 Today we're going to talk about the fruit that's here at the fruit project and it is actually cold fruit today because this, like said, everybody knows about nine degrees here in Carrington. And we've been doing this fruit project for 12 years now maybe maybe it's more like 13 I started in 2006 and pretty small when I started and I have to laugh. I was just looking at some information from old presentations that said in 2009 we had 150 people who interacted with the fruit project. And I've done my report and actually right now it's over 10,000 or over 12,000 people. So that's pretty cool. That's a lot of a lot of information going out coming in. Some people give me information, which is really cool. I always appreciate that someone who's experienced with the crop. So we'll just get started on this. So if you probably know where Carrington is and I just want to make sure we know and Carrington's right here in the east central part of the state and We kind of think of ourselves as covering a broad area of the state as far as our growing conditions go. You can see that the Nice drift prairie, the really loamy soils. Pretty good for growing stuff is all kind of along in the same growing region that we are in. So it covers quite a quite an area. This is our research orchard. It's actually the area is bigger than what we see here in the slide, but the orchards about six acres in total. And we have about two and a half acres, you know, and that kind of counts. There's empty areas where I have grass. So that's not really counted. But it's about two and a half acres all together in the upper right hand corner. Let's see here we have grapes and you can kind of notice that there aren't as many grapes in here as there used to be. And that's because, you know, I'm not really sure what we're getting out of the grapes anymore. They require a lot of effort to keep them growing in a proper manner for wine production, a lot of pruning. Sometimes in the winter they get killed back a little and you have to retrain them. So in the early years of the project, I would keep track of my hours and it took as much time to take care of the grapes as it took to take care of all the other crops that we had. So the last couple of years we had some problems where some of the plants had died back because of a harsh winter. And then actually two years ago in 2016 was my big decision year. We had those three blizzards. They came like every couple of weeks and the second blizzard especially really packed the snow in. It came in from the east and then the next day it blew from the west just as strong. And for about the fifth year, the snow was over the top of the trellis, so about five or five and a half feet tall, and when it melted it really pulled the trellis wires down because of that icy stuff that happens in the spring. It pulled the grape vines down, the canes, the trunks. So, you know, I just got rid of all the extra grapes. We now have about one each of all the varieties that we have. Sometimes we have a few extra like, well, let's see where's my mouse. Over here on the right hand side, we have extra because they are kind of very interesting grapes and they're delicious. So anyway, I just have about what we can handle now, which is about 100 plants. So I'm a little worried about them after this winter, minus 40. We'll see. So anyway, going around the orchard here, down from the grapes are plums and you can see some empty spots. We had some bad wind a couple years ago and it leaned some of those over about 45 degree angle, maybe a little more. So just, it just took them out. So that was the easiest thing to do. And then south of them again is the apples. We have about, let me see, 1622. I think we have 22 or 24 apple trees and then currents. We have a new planting of currents in the middle of the orchard. That's this area here. And then pears. Pears went in about three years ago. We actually had a crop of pears off these north pears here. And so next year, maybe we'll have some other pears. We'll see. We'll see. And then Hascaps, we have quite a few hascaps here. We planted even more. We have a few hazelnuts. This front part over here is Juneberries. We have more hascaps and then aronia plants. We'll talk about all these things. And then over to the west side hazelnuts, some new cherry plants. And then this area that says currents on the very west side. A lot of those have been torn out and actually more hascaps or honeyberries will be planted in that area. And the reason they were taken out was because They're older. We already collected a lot of data on them. And when I installed the new trial in the center of the orchard, I just didn't have enough help to harvest all of those berries. So they just had to go So and then on the far west side are the are the bush cherries, the shrub cherries, and we will also talk about those as we go along here. So this is the list of all the fruits that we have All these different kinds. And what I have done is I've added these little downward arrows that downward arrows are the ones that are You know, ones I've decreased, ones I've decreased in number and maybe I could even decrease them a little more. We are considering removing the cherry trees and then The little fruit fly. That's a little fruit fly. It's called spotted wing Drosophila. It's a special fruit fly. Many of you may have experienced this already if you grow raspberries. This fruit fly lays its eggs in berries like it really loves red berries so raspberries cherries and Raspberry cherries and strawberries, even red currants. It loves all of these things and they really grow in the cherries for us and then they go and spread to the black currants and other fruits. So the problem is that they lay their eggs right when the fruit starts to ripen and then by the time it's ready for you to pick it has spoiled already. There's little worms growing inside there. They're called maggots because this is a fly and a fly baby is called a maggot So they're little tiny things, you know, if you pick your fruit every day or every two days, you can pick it and put it in the fridge and then the growth of that little insect will be arrested. So you won't see it. It'll be there, but you won't see it and you can definitely eat the fruit. You can use it for processing won't hurt you a little extra protein right But the problem is that the fruit tends to spoil the longer that that maggot is in there because the fruit, excuse me, the fruit fly Made a little hole in the fruit and then fungus is are getting in there and bacteria and stuff and they're starting to spoil the fruit that we that you do have so so where those little fruit flies are all of those varieties are susceptible to the fruit flies. They normally show up around July 10 so hascaps and honeyberries ripen earlier than that and they usually are not bothered by the fruit fly. June berries, you know, they do kind of start to ripen end of June really around the fifth to the 10th of July is what we've been seeing for When it first ripens and the last couple of years we have had some fruit flies in there, but we try to get them off as soon as possible and to not have to spray them. I have never sprayed the June berries for fruit flies because we have netting over them. It would just be such a hassle so that you know then you have to touch the netting that's been sprayed so we just avoid it and try to pick as quickly as we can. So yeah, so this fruit flies kind of it's been a big game changer for people growing fruit across the whole country. So there's more information on that. Maybe you'll hear a talk about that from someone else some day or me who knows. All right, these are our currents. There's just as the name say in the colors look there are black currents, red currents and white currents. And most people in the US don't really know about currents. Just something we're not familiar with. They're they're very popular in Europe, especially popular in England. Probably one of the largest growers is probably Poland, Germany, places in Russia. Back in around 1900, maybe 1890, we had 10,000 acres of currents here in the United States. But there was a disease that came along with white pine trees that were imported from Germany. And then that disease spreads back and forth between the currents and the pine trees. And of course, the pine trees were considered to be more valuable because it was the big timber rush, you know, they were cutting all the white pine trees they could. So they did not want the pine trees to get infected. So they ordered, they ordered every state, every county, every local township to totally get rid of all currents and all gooseberries, because we have native currents here in the US. And then these are these are European currents, but they all can carry the disease. So it was tried for years and never totally got rid of everything. And now with the health of the forest is not all young trees are all old trees. It's multi year trees. And they're not as affected. So most most states have removed the ban on currents, even New York State, which was a huge timbering state, they removed the ban on the currents. And so just kind of nice sort for us to grow them. So how productive are they? Well, some of our best varieties can produce like eight or nine pounds of current per plant. That's a lot of currents actually. We have two and a half gallon bags that we store our berries in and we don't pack them full. Maybe when they're empty, they're about two thirds of the way full, you know, when they're not sealed up and you're just looking at them, they're about two thirds of the way full. And each of those bags weighs about six pounds. So you can get like maybe three gallons of berries out of one plant if you have a really good plant and good big one. So and then looking down the red currents, they're like double production red, the red ones can make 10 to 20 pounds per plant. And it is pretty amazing to see a big plant just covered in all those berries and the berries are, you know, they hang down from the stems. But it's very beautiful, especially in the morning when the sun is shining on them. So what are some concerns about currents? If you're growing them yourself, you know they're susceptible to spring frost as soon as the snow goes away, they start budding out, the leaves come out and then the flowers follow. And so it's possible for the flowers to get frosted or just for the weather to be too cold and poor so that the bees can't fly. I have to say we've had years when the production's been affected by it, maybe reducing the production by about half, but we have only had one year and that was 2015. That year we had no currents at all. All the flowers died. It was just so cold. And most of our crops didn't, or most of our fruits did not have a crop. So bad year all over. Anyway, currents, very healthy for you. They're very high in vitamins, which is not always true for a fruit, but they have different vitamins in them. They carry a lot of minerals and they have anthocyanins. And anthocyanins are the flavonoid compounds that, you know, they make up the blue things in blueberries and erronea and currents and hascaps. Anything that's a blue or purple color has those anthocyanins and they're very good for you. So, you see, I already said they're popular all over Europe. I mean, whatever you can think of that might have a fruit in it has currents in it. You can even get black currant flavored cough syrup. How can you use these berries? You know, we use them in yogurt. I'll make some juice out of them. They make really good wine. They make really good liqueur. I kind of blend them up. If I'm making a fruit pie, like a Juneberry peach and black currant pie, oh my God, you guys should try that. You know, but a lot of times you just want a handful. They're a strong flavor. They kind of a piney flavor when they're raw, but when you cook them, that all goes away. I make jam out of them. I make really good jam. So that's kind of nice. So, all right, the other currents, red and white, you know, they're not more tart, but they're less flavorful. So I don't really find them as attractive. But there are people who just live for red currant jam every year. And a lot of people who have visited the project really like the white currants. I think it's how they look. You can look into them and see the little seeds, little strands in there. It's like a little world inside of a berry. But flavor-wise, I say, yeah, you know, they're just okay. I'm a black currant girl. Ah, hascaps or honeyberries. They are kind of the same name for the same berry. Honeyberries generally are recognized as coming from Russia, and then hascaps are generally recognized as coming from Japan or having Japanese heritage in them. You can see they are a beautiful berry. Some of them are bigger, some are smaller. But in general, if you just look at the top joint of your little pinky finger, that's kind about the size and shape of them. So kind of oval shape, little football shape sometimes. The picture on the right is of a cedar waxwing, and he is my mortal enemy. They really love berries. I mean, I'm only about eight feet away from that bird when I took his picture, and he just didn't give a darn at all. Just wanted those berries. So you have to net early hascaps. Last year, I did not pick my early hascaps, and the birds did it for me. But it was so dry that I think they left the orchard area. They went someplace where there was more water, and they did not bother any of our other crops the whole summer. So it was kind of nice. All right, next slide, Bob. These are the yields on here. There is quite a difference between the berries as far as how they grow. The Russian plants are a little more upright. Sometimes they can have a bitter taste to them. In the old days, that was actually selected. It was a positive thing to have a bitter berry because then you didn't have to buy tonic water, and you could put these bitter berries into your vodka, which is a true story. So some of the Russian plants still have a tinge of bitterness to them, to the fruit. So the Russian plants about three to six and a half pounds per plant. Some of our plants are kind of small. Some are just naturally about three to four feet tall, and the biggest one is about six to seven feet tall. So that one can, of course, produce more fruit than the smaller plant. Then we have the Japanese, or excuse me, the Canadian varieties are second. These are the ones we got from Canada. They released them in 2007, and really they were the ones that were released, Borealis and Tundra. They were the very first ones that came out of the breeding program, and the breeder kind of has told me he felt he was pushed to really release something to the market. So they weren't the best berries, but they were the best berries they had at the time. So now they are working on those. They've bred some Japanese material into them to get them a little taller. The Canadian ones, I kind of call them squished gumdrops. They kind of grow like an oval flat, like a half a ball. They get pretty tall, really like four, four and a half feet tall, but then they get about six, seven feet wide, and they always want to grow kind of downward. They don't really have an upward character to them, so it makes it harder to pick. It makes it harder to do any, I don't know if you need to do any weeding or anything, so that makes it more difficult. Also at Carrington, we have never had very good production with the Canadian varieties, and I don't know if it's because of like bee. You know, if we don't have enough bees at a certain point, that seems kind of silly though if we get enough production off the Russian ones. And then the other thing might be that maybe the pollenizing varieties aren't close enough to them, so we don't know. You need two varieties of hascaps, kind of like apples, how you'll need two varieties. So the last one I will mention is the Japanese varieties. They are the ones that Carrington is going to focus on now. They're more upright. They produce quite a few berries. I mean, some of these plants had almost six pounds when they were four years old, so it's not a very big plant. So very productive. They're large berries. The breeder looks for large berries, but I said to her like, you know, little berries are good too because you have to have muffin berries, right? Or you have to have pancake berries. A large berry would be too big for pancakes, but so we need some small berries. So when I've helped, when I've been at her place and I've chosen plants to try to grow out here at Carrington, I've actually selected some small ones and some big ones. Mostly big ones, but everybody needs a little tiny berry they can enjoy. So hascaps, they're native all over the world in the northern parts, like Russia, Japan, Canada. They're all native across there. So they're hardy everywhere. They're like zone two hardy. Basically, if they can grow there, they'll live there. So they will bloom when it's kind of cold out. They're not really affected by frost in the early season. Production, the Russian ones produced by about mid-June, and then the Canadian ones right around the 4th of July, and then the Japanese ones somewhere between the 1st and the 10th of July. That end period around the 10th of July, that's when we start worrying about the fruit flies. So we really try to make sure they get off by then. We don't look for plants that produce fruit later than that. There are some new Canadian varieties out now. The series is called Boreal, like the northern forest. So it's Boreal Blizzard, Boreal Beast, and Boreal Beauty. As far as I understand, Boreal Beauty is about three weeks later than the Canadian varieties we have now. So that would be one we'd want to watch and maybe not get for being so late. But I have them here, and they should have some fruit next year, so I'll kind of know when it is that they fruit, and then we can make some better recommendations then. So let's see. I've already talked about a couple of notes. Some of the fruit clings while it ripens, but you know what? Some of it drops as it ripens. So that is one thing we're really looking for, and that is a problem with some of the varieties is that the riper they get, the more they start to fall off the shrub, and with our famous, famous wind here, and then thunderstorms, we can lose a lot of berries overnight on some plants. So that's one thing we really look for. Probably the main thing we look for is a plant that will hold its fruit, but yet you want to be able to harvest it. So it can't hold too hard. So we hand harvest these. We might be able to harvest them easier if we weren't so picky, if Kathy wasn't so picky. You know, I want to get 100% of the fruit. We want to get it undamaged. We're just trying to look at what the berries are really like. So in the future, we may be some of these older varieties, we might just try like whacking the shrubs also to try to get the fruit off of it a little quicker. And netting. Netting is definitely required if you want to have your berries. The birds will take them. I know they take them in town. They just love them. So that is one little drawback to these berries. They're super delicious. Oh, now Bob has to put the next slide up. Alright, our cherries. These are the Canadian hearty cherries. They look really red here to you. I am sure, but they are not ripe until they are a black color. So some of these are in the shade and you can see that they're dark. That's not even as dark as they can get. It's really kind of a black red color when they're fully ripe. I was just looking through some Canadian information this morning just happened to go there. And they show the colors. When the fruit first turns ripe, it turns red. And then really you can wait three to four weeks before harvesting if you want the optimum color formation. And we just cannot do that with the fruit flies anymore. They can be red for about a week, maybe eight, nine days, 10 days might be getting towards the end of the period when the fruit flies are not here. So it's really become a problem for us with the fruit flies. Next slide, Bob. Alright, we have had two kinds since 2007. We have had carmine jewel, a little smaller, a little tartar and much darker color, but very productive. I mean, look at that, 30 pounds per plant in the fourth year. That was amazing. And it could do that or better since, but I have been pruning them to open them up, let more sunlight in, let some spray get in there when I've been trying to spray for these fruit flies. So the harvest has never reached that high again. But if I didn't have fruit flies to worry about, we definitely would get harvest like that. The second variety we've had is crimson passion. The best we've ever done with crimson passion was nine pounds per plant, which is still a lot of fruit, a lot of cherries. They're bigger, they're sweeter, they're less acid. They're really my favorite of these two. But for the last probably five years, we've been seeing gamosas. It's like a, looks like amber. It's an orangey, yellow, golden, gummy goop that comes out of the plant and it gets hard in the air. And what's happening is the plant is trying to wall off a bacterial or a fungal infection. And we had a hail storm when the plants were about four or five years old. And it seems like the next year is when we started seeing this on one end of the planting and over the years it has spread throughout the planting. It has not affected carmine jewel, but it has affected crimson passion. And crimson passion blooms like crazy, but we just don't get the production on it. So I'm not sure what the issue is. They are normally self fertile. They are advertised as self fertile and almost every cherry is. So we're not sure why they have been such poor producers. So anyway, all of these cherries are probably going. But we have some new cherries that never fear new cherries for me to spray and then watch the fruit flies get is what I feel like. But the new ones are Romeo and Juliet. And I believe Romeo is Dr. Borges favorite. I think he likes Juliet too. And I'm not sure why we'll find out they're quite sweet. They're darker, the little smaller than crimson passion as far as the fruit size, but also very good. So we'll be letting you know how those are. We should be getting fruit this this year from them. So what to say about them? We don't really get diseases. If you do let them grow too thick, you'll see little spots on the leaves. That's kind of a black rod or there's something else that I can't remember the name of it. But that's another reason I do prune out the middles to be a little more open. But the one thing to really be concerned about is the bowl damage here on the bottom right hand corner. You can see this this picture of the trunk and the voles have eaten all of this bark. They just love cherry bark. They love plum bark too, but especially cherry bark. So we saw that for a couple of years and the year that they did this much damage, then I ordered some little bait stations. You can tell about six inches long. I put some mouse control in there and I steak them out so that nothing can haul them away because you don't want something to eat this that shouldn't. So I steak them down and that will prevent any foxes or any raccoons from taking them. And the other thing is I use a rodenticide that will not harm like dogs or foxes or anything. It causes a lot of calcium to build up in the mouse's organs or the voles organs and they die from that hardening of the organs. Not really pleasant to think about, but certainly don't want to kill your other predators. So the life of a vole is very hard anyway. So anyway, SWD fruit fly damage in these, but they're easy to pick. You can just lay a sheet on the ground and we do pick them individually, but when they're ripe, they come off quite well. They cling quite well, but they also come off quite well. So that's just really ideal. As far as marketing goes, we have not, you know, I don't try to market them here at the REC because I don't have time to deal with people calling me all the time or writing to me, but as far as cherry wines go, you know, like there should be, there should be a market more for wines, but cherry wine is sometimes not as good as other times. And a lot of the winemakers have a choked cherry wine instead. So I think they would prefer the choked cherry wine, but they do, they do get cherries from other people around the, around the state. So, but not as, but we don't sell as many here. So all right, next slide, Bob, June berries. All right, everybody wants to know about June berries, I am sure. So this slide is from quite a few years ago already because the netting is the same, but I have to, I have to add poles onto the poles that you see. I use seven foot tall poles now, and then I cut other poles in half and then I tape them to it. And so I extend the height of the poles, probably they're about, I don't know, around nine or 10 feet tall when they're out of the ground and then we push them in the ground about eight inches and then put the pop cans on them and stretch the net over. So it works pretty well. We, the first couple days of the first week we have it up, we have to get some birds out, but generally the birds leave it alone then. And so the berries themselves, you can see what they look like here on the right hand side. Generally, they're about a half an inch in diameter. They're quite large berries, they're very juicy. A lot more juicy than a native berry would be for the most part. So just very good. We have five varieties, we've got 100 plants all together in our variety trial. And maybe someone can ask me later what those are. I do know what they are, but let's go to the next slide Bob. All right, so the production has been pretty consistent on these and I have come to find out over the years that June berries do not really need to be pollinated to have fruit. Of course they will probably have more fruit if they're pollinated, but they don't really need to be pollinated to have fruit. So I've been pretty impressed, you know, the fourth year of growth, two pounds per plant on average, that was pretty good. Seventh year, about four pounds per plant. And then in the tenth year, man, they really came into their own, I mean, seven and a half pounds per plant. That's huge. And then in the last two years, it's been close to that, maybe six and a half to seven is what the last two years have been. So it's doing great. And the reason I don't have the number up there for the last couple of years is because we have not covered all of the plants the last few years. My plan was to have the birds take them, but the birds left town last year. So I'm sure it was quite a pain for people to come and pick June berries, you know, they really didn't want to come and do it. They loved them. They just really, my summer students, they actually invited their moms and dads and their grandmas. And so these kids came back out after work with their family. And then they picked June berries to take home. I was actually kind of heartened by that because they don't always seem that enthusiastic when they're picking for me. So that was, it was kind of neat. Anyway, let's go on. June berries are a good crop if you're thinking about for your own yard or for a you pick operation. They're well known, they're well loved in the state. I think you should probably have a good market for them. They do have a lot of native diseases because they're in the apple family. And, you know, where they were developed their this were so many and they just brought these diseases with them as they moved down into North Dakota over the years. But we see woolly elm aphids, they go in the roots that when they they leave the elm trees and then around June, July they go into the root area of the June berries. And the way they get in is as the plant rocks in the wind, they're waiting there. And as it'll form a little gap in the soil and they'll crawl down in there because they're not strong enough to dig, but they'll crawl down in as the wind is moving. So I did talk to someone last year, and they said that they use diatomaceous earth around their Juneberry plants. And then that it'll kind of ruin that little soft body that an aphid has. So it's something you could use as a homeowner to not have to use a pesticide on them, because it's very difficult to use a pesticide because they want to be underground. So that's, it's hard to get to them. So anyway, woolly elm aphids try some diatomaceous earth sprinkle around the canes of it along the ground will help your help your plants out. Thrips we get flower thrips they chew at the leaves and this white set of blossoms here in the bottom right, you can see some little brown areas on the flowers and that's from the thrips feeding on them. It does bother the fruit the fruit gets kind of a crusty scar on the outside and it makes it really unpleasant in your mouth. So we do have to spray for our thrips here I try to use organic products which work which work pretty well and if you really need to know more you'll be able to email me someday and I can send you that information. We also get leaf and berry. It's called entomosporium leaf and berry spot fungus, but it is it causes these yellow leaves on the plants. It affects the leaves it affects the berries you'll see little black spots on the berries so I do spray conventional fungicides for for that. And then you can get rust and this little yellow spot here is the top side of cedar apple rust comes from cedar trees well cedar is that right junipers junipers are there. We call it cedar but they're really juniper trees that it spreads between you can get this on apple trees or other things that are in rosaceae family plants, but it's, I don't know the junipers are just susceptible to all these things. Yet, I think they're easy to take care of because when I have to spray for these things. It is very early in the year I'm not doing other applications of anything the leaves have not really come out yet. Until I spray the fungicides and for the rust, but it's very early in the year and I'm not picking other fruit so it's actually easy for me to take care of them. So these we hand harvest again with little buckets or we put sheets down on the ground and just pick pick pick pick. And that they they will not whack off again they have to be hand picked. It's not very hard at all of the five varieties we have the one we do not recommend is called smoky smoky is considered to be the workhorse of Canada and yet. In North Dakota it they stay small they don't ripen very well they're kind of a drier less flavorful fruit and Harleen Hederman Valenti the researcher in Fargo has actually noticed the very same thing with smoky so just maybe it's just too warm here for smoky it's a possibility. All right Bob one more here Aronia the Aronia berries. You can see they are just loaded on these plants you can get about 15 to 20 pounds of berries per shrub. And when you pick them they also they don't have a little stem they actually tear from the stem it's just a teeny micro tear. And then you can see my hand here on the left side how that black purple color on the fingers and that's probably only after picking like one or two of those boxes because they can get your hands really really dark. So I learned to wear gloves and I always wear something I don't care about because it will kind of stain your clothes. But yeah they're they're late they're they ripen more in like Labor Day to about the 15th of September. So it's kind of a nice time when nothing else is really going on except apples but you can pick these in between the apples usually the hang really well they don't they don't just fall off the bush when they're overripe. They just get sweeter and sweeter. So they're a nice relaxing fruit. Okay the next slide. All right, the yield for these plants. I said pretty good we had 13 pounds in their fifth year and then we had 1516 pounds in their ninth year. What do we run the 12th year now I think as far as last year. I had if kind of an unusual thing happened in the 2017 droughty as it always is but for some reason it seemed extra just had an extra effect on the on the erronea that has not happened before. And when the berries started to turn color, all of them almost all of them dropped off the plant they just fell right off it was just the plants were under stress. And yet they didn't seem to dry to me so I'm not sure if it was just in the air they could sense the dryness I'm not sure. Anyway, so they had no crop in 2017 and so then this last year in 2018, they overproduced we had some plants that produced about 23 to 25 pounds per plant. So it was just kind of crazy. The fruit did not ripen all the way I really should have gone through when I realized the crop was so big I should have gone through and pruned out some of the smaller branches that had fruit on them to just kind of even that out a little bit. So that is what the fruit project is for live and learn and we do learn. So anyway we'll go on to the notes. I've said they're very productive. They are one of the most helpful berries known. They have they have the highest levels of those flavonoids anthocyanins and all those other compounds, the purple things higher than blueberries higher than elderberries so it's kind of cool. But the fact that they have so many of those they also have very high tanning levels. And I don't know if you've tasted a Aronia berry fresh but it's kind of you don't want to eat too many of them they dry your mouth out they'll dry your throat out after you swallowed a dozen of them like I do. But you know when you freeze them that really it really tamps down that channel level. Put it with dairy products the dairy products will kind of bind up that channel. So we put it with our yogurt in the morning we put it with a hot oatmeal. There's a lot of things you can do with it where it's not so bad. If you bake with them they're also good. I made banana bread and I thought well this might be a failure but it was delicious it was really really good. So you just have to not eat them fresh and then you can do things with them. So people make wine with them there's jelly and then a lot of places now everybody's up on the whole nutraceutical thing. So they will freeze dry them and put them in capsules that you can take and those are actually very good for you too. And that process is fine for the flavonoids in there won't really degrade them at all. Insect problems we don't really have any problems here at Carrington. I say not a problem but we do have these pear slug soft lies that eat the top of the leaf. And then we have the lace bugs that eat the bottom of the leaf. So it can look kind of bad. The plants probably aren't that affected. But if there is a lot of them I will give them one treatment of a spinosad product or spinosad. It's an organic it can be bought organically. Mine's not technically organic but it's just a carrier that's different. So you can buy an organic product and then treat your plants that way or you could even just wash them off with water. But I don't have water out in the orchard. So that's not something I can do. And we hand harvest these again not really feasible to beat these off because they don't have an obsession layer. Which means like like how your apple breaks away from the stem that's an obsession layer and these don't have it. So you'll have to actually pull the berries off the plant but it's very easy. It's very, very easy. So all right one more. Oh the grapes. I'm just going to mention the grapes I think here. People ask about them all the time and we do have all of these varieties. But probably the best ones for a home gardener would be Breanna or Marquette. Those would be more for wine making. And on the right hand side these two varieties that I have selected are more just pleasant, grapey, just like concord grapes that everyone has. Valiant it just definitely tastes like a concord grape jam and jelly and juice with that. And it's one of the only grapes that ripens really well. The biggest problem with these grapes is that the acid level stay quite high and you can really feel it in your mouth and in your teeth when you're trying them. But Valiant is one that ripens earliest so it does drop its acid levels. And then above it is Somerset Seedless and I love Somerset Seedless. It is a beautiful peachy pink color. They're a little smaller. They're not truly seedless but the seeds are very small. And then I don't feel them when I eat them but my husband does so everybody is different. But I tried drying some this year to make raisins out of them. Oh my God they are so good. They kind of just taste like regular raisins now but when they're fresh, more acid than a typical raisin from California so they're very sprightly when you eat them. So yeah they're nice. They can be semi-hardy some years. This year I'm probably going to have to retrain some. I'm pretty sure about that but otherwise they're kind of worth it because they're so nice. Alright this might be our last one. This is the last one. This is what I hope to see in spring. Some apple blossoms. Alright let's go to questions. Alright thanks Kathy. That was awesome. I'm just going to scroll up in the chat here. We've got a lot of questions we want to get to. So Kay is asking what varieties are Russian honeyberries or hascaps? The Russian ones will generally have blue in their name. There's bluebell, berry blue are ones that can remember blue velvet, blue moon. So generally they will tend to say that. There is one green world. One green world is a nursery out in Oregon or Washington. And they were the nursery that actually first brought these berries to the United States. So they would probably differentiate for you which berries were the Russian ones. Thanks Kathy. Superman Dan has a question. Are you growing aurora? They're supposed to be much improved from the initial varieties released by the U of S. University of Saskatchewan. They were released as a pollinizing variety for the borealis, the tundra and the indigo series. And they are probably the nicest thing I've ever tasted. Mine had fruit last year for the first time. And I have to tell you that I ate more than I should have before I took them in to be weighed because they were so stinking good. So I didn't freeze them. I shared them with another coworker. Okay. Mindy asks, is there a sugar rate or bricks level that SWD, Spadawing distrofila, starts to lay eggs? And would that be a way to test for berry susceptibility or infestation? You know, I do not think that they care. But I'm not sure about that. But they like strawberries, which are quite tart when they're not ripe. The raspberries are, I don't know, they're probably so-so. Cherries are very tart. So I just, I don't think they would care about the acid levels, sugar levels. I'm not sure on that either. I think they just want the skin to be tender. The fruit has to be tender enough so that when they put their berry in, it's easy for them. So I think it just goes by ripeness. Okay. Dan, again, I think he has crimson passion for, had two for six years and they rarely flower and never fruit. So no question Mark there, but I don't know if you have thoughts on that part of the question. I do not. Are they growing like crazy? Because we always hear about apples that if they have too much nitrogen, then they will just grow and not flower. But mine have flowered, all of mine have flowered like by the third year. So I don't know what to tell you about that. Second part of Dan's question, any tips for stoning carmine jewel? They're great, but a pain in the blank. Yeah. You know, I just, I have a little stoner from Germany. I can't think of the brand name. I got it on Amazon. It's a little, it's a little square thing and it has a spring activated little pitter and I kind of feed them in by hand. I don't fill the tray up. I just kind of feed them in and I just keep doing this. So that's how I stoned them. Okay. Janie would like to know about those Juneberry varieties and which ones are your favorite? Okay. You know, I think almost all of them that you can find in the U.S. will be okay. The ones we have are called T-SIN. It's T-H like Thomas. So T-H-I-E-S-S-E-N. That's T-SIN. And then Martin. We have JB 30, like Juneberry 30, but that's not what it stands for. JB 30 and then Honeywood. But there's one called Parkland. That should be good. And Lee 8, L-E-E and the number 8. That one should also be good. Okay. And I posted those to the chat, Janie, as Kathy said them. So if you want to get them from there, you sure can. All right. Now I have to get back up to my questions here. Sheila asks, can a hascat be transplanted and are they deer resistant? You can transplant them. I do want to transplant a large plant. If you need to transplant a large plant, really the thing to do is kind of cut the crown back and then move it. Moving it when it's dormant would be the best. In the spring, I would probably guess. Maybe fall. We'd actually transplant the young plants in the fall. But if it's a bigger plant, definitely cut the crown back so you have less areas that are trying to suck moisture out of the roots and then keep it watered well that year. It should be okay. They're very hardy. And deer resistance. Did you mention that, Kathy? I did not. You know, we have a fence. So it's hard for me to comment on that. The hascaps are kind of fuzzy. The leaves are kind of fuzzy and deer don't always like fuzzy leaves. So I haven't heard of them being bothered too bad in fields. The one thing I have seen is when they're first planted, the deer walk along and they pull them out because the deer just want to see what they are. So a lot of times, especially the younger deer will do that. Curious, curious deer. Janie asks, are erronea the same as chokeberries? Yes, they are. Black chokeberry. Awesome. Dan mentions hascaps can be transplanted. You mentioned that. And I know rabbits will munch on them, not sure about deer. The rabbits like the berries. Sheila would like to know some things that you can do with the carmine cherry. I have made pie with it. And I have to tell you that in Wisconsin, there are recipes from the cherry board and they say to make your cherry mix up the night before. So you will warm up your cherries with the corn starch or minted tapioca, however it is, you're thickening it and leave it the night before. And I have kind of cheated. The carmine jewels are the most tart of all the cherries. They're tarter than cherries I remember as a kid. I put a little baking soda in there, a couple of pinches. So not too much because then it will taste weird. But I put a couple of pinches of baking soda in there and stir it up and then let that all rest overnight and it will kind of take that acid out a little bit. But I've made, looked for recipes with like a cranberry cake from Wisconsin. There's cranberry cakes and you can use the cherries in there. I've done that. It's pretty good. Awesome. Sounds good. Making everyone hungry this afternoon. Mindy mentions that they have high deer pressure certain times of the year. Deer off or and I need to help in pronunciation. Plants good. Plants good. Okay. Product works well. Oh, so you're saying that does work well. That's what Mindy is saying. Okay, that's good. I've had other people tell me those products work too. Sometimes just a, even a four or five foot fence, you know, if you were to have to use like a woven wire fence. I kind of feel like the deer are lazy. We had them in Wisconsin too. And we just had a very short fence around our garden. And in spring, sometimes they would walk through, but just like one deer ever, we never really had a problem. So if there's a lot of pressure, you're, you're on your own, but good luck. Yeah. Dan seconds of cherry pie. I think probably for the Carmine, he's benching there. And then he's asked, are you planning to trial the University of Minnesota's Itasca grape variety? Is that Minnesota or Michigan? I guess Minnesota. You know, I am not planning on trying it. I've had enough grapes, but they are growing it in Fargo. And there's some of the people growing grapes here in North Dakota that have it. So we'll hear about it, hear about how it's doing pretty soon. Okay. We've got a couple more questions. We have at least a few minutes left. So last call for your questions, get those in the chat if he's still have questions for Kathy. Joe wants to know, do you know if you can propagate the bush cherries via cuttings or is grafting required? You, let's see. Grafting, of course, would work onto another cherry. I have never tried. And I have talked to Dr. Bors about, can you even dig up the, their suckers, you know, that grow up? He said he's dug down two feet and not gotten to the roots yet. So they're very hard to propagate that way. And they're hard to propagate by seed because they're going to be really variable. I would tell you to just kind of try to read on what to do with, with hardwood cuttings and give it a go if you want. One thing I do kind of think about is I don't want to encourage people to, you know, break the law. They are patented. And even though you think, oh, I have to buy another plant, you are paying a patent royalty fee when you buy that plant and that fee goes back to the university that did the work. And for 40 years, maybe 50 years, the University of Saskatchewan just struggled by like everybody does. And then finally when these cherries came out and now the Hascaps, they actually can fund their own research and then they've expanded their researching hazelnuts and they're researching more things with, with Juneberries and cherry, cherries, apples and things like that. So buying a plant from a nursery does hopefully send that royalty back to the place that bred it. Awesome. So it's a little stump speech there. Great. So I think Dan's got a comment saying you can propagate Canadian cherries via softwood cutting, root cutting, and you can graft. I've also grafted mine to. Yeah. Monterency, but they haven't fruited yet. Yeah, Montmorency. Okay. I have a question before that. Are you familiar with berries unlimited honeyberry varieties? He has blue jewel, blue moose and happy giant, but they haven't fruited yet. Yeah, you know, I am only semi familiar with them. I've never tasted them. I have a person who grows Hascaps has them a person in Minnesota and they, I kind of don't want to say this, but they said they're not very impressed by them. They are Russian varieties. They're not, they don't feel they're as good as the Canadian varieties. So that is all I know about them. And I have been considering getting a few of these just to see what they're like. So I could actually say, but I really need another Hascaps plant like I need a hole in the head. And I actually am probably going to plant like 30 more varieties, which means 60 more plants this fall. So yeah. But you know, I mean, definitely try them. They're going to be hardy. They're going to fruit here. I would, you know, just give them a try and tell me what you think of them. I would love to know what you think of them. Okay. And Jenny's got a comment has tried blue moon and another honeyberry don't remember the variety. They're several years old and haven't flowered or fruited yet. So if you have blue moon, I bet you have blue velvet. And they're the pair that go together. Blue moon and blue velvet are actually from Kamchatka or coral, the coral islands actually, they're very low and they are considered to be low productivity. And I know the catalog say they are sweet and delicious, but they're pretty tart. And if you don't mind removing them and trying to get a variety that would be better, that would actually probably improve your situation. I would maybe try these new Canadian ones, the boreal beast, the boreal blizzard and aurora. But you probably need something else to cross pollinate with aurora and maybe that would be indigo gem. Thank you, Cassie. All right. One last thing is I'm probably her best spokes model for Honeyberry USA. No ties with them at all, but I know that she imports the Canadian varieties from Canada and she has a lot of different junberries. She has black currants, different kinds of fruit and their website and their business name is Honeyberry USA. And that is the place I usually send people to because it's easiest for US people to not have to pay the shipping and the special requirements that come for importing something across the border. So that's that. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Kathy. That was awesome. Awesome. Thank you for sticking with us everybody through the technical difficulties and Kathy for sticking with us in that through that as well. I just want to remind you that coming up next week, Julie Gardner Robinson will be your presenter and she will be talking about food waste, exploring food preservation and composting. Upcoming after that on March 20th, one potato, two potato, three potato, four, Susie Thompson will be your presenter for that. So many more Field to Fork webinars still to come. I think we've got six more yet to go. And so you can find out more about those at www.egg.ndsu.edu slash field to fork. Thanks everybody. Have an awesome day. I hope things warm up in spring come soon.