Cowberry family – Vacciniaceae.
Ripe fruits are used for medicinal purposes.
Distributed in the Western, less often in the Right-bank and Left-bank Polissya, the north-eastern part of the Left-bank Forest-Steppe, in the Carpathians and the Carpathians. The main industrial blanks are produced in the Rivne, Volyn and Zhytomyr regions.
It grows in sphagnum and peat bogs, in the zone of coniferous forests.
Stocks of cranberries in Ukraine are significant, but due to the intensive drainage of marshes, they are rapidly declining.
Cranberry four-petal – evergreen, creeping, small semi-shrub with thin, creeping, rooting at the nodes, reddish-brown stems and short ascending flowering shoots. The leaves are alternate, small, short-petiolate, ovate or oblong-ovate with edges wrapped downwards, leathery, dark green above, shiny, covered with a bluish-gray wax coating below. The flowers are pink or dark pink with a deeply four-parted corolla, with lobes recurved, on long, slightly pubescent pedicels, collected 2-5 at the tops of last year’s branches. The fruit is a spherical, dark red, shiny, juicy berry 10-12 mm in diameter. Blossoms in May-June, the berries ripen in late August-September.
In the Carpathians and Western Polissia, on sphagnum and peat bogs, another species is found – small-fruited cranberries (Oxuscus microcarpus T and r with z.) Very similar to common cranberries, but differs from it in the smaller size of all parts of the plant and bare pedicels. Used on a par with common cranberries.
The main preparation of cranberries is carried out at the stage of full ripeness and until late autumn, since during this period it contains the largest number of valuable medicinal and nutritional substances. The “snowy” cranberries harvested in the spring, due to a partial loss of acidity, are less acidic, but quickly deteriorate during storage. In addition, overwintered “snowy” cranberries are completely lacking in vitamin C.
Cranberries are harvested by hand or with the help of special scoops-combs TsS-202, developed by the Kharkov TsKTB Tsentrosoyuz, but with all this, it is necessary to carefully pick the berries, since the whole plant can be pulled out with us.
After picking, the berries are sorted and packed in baskets, boxes or barrels (autumn harvest up to 60 kg, spring harvest up to 35 kg). Stored in refrigerators with a temperature close to 0 °, and in the absence of refrigerators – in storage, in barrels filled with water or frozen at a temperature of minus 10-20 °.
Sort on an inclined table covered with damp burlap or tarpaulin. In this case, the berry rolls into the collection, and the rubbish remains on the burlap.
To clean cranberries from foreign impurities, a special installation TsS-222 was created, developed by the Kharkov TsKTB Tsentrosoyuz and manufactured by the Kharkov plant of Soyuzkoopmashtrest Tsentrosoyuz with a capacity of 350-400 kg per hour.
Cranberries, brought to the standard, should be clean, fresh or frozen, without stalks, heterogeneous in size, colored from pink to dark red. The allowable number of immature berries (white-eye) is not more than 5% by weight, mechanically damaged and dried up – up to 6 (for spring harvest cranberries up to 10%), damaged by pests – 1, foreign impurities – 0.5%.
Berries contain organic acids (benzoic, citric, quinic, ursolic, etc.), sugars, pectin and dyes, glycoside vakdinin, vitamin C, minerals (potassium, calcium, phosphorus, iron, manganese). Benzoic acid, which has a strong antimicrobial property, protects the berries from rotting and mold, so that they are stored for a long time without losing their beneficial properties.
Cranberries are used to prepare cranberry juice and syrup, which have an anti-febrile effect. It is used as an anti-febrile and vitamin remedy for all kinds of diseases accompanied by high fever.
Berries are widely used in the confectionery and alcoholic beverage industries.