PLANT CITY, Fla. — For some farms in the Tampa Bay area, blueberry season is getting a late start because of last year’s hurricanes.

Wish Farms in Plant City will open its “u-pick” this weekend. It has taken awhile to recover after floodwaters devastated the crop.

Blueberry season is a time Wish Farms looks forward to, welcoming people to pick their own berries. But the upkeep to this berry isn’t as simple as one might think.

“We’re trying to drone this year with a loudspeaker on it playing hawk noises,” says farm manager Joe Baroody.

It is technology Wish Farms just started using to scare the cedar waxwings away from the blueberry crop.

Baroody says the birds are a big problem every year, often hiding in trees, looking to pick from the property.

“About three years ago they ate about 85 percent of our crop,” he says.

So other methods are also utilized.

But the birds aren’t the only issue this year. Baroody says Hurricane Milton set them back a month.

“This whole field was knocked over, we didn’t have the trellising up just yet where all the wires are for the bigger plants,” he said. “The whole field was knocked over. It was flooded.”

Then cold weather hit, which Baroody says didn’t allow the blueberries to ripen as soon.

Despite those challenges, farmworkers say they’ve managed to produce a good crop this year with plenty of blooms.

“Usually we have ripe fruit in early March, goes through to about early May, give or take,” he said. “This year, we didn’t start getting ripe fruit until early April.”

With two and a half acres of blueberries, Baroody says their journey to get there was worth it.

“The fruit is coming in great now. It’s really abundant and it’s looking real nice,” he says.

A small setback for a high yield — one he hopes people will enjoy one blueberry at a time.

Wish Farms u-pick will open on Saturday at their headquarters in Plant City from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.