Lily Calderwood

Dr. Lily Calderwood, Wild Blueberry Specialist and Assistant Professor of Horticulture
5722 Deering Hall, Room 103, Orono, ME 04469
Phone: 207.812.2915 | Email: lily.calderwood@maine.edu

Dr. Lily Calderwood, UMaine Extension Wild Blueberry Specialist and Assistant Professor of Horticulture
Dr. Lily Calderwood, UMaine Extension Wild Blueberry Specialist and Assistant Professor of Horticulture

Dr. Lily Calderwood provides education and research for Maine’s wild (lowbush) blueberry industry. She conducts on-farm consultations, organizes field and classroom workshops, and the annual UMaine Wild Blueberry Conference. Educational material and research results are available on the Cooperative Extension: Maine Wild Blueberries website’s Wild Blueberry Publications page. You can also sign up for the Wild Blueberry Newsletter using the request form found on the sidebar on the Wild Blueberry Newsletter page.

Lily’s research and UMaine Extension work currently covers the following topics:

Weed Integrated Pest Management

Lily and her team are currently conducting a weed survey, a dogbane cutting experiment, an impact of foliar fertilizers, and organic soil amendments on weed pressure study, and she manages the 24C herbicide labeling process.

Wild Blueberry Agronomics

She is also exploring the impact of DAP fertilizer on tip midge insect pest pressure, the impact of foliar fertilizers and organic soil amendments on crop growth and pest pressure, and conducting a mulching study for water and soil organic matter management.

Wild Blueberries from Field to Consumer

While trained as an integrated pest management specialist and agronomist, Lily has worked with field crops and greenhouse production. Delivering a high-quality product-to-market is critical to the success of the Maine wild blueberry industry. Therefore, Lily has two blueberry quality projects. One explores the ideal cooling temperatures for wild blueberries to extend fresh pack shelf life and the second studies how wild blueberries ripen over the course of the four-week wild blueberry harvest in Maine.

Education:

  • Ph.D. in Plant and Soil Science from the University of Vermont (2015)
  • B.S in Biology and Environmental Studies from Wheaton College, MA (2009)