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nafex - [NAFEX] Aronia field days in Madison

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  • From: mIEKAL aND <qazingulaza@gmail.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Aronia field days in Madison
  • Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:27:46 -0500

Just went to the aronia field days in Madison at Caradale Farm. Some folks in Wisconsin, Iowa & Nebraska are tooling up an aronia industry. Everyone seems to be growing either Nero, Viking or the landscape aronia called Auto Magic (I might be getting that name wrong). About 40 growers in attendance with anywhere from 100 plants to 40-50 acres of aronia. Most everyone is growing it banking on the anti-oxidant profile of the plant which is higher than blueberries supposedly, tho no actual data was presented. One certified organic aronia grower in Iowa has already started an aronia festival & rolled out about 10 products including BBQ sauce, salsa, jam, jelly, pills, tincture, & wine. There was wide scale consensus that (so far) disease pressures & ease of growing were big selling points. Pretty inspiring group of folks including a tinkerer/machinist who is building a picker based on Polish designs where it is grown extensively as field crops.

A number of folks are putting in 100s or thousands of plants from a nursery who generating them via tissue culture, all from one plant. The range of diversity seems extremely narrow & I imagine the initiative would benefit from more selections & cross breeding with local genetics. It was mentioned that aronia is native to Wisconsin tho I've never seen it myself.

~mIEKAL

o & a quick search on the net found a pyramid maketer named orendainternational.com selling bottles of aronia superfood for $48/23 oz.....



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