Thanks for the vid. I now have a better understanding of why the U of S early varieties are not recommended for my zone 6b area. First time I've been able to see the problem on the wood.
Good videos.. I am in Zone 1 northern Manitoba and don't have these problems but will refer to you and your videos in mine for the benefit of southerners.
I am in NW central Sask. Am starting to set up an orchard this year. Am watching this in 2023. Thanks for all your videos and info. Have checked out your website as well.
I'm in The Netherlands, zone 8, actually warmer than 8 recently. We don't get high yields here, but premature bud break seems to be less of a problem with the right varieties. Dormancy is still no guarantee of a good harvest though. The yields go up after a cold winter, so it looks like for good fruit set there is a cold requirement anyway. I just looked at my bushes, they're mainly Saskatchewan bred varieties, and only Indigo Gem has budded a bit at the tops. The rest has stayed completely dormant since autumn. The best performing variety here in The Netherlands from Bob Bors' series is Honey Bee. Its calendar gets less thrown off by the climate here. All honey berry varieties start to bloom way earlier in our climate, but Honey Bee not so much, and it becomes a late blooming variety, even a little bit later than Boreal Beauty and the Beast. I'm not expecting good yields ever in my climate zone with these berries, but I like the berries, and I'm not a commercial grower, so all is okay, but for the future I would hope for breeding programs in warmer countries for this berry.
Have you tried any of Maxine Thompson's varieties? She has bred Japanese cultivars for growing in more moderate climates. So far her varieties are working well on our farm.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 Maxine's varieties are not available in Europe, as far as I know. But here's a series from Nova Scotia that has come available here recently and the first reports about them are good - I haven't got them personally. Those are late blooming varieties as well. My best bush is an anonymous Russian seedling; the first honey berry I ever got. Local plant breeders will sometimes work with seed to avoid the cost of working with registered varieties, and with luck a bush like that can turn out very well.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 The ones I meant are called Blue Treasure, Giant Heart, Blue Banana and Strawberry Sensation. In The Netherlands those varieties are sold as a quartet, said to have been bred in Nova Scotia. But I can't find any original breeder's info about those varieties now - although I think I remember some site in the past that... Well, I'm not sure now, but those are the varieties I meant, and they are looking promising until now in The Netherlands; no premature blooming and big berries - especially Giant Heart - but they haven't been available here for that long, so people haven't got mature bushes yet, and it's too early to say anything definitive about the yield.
Aurora is definitely one of the better ones to date, if not the best one. We have some planted, but they are still young plants. We did harvest a few berries from them this year and they were very productive for small plants.
That is what Maxine Thompson told me a few years ago. We have her latest varieties planted in another orchard, along with Bob's latest varieties too. Bob indicated that his Boreal Series will work well with Maxine's varieties. I have not been able to get my hands on any of her Yezberry varieties as of yet.
Thanks for sharing info on "fall bud break". I am in zone 5a, NH, 03855 and starting 3 varieties: Aurora, Borealis, and Honey Bee. I hope they thrive. At about the same latitude but inland as your farm, it looks like I am about a zone colder. A question: Do you think browning zone, which mainly indicates the average coldest temperature, is most relevant? Or is the number of "chill hours" a plant requires before it breaks dormancy more or equally relevant? (At least in regards to fall bud break; when a plant blooms in the spring may still be a problem if it blooms before cold weather is finished, I would think). I see you have a good set of videos on haskap/honey berry plants. Thanks and I’ll be watching them.
For haskap I have not seen any information about required chill hours. Ours typically go dormant by the end of August. If we get a week of cool weather and then high temperatures for a week some varieties will start waking up.
@@ttb1513 I think it is best to try several varieties in any location first before investing in a large amount of plants. There are other factors besides climate, like SWD, that can play a role in variety selection.
Well, those are two varieties I ordered for zone 6a here. The climate here in middle America vascillates worse than any shoreline climate ever thought about.
I’m in MN i got tons and tons of flowers this spring and had a very mild spring but we did have snow fall. There seems to be very very few berries on the bushes. They are tundra, Cinderella, borealis varieties. 5 yr old bushes… any idea whats going on?
That would actually create a greenhouse affect, and likely make it worse. Plus the extra costs for materials, installation and maintenance would not be worth it. That is hurricane and tropical storm season for us. The problem would occur in late October or early November where we would get a week of 20C + weather and very warm nights. This was enough to bring them out of dormancy. If this occurred our berry yield from these plants were greatly reduced in the following year. Using different varities is the best solution, plus you get better production from varities that are suited for your grow zone. They get pollinated better, and ripen more evenly due to a consistent bloom.
Where did you get your netting from I’ve had my haskaps over 20 years I live in Alaska my plant are over 6 foot high and do very well fruiting but the birds love them too.
In 4b you would be fine for any variety. We grow thorn less blackberries. At the moment we grow Chester, Triple crown and ARk-15. Trialing Loch Ness this year.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 Thanks for responding. I put Chester and Triple Crown thornless blackberries in the ground this spring, we’ll see if they survive what Maine’s winter has in store. Growing zone 5 plants in 4b..risky.
For us that is not economically feasible. We would end up doing that every 2-3 years as we add compost at that interval. Wood chips are too costly. Sourcing cardboard without a lot of ink or dye might be an issue, plus it might be an issue for our organic certification due to glues, and other chemicals, used in cardboard manufacturing. I can get 55 yard loads of wood shavings from a local saw mill that is cost effective and it spreads easily with our side discharge spreader. Weeds and grass are really not a major issue for us. I did try softwood wood chips a number of years ago on one row, and the plants did not seem to care for them. I observed much better results with wood shavings.
That orchard did have 4 different varities that all bloomed at the same time and were genetically different enough to pollinate each other. We also had plenty of bumble bee queens in the spring (roughly 20-30) per day, and our honey bees pollinating any flowers that survived the early bud break issues. The plants have been removed from this orchard as production was not reliable enough from year to year. We have two other orchards that produce well with mid-late blooming varities, and have minimal bud break during periods of warm weather in the dormant seasons.
hello, good morning...you have a spectacular honeyberry plantation...could you tell me what frame of plantation you have...? Thank you very much in advance.
We really do not fertilize them that extensively (ie. we do not use a 20-20-20 fertilizer like some places). After seeing quite a few other farms in the southern part of NS try and grow varities that are better suited in grow zones 2-5 there is absolutely no question that the only varieties that will work well on our farm are the ones classified in the late blooming category. By well I mean varities that produce expected yields. I have friends growing the same varities much further north and using a similar NMP. Their yields are significantly higher than ours, and other growers in my area that have the same varities. They also do not have issues with significant late fall bud break. We use the same NMP for our late blooming varities and we have excellent yields from them.
@@bobsmith8124 Thanks! Last fall we actually removed all of those nice looking plants and planted high bush blueberry. We have 2 other haskap orchards that are doing well so we needed to do something about this unproductive orchard.
Мaybe it's time to say to yourself: "No worries, these bushes still have lot's of leafs, and I can go and see if I can sell them to "Health store" chain? Leafs contain even more antioxidants than berries! Let's teach people not just to eat honeyberries but also drink tea from it!"
Yeah maybe, BUT I am pretty certain that the berries taste way better than the leaves. I have actually removed that orchard as of last year. It now has black raspberries in it instead. Our two other haskap orchards are producing well enough these days so we could change this orchard to something different.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 Do you know that black raspberries have a natural habit "to travel"? They sprout a very long stems which than put roots in the ground, and the older stems dye in a while. If you want them to stay in one spot, you have to prune the bush all the time. Isn't it too much hassle?
@@irenamoiseykina7724 we use trellising, so pretty easy to keep them in check. We are used to working with brambles most weeks during the growing season. So for us it is just a normal task.
Good day. Sorry, I don't know how you solved the rebloom problem. I am sending you a video of a speech by Tadeusz Kusibab (Poland), they solved this issue by continuing to irrigate after harvesting. th-cam.com/video/nuSn4feAiVM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=NzU2GO1VCdgSuG07
That may work in some areas where it could delay the plants from going into dormancy in August. The best solution is to purchase plants that you know will work in the grow zone that your orchard is located in. You have to keep in mind that our issues normally wouldn't show up until late October, and sometimes November. So for us to delay the plants going into dormancy probably wouldn't work so well. Our easiest solution was to remove the plants and plant better varities more suited to our location. We were given very bad advice in the beginning.
At the time, which was the early days for Haskap in our area, the so called 'experts' felt that our grow zone would not be an issue. For the first few years we did not have any serious issues. However, our winters have definitely become a lot milder, and we getting a lot warmer temperatures in the late fall. Anyway we followed the advice of the so called 'experts' and found out the hard way that they really had no idea what they were talking and were more interested in selling us plants.
Pruning did not help the issue. This orchard has now been converted to high bush blueberries and raspberries. Last year's yield off of this orchard was 152 lbs, where our newest haskap orchard, with much younger plants (different varities), yielded 1200 lbs..same amount of plants. We expect our newest haskap orchard to hit around 2500 lbs + a year based on how they are performing now. Some varities are producing 6 lbs a plant and they are only half grown. Looking back at the history of this orchard it never yielded anymore than 550 lbs in a year. The yields from this orchard should have been much, much higher. Our farm is just getting too warm for certain varities of different berry bushes. We have to be careful with selections. It should be noted that the varities that were in this orchard are only recommended for zones 2-5, we are zone 6b and definitely moving into zone 7a-7b most years. At the time of establishment we were told by a so called 'expert' that these varities would work on our farm. Lesson learned!!
Thanks for the vid. I now have a better understanding of why the U of S early varieties are not recommended for my zone 6b area. First time I've been able to see the problem on the wood.
Good videos.. I am in Zone 1 northern Manitoba and don't have these problems but will refer to you and your videos in mine for the benefit of southerners.
I am in NW central Sask. Am starting to set up an orchard this year. Am watching this in 2023. Thanks for all your videos and info. Have checked out your website as well.
Thanks for the comments. Glad to hear that you are starting a new haskap orchard.
I'm in The Netherlands, zone 8, actually warmer than 8 recently. We don't get high yields here, but premature bud break seems to be less of a problem with the right varieties. Dormancy is still no guarantee of a good harvest though. The yields go up after a cold winter, so it looks like for good fruit set there is a cold requirement anyway.
I just looked at my bushes, they're mainly Saskatchewan bred varieties, and only Indigo Gem has budded a bit at the tops. The rest has stayed completely dormant since autumn.
The best performing variety here in The Netherlands from Bob Bors' series is Honey Bee. Its calendar gets less thrown off by the climate here. All honey berry varieties start to bloom way earlier in our climate, but Honey Bee not so much, and it becomes a late blooming variety, even a little bit later than Boreal Beauty and the Beast.
I'm not expecting good yields ever in my climate zone with these berries, but I like the berries, and I'm not a commercial grower, so all is okay, but for the future I would hope for breeding programs in warmer countries for this berry.
Have you tried any of Maxine Thompson's varieties? She has bred Japanese cultivars for growing in more moderate climates. So far her varieties are working well on our farm.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 Maxine's varieties are not available in Europe, as far as I know. But here's a series from Nova Scotia that has come available here recently and the first reports about them are good - I haven't got them personally. Those are late blooming varieties as well.
My best bush is an anonymous Russian seedling; the first honey berry I ever got. Local plant breeders will sometimes work with seed to avoid the cost of working with registered varieties, and with luck a bush like that can turn out very well.
@@jangrouwstra3927 what variety is from Nova Scotia? As far as I am aware there are no haskap plant breeders in Nova Scotia.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 The ones I meant are called Blue Treasure, Giant Heart, Blue Banana and Strawberry Sensation. In The Netherlands those varieties are sold as a quartet, said to have been bred in Nova Scotia. But I can't find any original breeder's info about those varieties now - although I think I remember some site in the past that... Well, I'm not sure now, but those are the varieties I meant, and they are looking promising until now in The Netherlands; no premature blooming and big berries - especially Giant Heart - but they haven't been available here for that long, so people haven't got mature bushes yet, and it's too early to say anything definitive about the yield.
@@jangrouwstra3927 those are varieties bred in the USA by Berries Unlimited.
I like Aurora the best. I have 6 plants. Then I have Borealis as pollinator, which is too tart for my taste.
Aurora is definitely one of the better ones to date, if not the best one. We have some planted, but they are still young plants. We did harvest a few berries from them this year and they were very productive for small plants.
In warmer temps Solo and Maxie work well. Productive and has 18 brix read. Where did you get the netting and wire setup?
That is what Maxine Thompson told me a few years ago. We have her latest varieties planted in another orchard, along with Bob's latest varieties too. Bob indicated that his Boreal Series will work well with Maxine's varieties. I have not been able to get my hands on any of her Yezberry varieties as of yet.
Thanks for sharing info on "fall bud break". I am in zone 5a, NH, 03855 and starting 3 varieties: Aurora, Borealis, and Honey Bee. I hope they thrive. At about the same latitude but inland as your farm, it looks like I am about a zone colder.
A question: Do you think browning zone, which mainly indicates the average coldest temperature, is most relevant? Or is the number of "chill hours" a plant requires before it breaks dormancy more or equally relevant? (At least in regards to fall bud break; when a plant blooms in the spring may still be a problem if it blooms before cold weather is finished, I would think).
I see you have a good set of videos on haskap/honey berry plants. Thanks and I’ll be watching them.
For haskap I have not seen any information about required chill hours. Ours typically go dormant by the end of August. If we get a week of cool weather and then high temperatures for a week some varieties will start waking up.
Thanks for the reply. I’m understanding that finding the right haskap varieties for my climate is more critical and finicky than I thought.
@@ttb1513 I think it is best to try several varieties in any location first before investing in a large amount of plants. There are other factors besides climate, like SWD, that can play a role in variety selection.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 SWD?
@@bobsmith8124 Not on our farm. SWD does not appear to be a big problem in Nova Scotia at this time.
Well, those are two varieties I ordered for zone 6a here. The climate here in middle America vascillates worse than any shoreline climate ever thought about.
I’m in MN i got tons and tons of flowers this spring and had a very mild spring but we did have snow fall. There seems to be very very few berries on the bushes. They are tundra, Cinderella, borealis varieties. 5 yr old bushes… any idea whats going on?
Did you have bees? Those varieties should work together. They should have bloomed together as well.
Easy, Cover them with white cloth to keep temperatures down in winters... 😊
That would actually create a greenhouse affect, and likely make it worse. Plus the extra costs for materials, installation and maintenance would not be worth it. That is hurricane and tropical storm season for us.
The problem would occur in late October or early November where we would get a week of 20C + weather and very warm nights. This was enough to bring them out of dormancy. If this occurred our berry yield from these plants were greatly reduced in the following year.
Using different varities is the best solution, plus you get better production from varities that are suited for your grow zone. They get pollinated better, and ripen more evenly due to a consistent bloom.
Thanks for the video! What's the name of the article you're referring too that discusses how far south you can grow Haskap berries?
research-groups.usask.ca/fruit/documents/haskap/How-far-south-can-Haskap-be-grown.pdf
Where did you get your netting from I’ve had my haskaps over 20 years I live in Alaska my plant are over 6 foot high and do very well fruiting but the birds love them too.
duboisag.com/ca_fr/filet-anti-oiseaux-proteknet-blanc--sur-structure-.html
I’m in 4b and hoping to get up to 5 to grow thornless blackberries. I have no problems with Haskap bushes.
In 4b you would be fine for any variety. We grow thorn less blackberries. At the moment we grow Chester, Triple crown and ARk-15. Trialing Loch Ness this year.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 Thanks for responding. I put Chester and Triple Crown thornless blackberries in the ground this spring, we’ll see if they survive what Maine’s winter has in store. Growing zone 5 plants in 4b..risky.
Put cardboard with woodchips on top to stop the weeds and grass. It's called the "back to eden" technique.
For us that is not economically feasible. We would end up doing that every 2-3 years as we add compost at that interval. Wood chips are too costly. Sourcing cardboard without a lot of ink or dye might be an issue, plus it might be an issue for our organic certification due to glues, and other chemicals, used in cardboard manufacturing.
I can get 55 yard loads of wood shavings from a local saw mill that is cost effective and it spreads easily with our side discharge spreader. Weeds and grass are really not a major issue for us.
I did try softwood wood chips a number of years ago on one row, and the plants did not seem to care for them. I observed much better results with wood shavings.
do you have 2 different types? you might need more polinators, also might want to switch it up every other bush a different verity
That orchard did have 4 different varities that all bloomed at the same time and were genetically different enough to pollinate each other. We also had plenty of bumble bee queens in the spring (roughly 20-30) per day, and our honey bees pollinating any flowers that survived the early bud break issues.
The plants have been removed from this orchard as production was not reliable enough from year to year. We have two other orchards that produce well with mid-late blooming varities, and have minimal bud break during periods of warm weather in the dormant seasons.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 k
hello, good morning...you have a spectacular honeyberry plantation...could you tell me what frame of plantation you have...?
Thank you very much in advance.
Those are Tundra, Indigo Gem, and Berry Blue.
Good info, what plant spacing are you using for aurora?
That orchard has 3' spacing. In my other orchards I use 4'.
Could you provide links to the products, especially netting?
We get a lot things from these guys (including netting): duboisag.com/ca_en/
Have you tried not fertilizing any of them so extensively?
We really do not fertilize them that extensively (ie. we do not use a 20-20-20 fertilizer like some places).
After seeing quite a few other farms in the southern part of NS try and grow varities that are better suited in grow zones 2-5 there is absolutely no question that the only varieties that will work well on our farm are the ones classified in the late blooming category. By well I mean varities that produce expected yields. I have friends growing the same varities much further north and using a similar NMP. Their yields are significantly higher than ours, and other growers in my area that have the same varities. They also do not have issues with significant late fall bud break. We use the same NMP for our late blooming varities and we have excellent yields from them.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 glad you hear of your success
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 to hear *
@@bobsmith8124 Thanks! Last fall we actually removed all of those nice looking plants and planted high bush blueberry. We have 2 other haskap orchards that are doing well so we needed to do something about this unproductive orchard.
where do you get the netting to?
duboisag.com/ca_en/proteknet-bird-netting.html
u in bc ... i need haskaps... :)
No we are on the east coast. There are quite a few suppliers for haskap plants in BC.
Where are you located?
Nova Scotia, Canada
Мaybe it's time to say to yourself: "No worries, these bushes still have lot's of leafs, and I can go and see if I can sell them to "Health store" chain? Leafs contain even more antioxidants than berries! Let's teach people not just to eat honeyberries but also drink tea from it!"
Yeah maybe, BUT I am pretty certain that the berries taste way better than the leaves.
I have actually removed that orchard as of last year. It now has black raspberries in it instead. Our two other haskap orchards are producing well enough these days so we could change this orchard to something different.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 Do you know that black raspberries have a natural habit "to travel"? They sprout a very long stems which than put roots in the ground, and the older stems dye in a while. If you want them to stay in one spot, you have to prune the bush all the time. Isn't it too much hassle?
@@irenamoiseykina7724 we prune our raspberries and blackberries on a regular basis. With cane cutters it is piece of cake.
@@lahaveriverberryfarm2347 It is good than that it is YOUR piece of cake!))
@@irenamoiseykina7724 we use trellising, so pretty easy to keep them in check. We are used to working with brambles most weeks during the growing season. So for us it is just a normal task.
Good day. Sorry, I don't know how you solved the rebloom problem. I am sending you a video of a speech by Tadeusz Kusibab (Poland), they solved this issue by continuing to irrigate after harvesting.
th-cam.com/video/nuSn4feAiVM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=NzU2GO1VCdgSuG07
That may work in some areas where it could delay the plants from going into dormancy in August. The best solution is to purchase plants that you know will work in the grow zone that your orchard is located in. You have to keep in mind that our issues normally wouldn't show up until late October, and sometimes November. So for us to delay the plants going into dormancy probably wouldn't work so well. Our easiest solution was to remove the plants and plant better varities more suited to our location. We were given very bad advice in the beginning.
Unfortunately you should have done better research first your zone
At the time, which was the early days for Haskap in our area, the so called 'experts' felt that our grow zone would not be an issue. For the first few years we did not have any serious issues. However, our winters have definitely become a lot milder, and we getting a lot warmer temperatures in the late fall.
Anyway we followed the advice of the so called 'experts' and found out the hard way that they really had no idea what they were talking and were more interested in selling us plants.
Cut them. Trim them.
Pruning did not help the issue. This orchard has now been converted to high bush blueberries and raspberries. Last year's yield off of this orchard was 152 lbs, where our newest haskap orchard, with much younger plants (different varities), yielded 1200 lbs..same amount of plants. We expect our newest haskap orchard to hit around 2500 lbs + a year based on how they are performing now. Some varities are producing 6 lbs a plant and they are only half grown. Looking back at the history of this orchard it never yielded anymore than 550 lbs in a year. The yields from this orchard should have been much, much higher.
Our farm is just getting too warm for certain varities of different berry bushes. We have to be careful with selections. It should be noted that the varities that were in this orchard are only recommended for zones 2-5, we are zone 6b and definitely moving into zone 7a-7b most years. At the time of establishment we were told by a so called 'expert' that these varities would work on our farm. Lesson learned!!