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nafex - [NAFEX] Haskap funding

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>
  • To: NAFEX <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Haskap funding
  • Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:26:10 -0700

I posted a letter to another list and got such an interesting reply I thought the NAFEX list would enjoy it.
-Lon Rombough


Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Bors <bob.bors@usask.ca>
Date: June 19, 2007 6:17:16 PM PDT
To: small fruit mailgroup <smallfruit@lists.oregonstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Haskap funding
Reply-To:
small fruit mailgroup <smallfruit@lists.oregonstate.edu>

Hi Lon and others,
 
For 3 years in a row either myself or my students have assisted Maxine during harvest to pick fruit and help evaluate it. 
We have in Canada a large collection of varieties from Russia and wild Canadian genotypes and have recently begun doing crosses with Maxine's selections.
 
Maxine's program certainly has the largest fruit size with excellent flavour. She has selected for upright plant growth and several other quality traits. It would be a great pity if lack of funding causes her to slow down or stop her program. I too am rather underfunded but If I should ever come into large amounts of $ I would certainly send some to her.
 
In Canada we've been dabbling in various food products with Haskap/blue honeysuckles. I think some are afraid that it might be seen as very similar and a possible competitor to blueberries and as a result people think it should not be funded. However, this new crop has a distinct taste different from blue berries. I particularly think it will become a favourite for Ice cream because its color is much more intense than other fruit, changing the ice cream into a deep purple. Unlike blueberries, the skin of frozen haskap berries melts away in your mouth and I think this gives haskap ice cream much smoother texture. A local manufacturer of Gelato, who makes 20 plus flavors, wants to make Haskap one of the 7 flavors he intends to market to restaurants.  We have made wonderful tasting juice and wine with Haskap.
 
Haskap seems to be much more adaptable in terms of pH compared to blue berries. In Canada, we have grown it on soils close to pH8 although 6 to 7 is listed in the literature as optimum. 
 
Bob Bors
Assistant Professor
University of Saskatchewan, Plant Sciences
51 Campus Drive
Saskatoon Saskatchewan, S7N 5A8
 
http://www.usask.ca/agriculture/plantsci/dom_fruit/index.html
306-966-8583, Fax 306-966-5015
<x-tad-bigger>----- Original Message -----</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>From:</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Lon J. Rombough</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>To:</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Small Fruit List</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>Sent:</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> Monday, June 18, 2007 10:48 PM</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>Subject:</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> Fwd: Haskap funding</x-tad-bigger>

I don't know how many on this list are familiar with Dr. Maxine Thompson and her work breeding Haskap fruit, (a species of edible honeysuckle), but it would be a wonderful new berry crop for the NW, and a lot of other areas.

I've known Dr. Thompson for many years and have followed her work with Haskap since the beginning. She has struggled to pay for the work, but it is paying off beautifully. At 80, she has created something that will be a wonderful legacy.
I saw Dr. Thompson's Haskap breeding work this spring and she is making excellent progress. New crosses in bearing have produced some very good progeny, with some that have low acid and taste sweet enough to be a fresh fruit, and some that have excellent size, among other things. When she started, berries of .4 and .5 gram were the common size. Now she has some that regularly reach 1.4 grams per berry and one selection came in with an average size of just over 2.0 grams.
Her results have been good enough that Dr. Bob Bors in Canada is now carrying on breeding work on Haskap utilizing material from her programe and a growers association for the fruit has been formed.
I was able to get a gallon of fruit from her and had a pie made with it today. My wife has been a long time fan of Marionberry pie, but even she said that the Haskap pie was better than Marionberry. That is saying a lot. The pie was a mixture of flavors and aromas, with hints of rhubarb, cranberry, black currant, raspberry, and more. If Haskap was never used for anything else, it is a supreme pie fruit. It has potential for many other products, too, from juice with very high anthocyanin (antioxidant) content, to jams and berries for baking and other products.

The problem is the same one Dr. Thompson has faced before, that her money is running out. Most of her grants expire this year and she is scrambling to find more funding. She has already paid a lot out of her own pocket just to keep the work going. She is even making plans to sell plants of some of her selections as a stopgap.

What she needs are people to provide funds to help maintain the work and, in the case of this list, to trial and publicize the berry so it gets the recognition it needs to become a new crop.

If you can help, I can provide the contact information for her.

-Lon J. Rombough



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