North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[mIEKAL aND <qazingulaza@gmail.com>]

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.....