<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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