 Hi, I'm Kathy Wiederholt. I'm the fruit project manager at the Carrington Research Extension Center. I'm here in the Hascap berries. We have quite a few here, and we've been looking at them since 2007. And let me tell you a little bit about them. There's really three kinds of Hascaps. Really more like two, but there's three kinds. There's the Russian kinds, which were first brought to the United States, and they're called honeyberries. And then there are the Canadian varieties, which are a kind of a cross between two different kinds of Russian varieties. And they are incorporating some Japanese heritage in there. And that leads me to the third variety, which are the Japanese Hascaps. So we really like the Japanese Hascaps. The Russians tend to be a little bitter. The Canadian ones have not produced well for us, but they were the very first releases from the university. And their new releases should be much better because they are incorporating the Japanese material in there. So what I really want to talk to you about is the Japanese varieties here. They are more upright. They are as hardy as anything else, all hardy to about zone two. And they can produce more fruit for us. We're not exactly sure why, but they definitely produce more fruit. They bloom about 10 to 12 or 10 to 14 days later than the other varieties, so it may give them a chance to have more natural pollinators, but they produce a large fruit. And like I said, the plants grow more upright. So we're hoping that this is more conducive to mechanical harvesting. Right now, it's pretty hard to mechanical harvest any of the Hascaps. The original Canadian ones grow kind of low, and then the Russian ones are kind of a tight shrub, so we're working at it. We're working at it. And that's what this project is for, to see what would be best for North Dakota. We have one little issue in North Dakota that is a slight problem for Hascaps, and that is our famous wind. It's very windy. It shakes the fruit, and the fruit tends to fall off as it ripens. And it doesn't help that these plants tend to bloom for about two weeks, so they kind of have an extended ripening period. So that is the problem. We have fruit that falls, and then this uneven ripening. The research center has a grant for this project through the specialty crop block grant project, and we are trying to look for varieties that will do better in North Dakota. I've been working with the U.S. breeder out in Oregon, Dr. Maxine Thompson, and I've been working with her for almost seven or eight years now. We actually have some of her plants from 2007, but I've been able to visit her orchard and select plants that might do better here. I look for plants where the fruit is more medium-sized, the fruit clings a little better, and then I would like to have fruit that all ripens more evenly. So this is what our grant is for, is to look for these plants. We are probably getting to over a hundred, we have probably more than a hundred plants here in the orchard, but the different varieties we have, we probably have about twenty-five or thirty varieties, different Japanese hascaps. None of them have names, they're all breeding numbers, so we're just looking at all the qualities they have and seeing how they do here in North Dakota. For homeowners, I would say look for the Canadian varieties, because that's the best chance, or it's really some of the only selections that you have. And the new varieties, there's borealis and tundra, those were the originals, and let me say the new variety should do better. It is boreal beast, beauty, and blizzard. And those should do pretty well here, have big fruit, and more upright plants. You need two varieties to have fruit, they have to cross-pollinate like apples do, and they'll each have slightly different fruit from each other, but they should be delicious. The fruit is tender, it's really good in jam, it's really good in ice cream, we just had some last night. And I have to say that the winemakers in North Dakota love hascaps. It makes such a rich and full-flavored wine, it's just really delicious. And if you have a chance to grow them, I would encourage you to do so and also to let you know that you must net them. The birds will take your fruit, the instant it turns just a little bit blue. You'll never see a blue fruit and you'll think your plants never have fruit, but that's not true. It's for the birds taking them at 4.30 in the morning. So try some Hascat plants and remember to net them. Just average soil will do well for you and it's a very nice fruit. I encourage you to try them. Thank you.