To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Elderberry Workshop & new products & Varieies
Date: Sun, 1 May 2011 07:02:51 -0500
I saw this guy speak a couple months ago & his presentation & what he
is attempting is pretty impressive. The two new varieties that they
are distributing 'Bob Gordon' & "Wyldewood" look to be good additions
to the elderberry options. He showed photos of the fruit production
on these new varieties & the sprays of flowers/fruit were 2-3 times
larger than what I'm used to with Adams/Nova/John. I was impressed
enough that I bought a couple bundles of cuttings of each & have them
potted up in the greenhouse.
I was also delighted that he emphasized that these new varieties are
open-source & there would be no attempt to restrict their use. I
don't know of any patented elderberry varieties so maybe this is not
an issue.
The biggest takeaway from the presentation was that he cuts back all
his elderberries every winter & has greatly increased production.
Gets rid of old unproductive wood & it rejuvenates the crowns. He
showed some numbers & the results noticeably higher. I hadn't
realized how easy they propagate from cuttings, I cut back a couple
bushes as an experiment & I quickly generated a couple hundred
cuttings..
One last point from the presentation that caught my attention is that
he said 90% of all elderberry project was imported from Europe & was a
big impetus from his formation of the elderberry co-op in Missouri.