I'm standing on a hillside, all around me are short shrubs with purple stems and

waxy leaves. A brisk December wind moves to the low-bush blueberry bushes, but

among the plants sits an odd sight, row after row of solar panels. You've heard of

solar farms and you've heard of blueberry farms, but a solar blueberry farm?

Probably not. This is the first farm to combine the two sun harvesters, and that

cambo could be vital as Earth's climate changes. Reporting from the coast of

Maine, I'm Taree Sekiri, and this is Scientific Americans' 60-Second Science.

In this area we've got the solar panels in the mind of the blueberry plants. Up here

is more open. We still have stone walls in there and some rock piles, but most of

the land is just open for the blueberry production. When it comes to raising

blueberries, Paul Sweetland has seen it all. I've been doing blueberries basically my

whole life, and it's been amazing to see how we've changed our cultural

practices over time. Sweetland farms mains low-bush blueberries. The tiny,

wild blueberries, the state is famous for. In fact, Maine is the only state in the

country where wild blueberries are commercially harvested. You can buy them in

grocery stores from Hawaii, to Texas, to Alaska. They're about half the size of

conventional blueberries, but with twice the antioxidants and even more flavor.

Way back, I don't know, probably 30 years ago pruning method was burning, so we used to

come in and burn the whole field. Originally, we all used hand-wrakes. We

won't be able to use them in here, but we have the tractor harvesters. There's

still a lot of blueberries right to buy a hat, but there's fewer, fewer people

willing to work that hard. Sweetland has tried every farming technique. He knows

...