The Penobscot wild blueberry fields were especially fiery in yesterday morning’s early light. It seems that the colors of these “low bush” berry fields are peaking later and later and getting more intense, perhaps due to our increasingly warmer and wetter climate.
The plants’ various shades of red in the fall (and now, winter) are due to significant amounts of anthocyanin, a red pigment, being synthesized by the plant before its leaves drop. Anthocyanin is a flavonoid, a powerful antioxidant that helps make the blueberries a highly nutritious food.
Maine is the world’s largest harvester and marketer of these pea-sized, extra-sweet blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium). Unlike ordinary blueberries, these grow only in the wild; they can’t be planted like a commercial crop.
Nonetheless, many growers do bring commercially available bees to their fields for pollination and harvest the fruit mechanically. On the other hand, many growers still rake them up with tools invented in 1910. (Images taken in Penobscot, Maine, on November 23, 2021.)