IMPE, they should fall off easily with only a touch. If you have to exert any force they're not ripe yet.

yeah.... im with flora.. insert in mouth.. eat.. opine ... lol

ken

Carol's right. If they release with a gentle roll from your finger and thumb they're ripe.

Are the blueberries in a commercial U-pick field or are they in a home garden?

The home gardener may be anxious to try first-crop berries before they are ripe.

If there are no berries on the ground, there are not many fully-ripe berries on the bush.

Give the bush a jostle and see if anything falls, then use the Carol advice above.

U-pick fields are a different situation as fruit in all phases of color are handled and may end up on the ground.

Blueberries and caneberries are typically harvested every 3 days once the first fully ripe berries occur.

Usually if the birds haven't eaten them yet, they aren't ripe. Unfortunately that system has its flaws :P

At my own home. Protected by bird netting (fortunately -- they already stripped an old scrub cherry clean). So they should fall if I barely touch them or brush against them, is what I'm gathering from the above.

I have five pretty healthy blueberry shrubs a bit vintage at this point but still producing. Covered every year with netting when close to ripe. I just lay down a clean old white sheet under my bushes and tenderly rub the berries. Ripe ones fall to the sheet. Even a shake will release the ripe berries.

Just ordered 4 new young bushes to keep the harvest going.

One or more should fall when jostled; then there will be many on the bush that will come off with little effort. A jostle is more than a touch or a brush.

Some way with any fruit.

Do you live near the plants, my hundred plants are 18 miles from my home.

Do you check them daily?

They are ripe when they taste ripe.

Since we are talking about blueberries, I thought I'd remind you that this is the time to prune them and take out oldest branches. We just have cold here in NC but if you have snow where you are you can wait until the sun melts it, then prune.

Here in South Carolina, my plants are in full bloom.