North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Richard Moyer <ramoyer@gmail.com>]

Donna wrote in part:

 "I don't know why Glenndale was not tested, it may have a small berry or poor color?"

 

Donna,

Ed Mashburn grew Glenndale a number of years at his home trial grounds.  Was well worth the trek there to see what he did and why.  He then chose a limited number of cultivars to trial for commercial production.  Glenndale (as noted by Ed elsewhere online) is very vigorous (7 ft), very thorny, and suckers.  Due to its hybrid American-European parentage, it grows differently than most named cultivars.  Hence not a good fit for a commercial production setting, where the plants are more easily managed if of similar habit.  For people like me, Lucky, and from what you write of your setup Donna, Glenndale is well suited to survive our style of fruit production, certainly one of the best for this.  Spreads readily, so self-perpetuating, though not immune to Lucky's Bushhogging.  Handles our heat better than most (all?) other cultivars, retains its leaves all summer when the rest of my dozen cultivars defoliated.  This extra energy probably why all the vigor and high fruit production.  I think this is why Ed so highly recommended it to me, and also sent it to Lucky.  The flavor was the best among my dozen or so cultivars, according to tasters at an SFF meeting at my home in the late 90s.  Fruit size medium to large, and yield very high.  Got to where Glenndale was the only one I picked for preserving, letting the kids graze among the others that all yielded less.  Critters left Glenndale alone, choosing not to tange with the thorns.   Ed showed me how to pick despite the thorns.

 

Glenndale is not so vigorous at Corvallis, a puzzlement to Ed and me when we saw it over separate years.  Ed knew that the Glenndale at his place in PA and in Oregon were the same, either because he sent it there or they sent it to him.

 

As for Glenndale in KY, I visited Kirk Pomper's planting and noticed how poor it looked there.  If I remember correctly, Kirk wondered aloud if mechanical or chemical maltreatment affected the two plants there during their establishment.  I sent Kirk replacement plants of my Glenndale (originally from Ed M.).

 

Have not checked back with Kirk if he put those plants in and how they have performed.  But that explains why Glenndale is not present in some or most of Kirk's KSU Ribes reports from that period.

 

In summary, Glenndale, Amish Red and Captivator are the select few we transferred to our new farm, as we can depend on them to produce fruit under our benign neglect management.  I will be transferring more gooseberry plants later this fall, most or all will be Glenndale.

 

Richard Moyer

Castlewood, VA

Picked about 8 gallons of Norris #1 jujubes from 2 trees today, as they were splitting due to our inches of rain.  Finally, all are sorted onto the dryers now.