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.....