Facts about Blueberry
Species whose English common names include "blueberry" typically are classified in section Cyanococcus of the subgenus Vaccinium.
The most important blueberry breeding program has been the USDA-ARS breeding program based at Beltsville, Maryland, and Chatsworth, New Jersey.
The wild blueberry is the official fruit of Maine and is often as much a symbol of Maine as the lobster.
The lowbush blueberry, V. angustifolium, is found from Newfoundland westward and southward to Michigan and West Virginia.
Beginning around 2003, pure or blended blueberry juice has become a popular product in Canada and the United States.
Blueberry is the common name for flowering plants in the genus Vaccinium, sect.
Usually made from wild blueberries, premium blueberry jam is common in Maine, Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia.
By the early 1980s, the blueberry industry was started in New Zealand and is still growing (BNZ 2007).
V. ashei) is a southern type of blueberry produced from the Carolinas to the Gulf Coast states.
Quebec has the largest quantity of wild blueberry production, coming especially from the regions of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and Cфte-Nord, which provide 40 percent of Quebec's total provincial production.
Rubel', one such wild blueberry cultivar, is the origin of many of the current hybrid cultivars.
Blueberry production in North America typically starts in mid-May (in Florida) and ends in September, when some fruit is held over in controlled-atmosphere storage in Oregon, Washington, and Canada (Gaskell 2006).
Blueberry bushes typically bear fruit from May through October in the Northern Hemisphere.
Many towns in Maine lay claim to being the blueberry capital and several festivals are centered around the blueberry.
Other important species in North America include V. pallidum, the Hillside or Dryland Blueberry.
Other animal studies found that blueberry consumption lowered cholesterol and total blood lipid levels, possibly affecting symptoms of heart disease (DeNoon 2004).
Maine's 24,291 hectares (60,023 acres) of blueberry were propagated from native plants that occur naturally in the understorey of its coastal forests (Stubbs and Drummond).
Additional research showed that blueberry consumption in rats altered glycosaminoglycans, vascular cell components that can influence control of blood pressure (Kalea et al.
In Argentina, blueberry marketing begins in September and ends in February (Gain 2005).
Blueberry jam is made from blueberries, sugar, water, and fruit pectin.
The names of blue berries in languages other than English often translate as "blueberry," e.g.
The blueberry belongs to the Ericaceae family of flowering plants.
Lowbush species are fire-tolerant and blueberry production often increases following a forest fire as the plants regenerate rapidly and benefit from removal of competing vegetation.
Research at Rutgers at the Philip E. Marucci Center for Blueberry & Cranberry Research & Extension has also shown that blueberries may help prevent urinary tract infections.
Researchers have shown that blueberry anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, flavonols, and tannins inhibit mechanisms of cancer cell development in vitro (Srivastava et al.