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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Re: The serviceberry's fruit often overlooked

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  • From: Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Re: The serviceberry's fruit often overlooked
  • Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2004 13:33:16 -0500

At 10:53 AM 6/3/2004 -0700, Lon wrote:
The Canadian material DOES have excellent fruit, but the plants have growth characteristics that can be annoying. One is that they bloom very early. I had Canadian and local selections of A. alnifolia and the Canadian stuff would be in full bloom when the local was still in full dormancy. Second, the Canadian stuff has a "burst" growth habit. It puts on a fast flush of growth, then stops and hardens, often by the first of July here. Nothing you do will make them grow any more, even if you want them to, while the local stuff grows more steadily, well into mid to late summer. As one result, they make such short bushes the deer can keep them nipped down. A taller bush would escape that problem. Finally, the Canadian plants will get 75% rust when the local stuff has less than 5%. That's one of the reasons we badly need more selections of Amelanchier, to get plant types more adapted to different conditions.

I've got a young planting of saskatoons - none are older than 8-9 years of age; seedlings of Timm & Success(from the now-defunct Bear Creek Nursery), Regent, Theissen, Honeywood, Forestburg, Martin, and Success.
Most productive, so far, have been the seedlings from BCN - but they are at least 2-3 years older than any of the others. Fruits are small, but tasty, and do achieve a nice dark blue color - if they escape the birds that long. None of my alnifolias are more than 4 ft tall, and with their current rate and style of growth, I don't really anticipate them surpassing that - they sucker and just become a wider and wider bush - which is OK with me, at least for the present, as the deer haven't(yet) become a problem in the orchard.
Have yet to see any evidence of rust on them, but have had quince rust on one seedling quince that I grew from seed that Lon parceled out several years ago.

Lucky Pittman
USDA Cold Zone 6
AHS Heat Zone 7
Hopkinsville, KY





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