It's all in the family at Minnesota's only cranberry farm

PALISADE, Minn. (FOX 9) - It's harvest time on the Forster family farm and the berries are buoyant.

"My favorite part about growing cranberries is that I get to do it with my family. It's really special every day," said Shannon Forster, farm manager for the Minnesota Cranberry Company.

This property in Palisade, about three hours north of the Twin Cities, is home to the only commercial cranberry farm in Minnesota and the Forsters couldn't be prouder.

"We have a very unique operation here and we're just getting started," said Forster.

The 22-year-old has deep roots on this land. She grew up here and took over day-to-day operations from her parents five years ago.

Along with her 16-year-old brother, Nathan, the two youngest members of the family share the bulk of the responsibility that keeps their cranberry farm afloat.

"He's a lot younger than me. It is a dynamic of ‘my sister is my boss,’ so he definitely knows that. But my brother is so smart and it's such a blessing to be able to teach him what I know, but then also learn from him. We definitely cannot do it without him," said Forster.

Forster says contrary to popular belief, cranberries don't grow underwater.

They grow on vines close to the ground in large fields. 

Forster says when the cranberries are ready to be harvested, they use mechanical beaters to knock them off the vines.

The fields are then flooded with a couple of million gallons of water, so the berries rise to the surface, covering the bog like a crimson-covered carpet.

"We use water because the berries float. So we take advantage of that," said Forster.

Once the fields are flooded, the Forsters corral the cranberries into a corner, creating a sea of red.

From there, they use a giant pump to suck the berries through a pipe into what they call "the bathtub", where they are cleaned and then dumped into a semi to be hauled away and sold to Ocean Spray at a receiving station in Tomah, Wisconsin.

In a typical year, the Forsters produce about half a million pounds of cranberries from seven fields. But because the warmer-than-normal winter last year damaged many of the vines, this year's yield is just a fraction of that.

"It's the gamble of farming. We didn't lose everything and we'll come back. We got other things we got going so we'll survive it and get them back up and going," said Shannon's father, Randy Forster

Randy and his wife Billie Jo bought the farm from one of the original owners of Ocean Spray 20 years ago because as truck drivers, they wanted a place to raise a family.

"I was familiar with wild rice. I grew wild rice since I was a kid. So part of this farm is wild rice. We grow wild rice, but the cranberries interested me because it was a new opportunity," said Randy Forster. 

Now they hope the next generation of that family follows in their footsteps.

"This is the first generation. I have just been here for 20 years. If they go on, good for them. We belong to a good organization and I would love to see it keep going on," said Randy Forster.

The Forster's cranberries are pooled with others from the region and turned into juice, dried berries, or sauce that end up on Thanksgiving tables.

But for the Forsters, farming with their family gives them all something to be thankful for.

"I don't know exactly where our cranberries end up, but they're ending up on somebody's table," said Shannon Forster.