An elderberry is a wild shrub. It grows by itself along ditches, fence rows and riverbanks across much of the eastern and midwestern United States — and lately farmers have started planting it in rows on purpose. In the 2022 Census of Agriculture USDA printed the acres of elderberry old enough to carry fruit for 39 states. Eight more are hidden behind USDA’s withheld mark, and three have no line in this table at all. Put these three in order, most-to-least.
Tapping assigns 1→3 in order
Berries! Finally, something I know. Berries come from cool, rainy places near a coast — Oregon, Maine, Michigan. I am going with a coast. Any coast. 🐾
2Answer
The order USDA printed is…
Missouri — 343 acres, about 5.81× what second-place Ohio printed, and close to a third of the 1,036 acres counted in the whole country. Now the careful part, because this table has holes in it. Eight states are hidden behind USDA’s withheld mark, and the printed figures fall 89 acres short of USDA’s national total — a gap that holds every state USDA did not print, plus whatever the rounding to whole acres hides. That gap is bigger than second place (59 acres), so a hidden state could in principle sit anywhere from second place downward. Only the top is safe: 343 is far bigger than 89, so Missouri is the country’s number one — and everything below it is the order USDA printed, not a proven national order. Here is the other thing this table is not. It is not a map of where elderberries grow. Missouri’s own Department of Conservation files the plant as a “Native Missouri shrub” and says where to find it in two words: “Common statewide.” It turns up in “pastures, old fields, gardens, railroads, roadsides, and disturbed areas” — in ditches, that is, and it does that in state after state. What USDA counted is the acres a farm keeps for selling and writes on its census form. Missouri’s conservation department puts the change like this: “A number of Missourians are now cultivating elderberries as a specialty crop, producing syrups, jellies, and wine.” Why the acres are thickest in Missouri, none of the sources used here says, and neither does this quiz. Two more things. Every fruiting elderberry acre on every farm in the country adds up to a bit more than one and a half square miles — the whole national crop would fit inside a small town. And second place here, Ohio, is the state at the top of the other new quiz on this site today. Biscuit’s Field Note is about the plant itself — a shrub with a poisonous half and an edible half, and what it takes to turn a ditch plant into a crop.
📚 BackgroundMissouri’s own Department of Conservation files this plant as a “Native Missouri shrub” and answers the question of where to find it in two words: “Common statewide.” Then it lists the places it turns up — “bottomland forests, mesic upland forests, banks of streams and rivers, margins of ponds, lakes, and sinkhole ponds, and upland prairies; also in pastures, old fields, gardens, railroads, roadsides, and disturbed areas.” Railroads and roadsides. This is a plant that grows in ditches, and it does that in state after state. What the table in this quiz counts is something else: the acres a farm keeps for selling and reports to USDA. Missouri’s conservation department describes that change in its own state in one sentence — “A number of Missourians are now cultivating elderberries as a specialty crop, producing syrups, jellies, and wine” — and adds why the results are expensive: “Elderberry products command high prices because of the labor involved in harvesting only the ripe berries from the clusters and then in separating the juicy pulp from the many seeds.” Alabama’s extension service, writing a production guide for farmers in a different state, describes the same shift in a single line: “Progress in elderberry breeding and management research has opened new possibilities for Alabama farmers to grow this historically consumed wild plant as a commercial crop.” A wild plant becoming a crop is the story here. Why the acres are thickest in Missouri, neither source says — and neither does this quiz.(Missouri Department of Conservation, Field Guide, “Common Elderberry” (Sambucus canadensis), sections Status, Habitat and Conservation, and Human Connections; Alabama Cooperative Extension System, “American Elderberry: Commercial Production Guide” (published 10 July 2024). Quotations unchanged)↗ (opens in a new tab)
Berries! Finally, something I know. Berries come from cool, rainy places near a coast — Oregon, Maine, Michigan. I am going with a coast. Any coast. 🐾
3Compare
Fruiting elderberry (acres, 2022)
🇺🇸 United States (national)1,036 acres
Missouri#1343 acres
Most: Missouri (343 acres). The national figure USDA prints is 1,036 acres. At 640 acres to the square mile, every fruiting elderberry acre on every farm in the country would fit inside a square about a mile and a quarter on a side.
Note: acres of elderberry old enough to carry fruit in 2022, from USDA’s five-yearly Census of Agriculture. This line counts land on farms — not pounds of berries, and not the wild bushes growing along roadsides and ditches. USDA prints a second elderberry line that also counts bushes too young to fruit; the same state leads that one. The United States bar is USDA’s own national figure. USDA NASS. USDA printed a fruiting elderberry acreage for 39 states. Eight — Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota and Utah — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms. Three states — Arizona, Hawaii and North Dakota — have no line in this table at all. The printed figures fall 89 acres short of USDA's national figure — a gap that holds every state USDA did not print, plus the rounding to whole acres. That gap is larger than the second-place figure, so only the first place here is certain to be a national first place; below that, this is the order USDA printed. A withheld state is not the same as a state growing none. This site re-runs those checks on every build.
USDA printed a fruiting elderberry acreage for 39 states. Eight — Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota and Utah — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms. Three states — Arizona, Hawaii and North Dakota — have no line in this table at all. The printed figures fall 89 acres short of USDA's national figure — a gap that holds every state USDA did not print, plus the rounding to whole acres. That gap is larger than the second-place figure, so only the first place here is certain to be a national first place; below that, this is the order USDA printed. A withheld state is not the same as a state growing none. This site re-runs those checks on every build.
Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (2022)
Sources
Data as of: 2022
USDA NASS Quick Stats: ELDERBERRIES - ACRES BEARING, 2022 Census of Agriculture, by state↗ (opens in a new tab) (2026-09-11) — Published values only (the committed raw file holds the API response verbatim). USDA printed a fruiting elderberry acreage for 39 states. Eight more — Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota and Utah — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms. Three states — Arizona, Hawaii and North Dakota — have no line in this table at all. The printed figures fall 89 acres short of USDA's national figure — a gap that holds every state USDA did not print, plus the rounding to whole acres. That gap is larger than the second-place figure of 59 acres, so only first place here is certain to be the national first place; below that, this is the order USDA printed, not a proven national order. A withheld state is not the same as a state growing none. This site re-runs those checks on every build.
↳ In Quick Stats, pick CENSUS / Census of Agriculture, year 2022, commodity ELDERBERRIES, short description ELDERBERRIES - ACRES BEARING, Total domain, and compare states.