Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction and Welcome
The following program does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Reality Radio 101, its advertisers and sponsors, or its listening audience. Listener discretion is advised.
Welcome to the Urban Forestry Radio Show, here on Reality Radio 101. In this radio show and podcast, we learn about fruit trees, permaculture, aboriculture, and so much more. So if you love trees, and especially fruit trees, Or if you're interested in living a more sustainable life, then this is the place for you.
I'm your host, Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care training website, OrchardPeople. com. Thanks for tuning in. And enjoy the show.
Welcome to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner. To contact Susan live right now, send her an email instudio101@gmail. com.
And now right to your host of the Urban Forestry Radio Show, Susan Poizner. Hi, everybody.
[00:01:23] The Benefits and Challenges of Growing Berries
Berries are supposed to be so healthy for us. They're high in antioxidants and they're supposed to fight off cancer and chronic disease. So it would be so fantastic to eat fresh berries every day. The problem is that when I go to the grocery store to buy them, they can be really expensive.
In my city, a tiny package 6 and it looks like these expensive packages contain maybe about two tablespoons of berries. It's true that if I shop around, I can get a better deal, but wouldn't it be better if I just grew my own berries? Now, after 10 years of experience, I know how to grow fruit trees, but berries are still relatively new to me.
I want my berry growing experiences to be easy. that's the topic of today's episode of the Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast, Easy Berries. What are they? How and where do you grow them? And Do they taste as good as, or better than, supermarket fruit?
[00:02:33] Guest Introduction: Bob Bors
My special guest today is Bob Bors, co author of the book, Growing Fruit in Northern Gardens, and the head of the fruit breeding program of the University of Saskatchewan. So now my special guest, Bob Bors, is on the line. Bob, thank you so much for coming on the show today. thanks for having me, Susan. we all, if you heard my little introduction there, we all want to grow organic stuff, an abundance of it, and berries are so wonderful and delicious.
But is there really such a thing as a berry plant that almost grows itself? you really need to know some basic information about each crop, but there are some that are a lot easier. Although there is a tendency for what I call the Garden of Eden complex where people think if I plant it, it'll just grow magically.
I understand that one. That's where I started ten years ago with fruit trees. And I guess you study this stuff and you know how much really is involved, whether it's with fruit trees or berries, that there are some, things you do need to do to keep those, trees and shrubs and plants healthy and productive.
Yeah, and. The biggest barrier to growing it easy is, not having weeds. that compete with the plants. we had some bush cherries, right? Not the tree ones. And we had grass growing next to them. And they stayed stunted for seven years. And the other ones were full grown in five years and producing fruit.
And, yeah, so that's that's the biggest, and I think that's a really perfect example because you do see that a lot where people, whether it's fruit trees or bushes, people want to maximize their space, and they will plant, for instance, their shrub surrounded by strawberry plants or, whatever else or weeds.
and, I guess it really. does end up being a battle who gets the water and nutrition between the competition, whether it's the weeds or the other plants, and then the actual tree or berry shrub. Yeah. Yeah. is there, I'm just curious since you brought it up, is there a rule who will win the battle?
Would it be the more established plant? are there some weeds that actually take more energy than others? I think grass is more invasive than other stuff. Maybe I'll just tell a short story. My first fruit class, the professor asked us, How big, how old do you think these apple trees are?
And, I shot up my hand and said, Twelve years old, because that's how old my dad's apple tree is, the same age, and he laughed and said, No, it's five years old. But my dad had dug a little hole in his grass and planted the pot there. And weeds grew right up to it, and it just took forever to grow up. So again it just goes to show what, conditions and hands on care that you offer that plant.
[00:05:54] Serviceberries: An Easy Berry to Grow
it's funny, again coming from my background as a community orchardist, and so we don't grow a lot of berries, but one thing that we do have in our orchard park is serviceberries. Which is, do you want to talk about serviceberries? They go by different names. As far as I'm concerned, for us here in Ontario, it's one of the easiest trees that I have, grown, and the fruit is so delicious.
So tell us about serviceberries. serviceberries are actually Amelanchier alnifolia, more commonly known as Saskatoons, and It's actually derived from a native name that starts sounding like Saska and ends in toon, but goes on for ever and ever with other syllables. Yes. And when the Europeans first heard it, actually that's how they named Saskatoon, the guy.
He was asking the native guy, What's the name of that village over there? And the native guy thought he was pointing to Saskatoon bushes. And he said this name, and the guy wrote it down as Saskatoon, and that's how the city of Saskatoon got named after the berry.
But, anyway, the, Saskatoon bush is a relative of apples, and it tends to have a mild flavor, but it grows as a bush. And actually, bushes are a lot easier to maintain than like an apple tree, because you just let them grow, the branches grow fairly high, and then you thin them out from the bottom for pruning.
you're not trying to shape a bush, but you just thin it every now and then. Like when a branch gets seven or ten years old, you cut it out from the bottom and let new ones start. And why is that? Why would the old branches be? Are they less productive for some reason? they, keep producing fruit on last year's wood.
So eventually your fruit is so tall and out of reach you can't even pick it without bending the whole bush over. So in, in essence from pruning or cutting those branches off from the bottom, the older branches, you're actually bringing down the height of your bush, Yeah, and you're partially rejuvenating it.
And it's a general principle that they actually studied in Saskatoons, but we use it on other fruits, is that you never remove more than 25 percent of your bush in a year. Because if you go more than 25 percent thinning, then the plant goes vegetative and doesn't make many flowers the next season.
So if you want production to keep going, then often you'll just You know, thin out a few old branches every year, and let's say you had 12, and you'd go for three of them, and it's very simple. It only takes a few moments to cut those, versus a tree fruit, you're shaping them to hold the heavy weight of the apples or plums or whatever else you're growing.
okay, so let's talk about, we'll talk about cultivars and different types of these serviceberries. but what, does the fruit taste like? It's a sweet, mild flavor. It's not very acidic. they do have seeds that irritate some people. But when you cook them, the seeds get soft, so then you don't notice.
They make nice pies. yeah. I find them incredibly productive. I love them. I find them very blueberry like in a way. And on our tree, and I don't know where it's a shrubby tree, we wait till the berries are they're beautiful little red berries, but we wait till they turn a sort of darker purple and somehow they're sweeter that way.
Is that a common thing with different types of Saskatoon or serviceberries? Yeah, and I would like to make it one of my favorite generalizations is, a lot of the purple fruits look purple four or five days before they're really ripe all the way through. Ooh. Because if you pick them as soon as they're purple, usually they're not ready yet.
huh. Saskatoons will get a pinkish tint, but they'll taste better. blueberries are the same way. They won't taste good when they first turn. And, haskap berries, they also don't. they're actually green on the middle and they'll turn purple inside when they're ready. with these, and again, this confuses a lot of people, including myself, so when I buy a serviceberry plant, shrub, they can look like trees, and they do sometimes prune them into trees so that you have one central trunk.
I feel like I've just purchased a native tree to North America. I don't know if that's correct or not, but I know that there are different cultivars and I don't know how different those cultivars are. and how that all works. so could you talk a little bit about, is there a difference between serviceberries and Saskatoon berries?
Is there a flavor difference? Is it a different cultivar? there's actually 17 species of Amelanchier in North America, and it goes all the way down to Mexico. but, the most flavorful one is the alnifolia, which is most likely what they're selling. and, I think all the cultivars except one were actually just wild ones that they found, somebody found and named it.
and the one that was not in the wild was just a seedling of one that was from the wild. It wasn't even crossbred to anything else. So when I'm getting a cultivar, this will be a grafted shrub? Is that possible? no, they're on their own roots. And they will actually make rhizomes and spread.
but the Saskatoon rhizomes are really tough. they're hard to dig out. But they can spread. It's probably better to any of the spreading shrubs to have them be their own little garden. Not, don't put them in the edge of your vegetable garden because they'll want to take over eventually.
Really? But Saskatoons aren't as bad as some of the other ones, like raspberries. Oh, yeah. but I have never noticed that a Saskatoon or a serviceberry tree spreads hugely. we, like our oldest one is 10 years old and it takes up space and it's like a tree. Like I, I leave it like a tree with space around it like a tree, but doesn't seem to be crawling all over the park.
There was some studies initiated that showed if you, if they're planted shallowly, they don't spread as much. huh. So it depends on how, maybe the original planting. Because it's harder for it to do, suckering if it was planted rather shallow. And so that might, it might be that tree form is, delaying any rhizomes.
Maybe, yes. Now. I find that, and you write about in particular in your book about growing fruit in cooler climates. now what kind of range, like where can people grow serviceberry trees quite easily? I think, most areas in Canada, you tend to have probably in Southern Ontario and, Southern BC, it might be on the warm side, you might have more diseases.
they tend to get leaf diseases if the conditions are wet and warm during springtime. in Saskatchewan, we'll lose a crop every four or five years if we have a spring like that. unless you're spraying, with sulfur or something to stop fungal. So what you're saying is that the warmer your climate, the less healthy your Amelanchier or serviceberry tree or shrub will be.
But there's different species, that don't taste as good, they also call them juneberries, and that's actually a different species that's more into the U. S. than So tell me about juneberries. I always wondered about that. I don't know too much about them, but where did they get their name from?
Like here in June, they bear fruit in June in the South, but Saskatoons are usually a July crop here in Saskatchewan. So a Juneberry is related, but perhaps in the more Southern climates, we have lots of listeners in the States as well. So they may be more familiar with the juneberries. But it's a little confused because some people call the Saskatoon species juneberries.
Okay, somebody's trying to confuse us all here with all these different names for the same plant. I protest. This is not good. we're talking about one plant, the Amelanchier plant. Just to confuse things even more, which I like to do from time to time, there is apparently one that you mentioned to me that there's an Amelanchier that can be grown as far south as Mexico.
Denticulate is what I found on the internet. Oh, okay. Yeah, D E N T I C U L A T E. How did you hear about that? I was at a conference where I was asked to talk about Saskatoon berries in the international. And somebody in the conference was from Mexico who had studied the other plant. And it has pink fruit instead of blue.
I would love to know if any listeners have tried to grow that. That would be super interesting, and if it tastes as good as well. apparently it's a thing to go, people gather it in the wild in Mexico. I don't think it's the southern part of Mexico, but it was a wide range over the northern part. Hey, so it is in North America, serviceberries are native, right?
They were here, forever. Yeah. So is this something that First Nations had used to make a certain type of food? Do I have some sort of recollection about that? Did they dry it and use it for I think they used it in pemmican a lot. So mix it with meat. Yeah. Yeah. And the bit of acidity helps preserve, I guess the meat better or something? I, gotta say that for, myself, for easy berries, that is my top one. I totally love the taste. I love how easy they are, at least for us in the cooler climates to grow. So I'd love to hear from listeners and folks to see have you been successful serviceberries, with juneberries, whatever you want to call them, even though it just confuses everybody to call them different names.
So that's interesting. One other one that I want to talk to, we've got some questions and some comments here.
[00:17:02] Elderberries: Another Easy Option
The other one that I personally find incredibly easy to grow is elderberries. Now, I had a beautiful elderberry bush in my backyard for many years. Gorgeous, the insects love it. The blossoms are beautiful and can be made into elderberry champagne.
the berries for me were small and finicky. So I never really used the berries, but during a visit to Chicago, I discovered that there is an amazing cultivar that was in a community garden there that was heavy with fruit. They were big berries too. So you could just snip off the fruit and make it into jam and stuff.
So yeah, I was looking up, there are some different cultivars. do you guys grow elderberries? No, we don't grow them. I've seen them growing in Oregon. They had a gene, Gene bank collection there. Okay. Yeah, so those are another of my favorite. And just doing a quick internet search, I saw some of the big buried cultivars.
There are some names. Blue, York, or Adams. so those ones are super easy. and that's a lot of fun. Now, I've just got a few comments from Liz. And this is from Facebook in particular. We've got Tom in Ohio. I had asked, what is your favorite easy berry to grow? So Tom in Ohio writes strawberry.
He likes it because it can be propagated by division and by seed. and he says raspberry tip layers are easy peasy. So Tom in Ohio is talking about he likes growing these fruit because it's so easy to propagate them and spread them. Yeah, and the tip layering, he must be either growing purples or black raspberries.
Because those are the ones that tip layer. The red raspberries don't do that very well. And what is tip layering exactly? Tip layer is where the branch leans over and can touch the ground and then it will re root. Oh, that is so easy. You can do that with yellow dogwoods as well, can't you? Yeah, but they do it naturally, the black raspberries.
But the purple raspberry is a hybrid between the red and black. Okay. And it has the ability to do that also. Now, are the black raspberries as tasty as the red? In the past, I've had them and they're quite seedy. I don't know if that was just a not very nice cultivar or they tend to have smaller fruit, but the, I think the same size seed.
relatively speaking, it seems like there's more raspberries. So But they have a, quite a different flavor to them. I don't know if you'd say it's a little tinge of black current added to a raspberry. I grew up with my, they were in my grandfather's, the hill behind his house. And that's what I grew up eating, when I visited him.
And that was in New York State. So you didn't find them too seedy to be enjoyable? My wife hates raspberries because of the seeds. And I always say, why is she chewing them so hard? you just swallow those seeds down there. Okay, But, yeah, They actually, if you look at their seed under the microscope, it looks like a peach pit.
It's highly corrugated and shaped in a wedge shape that's easy to get stuck in your teeth. Okay. Versus some other fruits don't have that shape of fruit, or they're small. strawberries have a similar shape, but they're half the size and smooth. So they don't, people don't get annoyed with strawberry seeds.
No, you don't really notice them. Yeah.
[00:20:46] Raspberries: Tips and Tricks
It's interesting because online, on Facebook, it seemed that the common, everybody felt that raspberries were for them the easy berries. Now, here I've got Henry from Wisconsin writes raspberries as his favourite, by the way. We cut them down each winter and let them grow all year.
No need to weed as they choke out the weeds. another reason why people like raspberries. Yeah. And, raspberries are, you have to remember there's summer and fall bearing raspberries and the summer berry bears the fall bearing ones. You cut them to the ground and they come up and they fruit later on in the year, usually end of August, September in our climate.
So they're even less care than the other ones where you have to cut out the dead canes and let the young ones grow. Okay, yeah, so that's the tricky thing with raspberries, isn't it? Oh my goodness, you've just got to make sure you know what cultivar you have because Henry talks about the ones you can cut down each winter and then you'll get it on the first, you'll get berries on your first year wood, but if you get the wrong thing, you'll never have any berries.
But, when I think of raspberries, I think in my university, I had a soil scientist come up and berate me in the hallway for, Because we have a plant sale, and she says, You should have a warning on every raspberry plant. I planted one of your plants and it's taken over the whole garden. exactly.
And so I think raspberries, it's really nice to have a separate area for them. Yeah. Like a little island in your lawn, their own little garden, and if they try to escape, you mow them down when you cut the grass. I think that's a good idea, and I think that's why raspberries are challenging for urban growers.
if you don't have a big backyard, that might not be the best bet. Yeah. Oh, I should tell you one of my favorite, consumer tricks with raspberries. Oh, do! The, the breeders of raspberries for The store ones, they've actually bred their raspberries to be a bright, light red. And they said people think they're not quite ripened, they'll last longer.
But it's not true. A dark red raspberry lasts just as long as a light red one. They don't actually ripen off the bush. yeah, they make these big ones in the grocery store, and there's no reason for them to be red. And actually, the purple raspberries are much more productive and bigger, but because they're a darker color People think they're rotting or something, but it's not true.
Wow. Okay, I just realized we have loads of questions that somehow I missed.
[00:23:34] Haskaps: The New Berry on the Block
Sorry guys, so in the first part of the show, we chatted about growing serviceberries and elderberries, but Bob, you played a role in breeding Haskaps, which is a relatively new type of berry.
We've got a question about that from Brent. Can you just tell me a little bit about what are haskaps? they're a member of the honeysuckle family. they have a berry that's, often long and blue. Most similar, I think, to blueberries and raspberry sort of flavor. they're exciting because they're the first fruit to ripen in the year before strawberries.
And, they're very cold hardy. And you can use them in lots of things, like you can make wine with them, you can make jam, you can put them in, like almost anything you do with berry. you could make a pie with it, but they're soft, so it would turn into a, like a mush. Mushy pie, maybe a pudding. Yeah, they're actually very delicious.
I've had some fresh ones before. So, Brent writes here. Hello Susan, this is Brent from Michigan. Tell Bob I love his work with haskaps. Does he have any new information on his new varieties of haskaps, blizzard, beauty, and beast? You're good at naming your varieties by the way. Like what pollinator is the best for blizzard?
Thanks, Susan. Love the show and can't wait to read Bob's new book. the three were, meant to pollinate each other. Beast pollinates Blizzard and Beauty. huh. And they pollinate each other. One of the misconceptions with the haskap is they think one is a pollinator and the other one isn't, but they both pollinate each other.
if you got a Beauty and the Beast, Beauty and the Beast, they would pollinate each other. Okay. Or if you had, but, blizzard fruits first and blooms a little bit early, then beast, and then beauty. So you just need to make sure they're all flowering at the same time. Is that all you need to consider?
the species, some plants bloom earlier than others. And it doesn't, it matters if you have a slowly warming spring, it spreads them all out. The early ones might be, two weeks before the other ones bloom. But in a year where, it warms up really quickly, they overlap very easily. Okay. Okay.
But that's the same with any fruit. that have to be cross pollinated.
[00:26:17] Synchronizing Fruit Blooming
They have to be in sync. And, like this year, we had a delayed spring and then it warmed up quickly. All our fruits were blooming at the same time, practically. So everything could have cross pollinated everything else. Like even if the cultivars weren't really 100 percent matched up.
[00:26:38] Haskaps: The Resilient Berry
that, yeah, haskaps are very delicious. and so you feel that they're easy to grow. They have very few problems. Yeah. they can take minus seven to an open flower and they won't lose the fruit. And they usually, in our location, the earliest ones bloom a month before the last frost.
And around the time of the last frost, they're starting to change color already. that's super fast. Often, two weeks before bloom. Strawberries would be ripe in our location, but we've been breeding them to last longer and longer to have different varieties that could both coincide with strawberries or be after strawberry season.
Wow. So those three were actually designed to be, the blizzard is early July, beast is mid July, and beauty is end of July.
[00:27:37] Breeding and Flavor of Haskaps
And so what's special in terms of flavor are these cultivars, do they taste very different or? our varieties taste pretty good. The, Haskap has the oldest varieties that were released something 50 years ago tasted like tonic water.
And some of the Russians actually bred them to be a tonic water replacement for adding to vodka. Oh my goodness. And unfortunately, those were the first varieties that came to North America. it really turned off people on the whole crop. But in the 90s, 1990s, some people brought over better flavored ones.
And we started breeding them around the year 2001. And, some of them taste really good. Some are lower acid. But they have very complex flavors, like wine grapes. Some of those taste like haskap, and it depends on the variety. Delish. Yeah, the ones that I tried were really good.
[00:28:44] Listener Questions: Blueberries, Currants, and Blackberries
We've got a question here. Oh, this is really nice. This is from Alicia. I don't know where she's from. Let's see. She says, Hi Susan and Bob. Bob, your book inspired me to return to school as an adult to study agricultural science. Susan, your book solidified my decision. Thank you both. Oh my gosh, I am blushing.
Isn't that nice? That is so nice. Alicia has some questions. My questions are, Is it a good idea to cover my young blueberry and currant bushes planted this year in burlap for the winter? What a good question. She has a second question. I'm also curious to know why blackberries were not included in your book, Bob.
Thank you for your time. Oh, goodness, that was lovely. first question, should she cover her young blueberry and currant bushes planted this year in burlap for the winter? Usually you don't have to, because usually that's something someone does if there's really heavy snowfall in an area and it's likely to break it.
Especially like if it's near your house in the eaves. the roof of the house is going to have snow sliding down. But people, I know when I saw photos in Japan, people covering it with burlap. but it was haskap and the main purpose was that their snowfall was so heavy it was going to break the branches.
Interesting. Yeah. I, feel this is, there's part of me that says, look, we got to teach these plants to be tough. if you live in a winter climate, like you are we babying them too much if we burlap them? There's one point, element of what The concern is, when you plant that fruit bush the first year, sometimes it's out of sync with the seasons because it was maybe grown in the greenhouse or something.
And we often have dieback that first year after planting. But then the next year it's in sync. So we don't have that problem. So Alicia's question is actually good because she doesn't know where she bought the blueberry and currant bushes from and whether they came straight from a greenhouse. yeah. is there any harm if she does wrap them in burlap for the winter?
I hope she's got more than one bush. Because I always like to say, when in doubt, do it both ways. I think that's a great idea. And Alicia, maybe you'll tell us how it goes. I would be more inclined to put leaves around it. Burlap, because when they start to, in the spring, maybe that's too comfortable for mice to live under and chew on them, or, maybe they're still making photosynthesis.
Or they start earlier and you forgot to take the burlap off, so. nice insulation with a bit of leaves around them. That sounds pretty good. The other question she had is, she's curious, why did you not include blackberries in your book? Because they won't grow here. Good reason. They're not hardy here at all.
I love them, but, I grew up south of the border, They just don't survive here in Saskatchewan.
[00:31:56] Best Berries for Part Shade
So we've got an email from Jane. So Jane, she doesn't say where she is from, but she asks, What are the best berries for part shade and do berries benefit from willow mulch? I don't know, Bob, if you heard the show a couple of months ago we did on willow mulch and its miraculous powers to make our plants healthy.
But so here's the first question is, What are the best berries for part shade? I always say part shade means part fruit production. Now I happen to know that the alpine strawberry, because that was my Ph. D. research, the alpine strawberry has more tolerance for shade than most other fruits. But it's, every time you have partial shade you get less fruit.
What about currants? Are they another option? Because, there's some studies seem to show that currants do, if you do only have part shade, they'll, be okay. they may not produce as much though. I guess it depends on what, how, what she means by part. Yeah, which part? if it's only, if it's half a day, it's probably going to be okay.
But if it's one fourth of a day. the plants are going to get stretchy. Consider thinning the trees that are causing the shade if it doesn't work out. That's a good solution. And yeah, and alpine strawberries are fantastically delicious. I find them super easy to grow as well, so what a great option.
Yeah, I would think try that. Is your last resort. Or your first try. Your first try, you big experimenter. And she also, so she asked, do berries benefit from willow mulch? Do you know much about that? Have you experimented at all with willow mulch? not in particular. plants in general benefit from mulch.
because it, regulates the temperature. It keeps the moisture in if it's getting dry. Yeah, in particular about willows, I'm not that familiar with. The effects of willow mulch, you gotta listen to that show. We had an expert from Bartlett Trees, from the UK, and his research is so exciting.
Oh my goodness, I'm desperate to get my hands on some willow mulch at some point. willows is where they found rooting hormone. That they use. And I actually have a lab in one of my propagation class where people use willows to root cuttings. Like they put a willow cutting next to some other species and they found it rooted really easy.
So maybe it's, my guess would be there could be some extra auxins and enhancing root growth a little bit.
[00:34:49] The Godfather of Bush Cherries
the next email that we have, what people may or may not know is that you are actually the godfather of bush cherries. Oh yeah. You're the godfather, aren't you?
Yeah, that's right. Not the scary godfather, right? Like the godfather with the horse's head? I got my job here, and I saw these dwarf sour cherries on their own roots. They were only like seven feet tall. And I think, this is amazing, and why don't we grow, why doesn't the world know about it? and people were depending, oh, we just assume that they're probably no good because they're from Saskatchewan.
Oh my goodness. So I, I didn't create them. They actually, it actually took three people. at least three people over 60 or 70 years to breed them to be hardy enough, and also they were bushes, before they became viable as something people would want to grow. I think the first 50 years they didn't taste good.
But they've survived the winter and then the last generation just before I got here started tasting good So now they're being grown these bush cherries that were developed in Saskatchewan are being grown all over the world I got an email from somebody in Ireland who is, growing these amazing bush cherries because, who wants to have a big cherry tree if you can have a little bush with delicious cherries?
And they actually last longer than the commercial trees because the commercial trees, they have to get this big thing that grabs the trunk and shakes it and it destroys the tree after, a decade of shaking. And these little bushes, you can just renew them just like other bush fruits and they keep producing so that brings us to Julie's question here, and Julie writes, we grow Romeo and Juliet bush cherries, but have not been clear about watering and pruning. So you gave us a little hint there. Romeo and Juliet are the bush cherries amongst the range that were developed in Saskatchewan.
So tell me, what about the watering and pruning, should we know? generally speaking for watering, it's better to water thoroughly once in a while than every day a little bit. Because then you, it causes deeper roots. But you really have to know your soil type. Like a, sandy soil needs much more water on a regular basis than a clay soil.
And the prunus family generally doesn't like to sit in water. if it's too much water, the roots just stop and the whole tree stops. But pruning, Like other, you actually let the sour cherries sucker a little bit, and they make root buds, so they can show up a little bit from the plant. And probably one individual branch coming up from the base is good for ten years or so.
They start getting real stringy looking after a while, which is, they have long branches without any leaves and just a few leaves at the end. And that's because wherever they bear fruit, they don't bear leaves. So if you just cut it out at the base and let new ones form, that's best. So a lot of nurseries are selling them as single trunk trees because they're not aware of the bushes.
That whole trunk can die on a bad winter. That'll make suckers, but So is that similar to what we described earlier in the show, that a lot of these, what bush, this is a cherry, but bush berries as well, you're looking for the oldest branches. Those are the ones you're going to remove. You'll remove up to 20 25 percent of the upper part of the, bush, is that correct?
It's just the oldest branches, let the new ones be. Right, and unfortunately, if you're, if you get a tree that's a single trunk, it's harder to turn it into a bush. We also, have the, I can't, I don't remember if it's Romeo or Juliet in our park. And what I've noticed is, so if our shrub is mostly like a V shaped shrub, you get branches that go towards the middle and start fighting each other and scratching up against each other.
Right or wrong, I've been cutting out those middle ones to keep a little bit of more of an open center and less of the branches, fighting each other. But was that something you would do, or you'd just let them be, unless they're an old branch? I tend to thin them out, usually early on in pruning.
when it, when the plant starts to come into production or so, which might be after five years, usually my first cut is the middle branches to open it up. But then later, I want to start thinning the outer branches, so I might let a little bit of the middle fill in again. But you're basically looking at the whole bush and going, I don't want these branches that are two inches apart, to be competing.
And that also, it not only thins it, it makes larger fruit, but it makes less diseases. Because the humidity isn't held into the tree, and if you did have to spray for something, you could spray it more easily if it's not congested. Interesting. Okay, that's helpful.
[00:40:20] Listener Questions: Serviceberry and Rust Issues
Now we got an email, we got loads of emails today.
And sorry guys, I should have got to these earlier. so we got from Shelly. Hi Susan, love your radio show. Listening from Las Vegas. Thank you, Shelly. And we've got an email from Anthony. Excited for this episode. I have a young serviceberry.
I have young serviceberry and elderberry bushes in my backyard as well as an expanding raspberry bush. I don't know if we have the Saskatoon cultivar here in Maryland. We sometimes call this serviceberry here a shadbush. The flowers appear in early spring, when the shad run, according to the North American tradition.
interesting. I had a problem with my serviceberry bush this year. It had some kind of rust problem on the leaves. What should I do? And this is from Anthony in Baltimore. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. See, I grew up in Maryland, Oh, so you're knowledgeable about that. But, yeah, they have this, rust. I think it goes with, it alternates with, Junipers. Junipers are really weird diseases. But they'll live, they'll make spores on the rust and that'll transfer over to the Amelanchier and then that will have a rust and go back. So it's a fungal disease and you'd have to spray for it. and also I just want to chirp in here, that one year here in Toronto, it was a very sort of humid year and all the surface berries were a mess with that rust.
And it was just a really bad year for it. in the following years it was okay. there are sprays as well, but it just because you had a bad time this year. Does that mean necessarily next year is going to be a problem, do you think? Yeah, a lot of those fungal diseases, you could have a disaster one year and the next year it's like nothing happened.
Yeah. And some of the fungal diseases, they actually have their spores right in the bark. And you can't really get rid of, they've done some if you took all the leaves out that were contaminated, it might not help. Because if it's in the bark Oh, that's interesting, because that would be my other suggestion, is make sure you clean up all the diseased leaves off the ground near the tree.
But I doubt the guy in Maryland is growing the Saskatchewan northern type varieties. He's probably growing something, if they just called it serviceberry, they probably grew it from seed. They're calling it Shadbush there. Shadbush, yeah. That's just another There's a something with pear. There's eight common names for it.
But, I doubt that it's The varieties from the prairies in Canada probably would have more diseases farther south. Yeah, interesting. So it'll be interesting. I wonder what he has. Oh, here, we've got an email from Alexis. So Alexis says, hi folks. Where can we purchase Bob's book? Also, does Bob have a website?
Thank you. Oh, I'm in Boulder, Colorado. Okay. Well the fruit website is www dot fruit dot use a USAs a sk ca, and but the Amazon is. the Canadian Amazon is easy to get it. It's a very beautiful book with lots of pictures and, I think it's beautifully done. We have another email here from Jane, who also talking about buying.
She says, where can we buy dwarf sour cherries? So Massachusetts, would they, cause I know, would they be able to get access? Would they be able to order a Bush Cherry there in Massachusetts? there's It's a little bit difficult when cherries cross borders because they have to be virus certified.
But on our website, we list, I think Gurney's is in the states and, there's a few people licensed right now that are in the state. I think Stokes might be one. but it's Gardens Alive that owns the rights to propagate ours in the U. S. And they have several subsidiary companies. Okay, yes, so she should check Stokes.
That would be an option, maybe. Yeah, and, but on our website we list Who can, who is licensed to propagate our stuff. Okay, and remind us again, your website is? It's fruit. usask. ca Perfect, okay.
[00:45:17] Challenges in Growing Haskaps and Sour Cherries
So we have had loads of questions in the show today, Bob, but I have another one here from Gilbert, and let's see what Gilbert says. Hi, I wasn't sure where to send my question about haskap production. I have a place, a future retirement home, in Kinley, Saskatchewan. I'm there only for the summer months.
I've been trying to grow haskaps for a few years without any success. I have the pollinator plant and five others. In six years, I've probably had only six berries. The shrubs are about two feet high and do not seem to be thriving. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. and, Gilbert also says I have the same problems with Evan's sour cherries.
Ooh, good question from Gilbert. Bob, what do you think about that? Because we were saying about how scaps are this wonderful new berry, delicious, and pretty easy to grow, but Gilbert hasn't found that. there's so much to know to find out what, what's going on in his orchard. did, does he have, is it, did he just plant it into grass?
Does he have a windbreak? that the Evans cherry isn't quite hardy enough. It's actually more like a zone four plant where you have it died to the ground all the time, but if his only got two feet tall, that would be very strange. Like the other thing, sometimes people don't realize haskap ripen so early and the birds get them all, but two feet is very short for a haskap plant.
If he's had it for several years, And it's an interesting thing that he's having a similar problem with his Evans Sour Cherries. Could there be something up with his soil? yeah, But my first guess would be weed competition. Because some people just, Rototill a little strip in the grass and plant plants and then the grass grows around it and they get stunted so easy.
when I had a sabbatical gathering wild haskap across the country and I would look for wetlands where it would be near and if there was grass, like when I got out of the car around there, I'd hardly ever find haskap. It just can't compete with the grass. So they can't compete. Interesting. So it could be competition. it's challenging, isn't it? the other thing I was thinking about, he says he's only there for the summer months.
That would be the most important months to take care of the plants. so maybe he'll write us some more and he'll give us some more details about the problem. And the other thing is, some of the first varieties were closely related. And if you planted them all, they might not pollinate each other well.
huh. And there was a case where we had two varieties on the prairies, and somebody wanted royalty for the name of it, and they all got changed names. And now there's five names for the same two, for each of the first two varieties. Yeah, so tricky, isn't it? Whether, whatever you're growing, whatever, berries or fruit trees.
Oh my goodness, to make sure you've got a pollinator for that plant if it's not self pollinating. That's a big part in my online course, is to teach people how to choose fruit trees that will be compatible and be successful for you. And, pollination, oh my goodness, that can be complicated.
But birds will really get haskap if they're used to it. Yes, and that's the other thing. Perhaps he actually has berries, But they, just go too quickly. Who knows?
[00:49:08] Conclusion and Farewell
And, the show is coming to an end, so I want to thank you so much, Bob Bors, for being on the show today and spending this time with us. You're welcome. I hope you'll come back again one day, and we can talk about more stuff.
Sounds good to me. Okay, goodbye for now. Okay, bye. That was Bob Bors, co author of the book Growing Fruit in Northern Gardens, and the head of the fruit breeding program at the University of Saskatchewan. So that's it for today. I hope you really liked the show and you can learn lots more on my website at OrchardPeople.
com. You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. I'm Susan Poizner and thanks so much for tuning in.
I'll see you again next month.
You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. To learn more about the show and to download the podcast where I cover lots more great you can visit OrchardPeople. com This show is broadcast live on the last Tuesday of every month, and each time I have great new guests talking to me about fruit trees, food forests, and arboriculture.
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Thank you for listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner, right here on Reality Radio 101.