far as Turkey (Seyyar et al. 2008). It is usually found in in open boreal forests, alluvial meadows and bogs.
Other plant and animal species found in and around cranberry bogs include otters, beavers, muskrats, great blue herons, wood ducks, osprey, foxes, deer, bear, moose, and flowers such as water lilies, meadow beauty, and loosestrife. In winter, bogs are covered with water that freezes and provides insulation from frost.
A bog is formed when a lake slowly fills with plant debris. Sphagnum moss, as well as other plants, grow out from the lake's edge. The vegetation eventually covers the lake's entire surface. Bogs can also form when the sphagnum moss covers dry land and prevents precipitation from evaporating.
Are insects found in bogs?
But in both fens and bogs, many species of terrestrial arthropods – including flies, mosquitoes, dragonflies, damselflies, wasps, beetles and spiders – thrive.
No, they drown. Spiders which you find in the bath have fallen in, not, as widely assumed, emerged from the plug-hole, as they cannot get past the U-bend (they drown).
The Bog Sun-jumper Spider (Heliophanus dampfi) is a tiny spider, only found in raised bogs, making it one of the rarest jumping spiders in Britain. This little jumper is black in colour, with brown legs and lime green palps (the second pair of appendages lateral to its jaws).
The wolf spiders won't bother the crops, and the wolf spiders won't bother the people (or ponies!) tending the crops; they're more interested in eating tasty insects.
As new peat replaces the old peat, the older material underneath rots and releases humic acid, also known as bog acid. The bog acids, with pH levels similar to vinegar, preserve human bodies in the same way as fruit is preserved by pickling.
Violently killed thousands of years ago, these corpses of men, women, and children have been naturally preserved by the unique chemistry of Northern Europe's bogs.
In 1965, the German scientist Alfred Dieck catalogued more than 1,850 bog bodies, but later scholarship revealed much of Dieck's work was erroneous. Hundreds of bog bodies have been recovered and studied, although it is believed that only around 45 bog bodies remain intact today.
As the matter opened up and showed us its dark peat, we detected strong scents of wet soil, ocean, dried grass and pine. It was not rotten, as some might expect. The bog had an earthy, heavy, resinous, fertile and rich odor.
Mosses and heaths are the main plants. Layers of dead plants build up in bogs to form a material called peat. Dried peat is burned for fuel. Animals are not common in bogs.
* As much fun as bog bouncing sounds, it can be very dangerous without having knowledge of the depth of water and peat hidden below the surface. It is easy to sink into the bog and risk drowning.