 Good evening everyone and a special hello to Carrington. I think you guys are listening and I think a garden club meeting tonight And I'm not there. So we will talk about growing June berries here in in North Dakota this is kind of a little map of the state of North Dakota and The Carrington research center is kind of that red dot. I'm going to kind of center right hand side of the state We have pretty nice soils in that part of the state And I think a lot of you probably have nice soils, too I Let's see here. Oh, I just want to show you the project I show this at every talk I give but this is the orchard that we have and It's about six and a half acres that's enclosed But the fruit area is about two and a half to three acres and we have a lot of different things But tonight we'll talk about the June berries and they are in the on the lower front on the kind of left side There's with 100 June berry plants And this little Graphic is and I drew this by myself. So I don't know how accurate it is I was reading I was reading a written description of how or where June berries grow in North America And so from that written description, I just let my hand travel along. So It's probably a good general idea, but this purpley gray area That's kind of where this this June berry is this one is amuleture Anapholea and there are different kinds of June berry or saskatoon Saskatoon and June berry really the same things different names from the same type of plant But the species that we have the anapholea It grows as a shrub and these shrubs can grow from say five feet tall to maybe 15 or 18 feet tall they can get quite large You can manage them by pruning to give them a little shorter, which is what we do Um, but there are different kinds of June berries all across the US on the eastern side of the country. We have Plants that are more like trees. They they were where I lived in, Wisconsin They're kind of an understory tree about 20 feet tall and all the other trees They're bloods would just be breaking and there would be these beautiful cloud of little white flowers In the forest, you know, they're not really dense But even sometimes even today as we travel back through Wisconsin and get through that central part of the state And if we go in the spring like this Easter time I can see June berries blooming in the forest there So it's always it's kind of nice and I have pick wild June berries there in the forest off of these trees It wasn't a huge amount like the nice June berries we have here, but it's still pretty good so I kind of want to say that the home range the home of Where all the species or all the the what is it the center of genetic diversity Where it comes from in North America? I have to feel like it's in Saskatoon and Alberta I've talked to people from Canada and they talk about all these shrubs just growing wild everywhere on the edge of the forest and most of our cultivars that we use for growing for commercial Commercial or homeowners come from Canada. These are some of the best cultivars we have So probably the center of diversity is more north of North Dakota, but Juneberry native all across North Dakota. So Not as common as it used to be here's a picture of what it looks like if you've never seen it a lot of older people in Our community will tell me that I used to go and pick June berries, but now the plants aren't there anymore So I'm not sure why the plants aren't there either could be different climates you know more more Warm weather in the spring perhaps maybe last rainfall, but it might also do be due to herbicide drifting, you know, there's The herbicides that killed the broadly plants can kind of drift in the wind and I have heard that Juneberries are susceptible to these although You know, I have not seen specific symptoms of damage on our plants But you know, it can just be the Little bit of exposure over time can kind of weaken them and weaken them and that can kind of do it But anyway, there are your Juneberries in this slide. I just kind of want to show you what we get out of our Juneberries In there so when we planted them we planted them in 2007 and they were just like One to one and a half foot little shoots and they came in little pots So it was little two inch pots that are about three and a half inches deep So they came as these little shoots and we plant them kind of deeper than because they can do a lot of buds a lot of roots going out when you plant them and So we just kind of watched them for a few years. I mulch them with wood chips and we still keep wood chips on them They are a forest plant, you know in in some species. So The wood chips are not bad for them to keep the moisture in keep the roots cool. That's kind of nice So in our fourth year, we got almost two pounds of fruit per plant. That was pretty good Our seventh year in 2013 we got almost four pounds per plant. I was pretty excited about that I thought that was pretty good and then last year in 2016 I pruned them. I really I really did a good job pruning them. I removed a lot of older wood It's good to get some of that older wood out after it gets to be about four years old You'll reduce the height that way and you'll have more vigorous shoots coming from the ground And so I really pruned them I feel like I removed at least a quarter and maybe one-third of the buds and by the time I was Getting towards the end of pruning I could see the buds were swelling and every time I made a cut. I went. Oh, there goes fruit Oh, there goes fruit and I felt kind of bad about it But look at the bumper crop we had seven and a half pounds of fruit per plant in this in our tenth year that was a lot we harvested about About 750 760 pounds of fruit last year. It was amazing. We actually had to ask for storage at our local grocery store Thank you very much To store it because we ran out of space by at the research center So anyway, just wanted to comment on our production and this is few notes And we're going to cover these in the next slides that there are a lot of native diseases for june berries It's really something you just can't get around I thought we wouldn't have a problem in Carrington because there aren't any native june berries around us But sure enough we have all these problems over the years We can't harvest our june berries I'm not sure how well they would work to do some kind of mechanical harvesting that we know of up in Saskatoon Big plantings there's like maybe 2,400 acres up there and they do use over-the-world harvesters to harvest their plants And just just the recommended varieties before I would forget. We really like Martin. We really like teeson and Say teeson like Thomas right teeson and then JB 30. We really like these three varieties out of the five that we have So here's the first thing about june berries. You will need netting the birds love these things We have 100 plants 100 plants is not enough to satisfy the birds. It's just not If you get them netted early enough, then the birds won't know that they can be harvesting these berries But once they start and then you net them They're gonna try for about three or four days and you'll find some birds under the net in the net and So we kind of run a rescue operation for a couple days to make sure the birds get out of that net But definitely some kind of netting this netting is woven netting. It's very soft. It has about half inch holes in it and then you can see how I hold it up I use a swell probe and make a hole in the ground just with my foot and then put in a piece of bamboo and then on the right hand side these are our plants in later years actually it's last year and I had to take two pieces of bamboo together to get it up high enough and then we still put a pop can on top You can choose something else, but a pop can is cheap and available and that will keep the net from sliding down over the pole So we'll just talk about the diseases right away the one thing I think it's in a handout one thing I've heard from Researchers in Canada is you really can't grow June berries organically Like I said, I thought we could because there's not a lot of other plants to transmit disease But after about three or four years, we started seeing this disease this endomethorium leaf and berry spot Some years is just on the leaves this picture is an extreme example I mean we have never seen it this bad at Carrington, but it does get on the leaves and I thought well not too much of a problem, but then One year we probably had more rain that year and actually the little spots got on the berries too And it doesn't really affect the berries unless it were a really bad case We must not have had it too bad But it does it does show the spots on the berries and if you were to sell these for pies or something Maybe someone could tell and you wouldn't want to do that. So we keep the plants thin by pruning kind of Remove those little shoots that are in there. You just want hearty shoots If you water your plants do not water them on the leaves Make sure you water the soil and then keep your weeds down because those hold moisture and they could hold spores and then Probably that you are going to have to spray with some kind of a fungicide and I know the fungicide that is available for homeowners is Propoconazole It's it's very available. You don't want to use the same fungicide all the time And I have to say I did not have time to go through and look at another homeowner Kind of fungicide, but if you need help on that I just contact me at the Carrington Research Center and then I will help you find that information Here's our next disease that we also get these two are kind of tied who are past here in North Dakota woolly elm aphids You may have heard me talk about this before but when your elm tree Peas on you when you get little drops on your picnic table on your car That is not your elm tree doing that That is your aphids on the elm tree is doing that They are sucking the moisture out of the elm leaves and then they are exuding it from their bodies So they are peeing sap on your sweet nectar on you But these aphids are on the elm elm leaves for a couple generations and then in kind of mid June early July they leave the elm trees and they go to the Juneberry plants and they find them and what they do is they Kind of suck on the root hairs and they can cause these spongy kind of roots And you can see this in this picture is a picture it took last year There's like these knobs and the root is kind of enlarged when nothing's really happening It's got these billion little shoots. So if you're a Juneberry plants have a lot of little shoots It's actually not a good sign. That's a sign of this aphid on there It's hard to get around away from this they say that ladybugs and surfered flies will eat the aphids and we do have those around here It's possible to net a new planting if you just have some Plants in your yard you could keep them netted for like a month's time or so in that late June to July thin netting And there there is a systemic insecticide you can apply I would only apply it when your plants are not blooming anymore or what before they start blooming, you know When they're quite young that's when you really need it when the plants are being established once they're established and get kind of all They can actually handle the woolly elm feeding on there and then I've been thinking what about Diatomaceous earth could you not sprinkle that around the top of the plant because that's where they get in they get in that They land on the stems and then they walk down and they get they go into the root system right through the top of the plant So I kind of wonder if you could just sprinkle a handful of Diatomaceous earth right around the top of that plant it I think that might work if it's a kind of soft So something to think about something to try and if you try it you can let me know and then rust Some years we like two years ago We saw quite a bit of rust prior to that we had not seen very much every year We find a little but usually not too much and this rust is also fungus It's juniper apple rust and you may hear it as cedar apple rust but really it Is a disease that travels between the juniper species and then rosacea species and Some parts of the country like Michigan or maybe out east where there's more moist You're gonna see a lot more problems with this because there's Juniper trees and there's apple trees and some people have juniper plants so a lot of hopes for them to go between So like I said, we don't get it too bad. I've actually never seen the spores in the juniper plants, but obviously they're around Maybe I need to look harder So the gauze on the junipers are kind of a grayish Ball and then when it rains these like alien orange gooey tendrils come out of the gauze So I have never seen that in person But I've seen some great pictures of it and a man sent me a picture of this juniper Up near Grand Forks area and the tree was covered with them and I said this is so cool and this is so terrible I said, but yeah, I've never actually seen it in person Anyway, so this this disease goes between them You want to avoid planting your junberries near a juniper tree if you can not always possible in North Dakota You can prune the gauze out of the junipers and you can spray with different fungicides again propaganda is all and then Really, I've looked at Cornell in the past and a paraffinic oil. It's like a very light oil kind of like a horticulture oil It is really the only compound that's recommended by Cornell University. So there's just not many compounds or many chemicals Liz are licensed for use in in the US for junberries and Then this is a problem that may be unique to North Dakota flower thrips and the way to find out if you have thrips in your flowers is To take the flowers and you kind of cover it up and then you breathe on it just a nice soft nice warm breath on it and then you take your flower and then you shake it like over a piece of white paper and Then see you'll see these tiny tiny tiny little tan Insects there. They're so tiny, but then they'll start to walk on your paper And that's how you see if you have thrips and then the other symptom is what you see on this flower here There's these little brown markings on the flower and that's where the thrips have been sucking and chewing on the flowers It doesn't look too bad here, but these flowers won't open up properly and then when you get to the fruit It's going on the top. So here you have your fruit and this is the blossom and and this is the stem and on this blossom It's going to be kind of open and a gray woody scar on there They give you word you could eat it But it would be kind of chewy and you it would be kind of eating part of the stem is what it would feel like in your mouth So it's really kind of a nasty little thing Not it's not in the Canadian literature. So I think we just see it here in North Dakota We use three things. They're both they're all three are organic products We use a zygarde and we use spinocet and pycanic and I kind of rotate through those things I have to say I'll spray and then a couple days later. I will check for thrips They're still there, but I think they must just stop feeding and I did read something after noticing that I read something that the a zygarde actually does stop feeding by the by the thrips. So It works. It's pretty it's pretty nice not too hazardous to us and Then we have fire blight, you know, we do see fire blight. We don't see it in our apple trees One year we had an apple trees at the research center, but in the in the Junberries, you see a little bit every year and you get this dead branch like in this picture It can the shepherd's cork is that kind of folds over the branch size so quickly that is very soft And then the tip tips over and in that time it's starting to dry out already So it kind of holds that shape. So it's very sudden the shoes just wilts very suddenly It's a bacterial problem so the it is actually spread by like rain and your pruning tools and then bees when bees are pollinating your apples or your Junberries the bacteria can get on the bees and the bees can carry it from flowers or fall or and that's how it infects your plants so Again, no products labeled for fire blight in June berries. So we just we would just prune that out and You know, they're I don't know if Esther will talk about this or someone else But you can read about it the ugly stub Method the ugly stub method of pruning out fire blight. This is something we're using now in apple trees You cut it back and just leave it and then later you cut it back even further when the tree is gone dormant As far as I know in June berries and it's probably the same method We just cut set like a foot or so below in June berries a shrub You can easily remove that whole branch and now I'd have to worry like an apple tree if you remove the whole branch Might look kind of funny, but fine to do it, you know in June berry. Okay. We're almost to the end I wanted to put our resources up here. This is Rowing saskatoons a manual for orchidus. This is the kind of Bible of saskatoon production this was Maybe it's about 10 years old. Maybe it's from 99, but there wasn't anything except this man doing this And then I recently bought this saskatoon berry production manual the number two Picture there and I just found out today that it is available for free for a download from open Open publications from Alberta So you can just download it you can buy it also for $15 probably more shipping to the US Anyway, and then the third resource is the Midwest fruit pest management guide It has like when and what to spray for almost any crop. You can think of June berry is actually in there I believe but you know June berry is very much in the apple family. So it shares a lot of diseases So that's a very good guide for you All right, and then this is my list of plant sources. Where can we buy these plants in the US? It's not that easy. They don't propagate very easily you might think oh, I could just take a shoot that comes out of the ground, but there's no roots on that shoot and The normal methods that we use for propagating woody shoots just don't work really well on June berry So they're kind of kind of hard to propagate But there are some sources here in the US saskatoon, Michigan St. Lawrence nursery Honeyberry USA and then there are some Canadian sources if you want larger quantities of plants You might go directly to a Canadian source for a little cheaper price, but shipping is about $60 a box So there's that so anyway, there's our sources and then Here's our picture very pie. This is what it's all about I think June berries were made for pie. They're just scrumptious if you haven't had a chance to try it You should if you had a fine June berry pie give it a try You need my recipe. Let me know. I'll put it on our Facebook page. I guess and then just thank you I spent picture for you and Have a great spring and joy growing a lot of different fruits and try something new this year. It'll be fun. Thank you Get some questions. Yeah, don't go away. We want to hear First question mentioned about netting in do you see like a half inch mesh About a half inch or five-eighth inch mesh. So since that is so indispensable Where is a good source for netting? Well, I order my netting from MDT and associates and we're supposed to give But you know, that is where I get it from MDT and associates is about 21 cents a foot But it is like 1600 feet of it is quite a bit, but if you can share it with a neighbor Actually for June berries. I saw two pieces together I decide the length I want lay a second piece over that overlapping and then I just take a double With holes drilled in it and it's nylon thread and I actually saw those together. So I actually have a 32 inch piece of netting that goes over my My plans to keep to keep to keep it down the grounds where the birds can't get under there But MDT and associates are out of the cities very nice people to deal with Prices are not on the internet, but you call them and they're very helpful. So that's where we get ours And what when do you put up the net? You can you should put up the net when the berries have turned pink, but not really swell yet. So Harvest you can count on harvest around July 10th to the 15th. So about two weeks prior to that Okay You ever heard of the variety called regent Was that discovered in North Dakota region? Yes, I have never tasted region But I hear it's not that good and is a North Dakota variety I've just heard it's very bland and dry on a mealy. So I've not tried regent. Do you have to plant more than one cultivar to get fruit? No Juneberry you can go with one plant. They actually hardly need to be fertilized. So The kind of it's easy Sometimes we look at the Juneberry. They got these little hair like things on the fruit. Are they orange hair like things? I think if they're Like is the rust is the cedar apple rust and the if you touch them at the right time this orange mist of Spores will get all over. Yeah How about uh, we got an entrepreneur here who's wondering you've inspired him And he's wanting is there a commercial demand for Juneberries in North Dakota? I think there is a lot of a lot of the jelly makers do Juneberries There's people who make pies, you know, definitely if you want to grow any kind of fruit You should try to find out what your market is talk to Cafes and see if they would use Juneberries. I wouldn't I wouldn't think about winemaking people have tried it Just doesn't have quite enough oomph and Concentrated flavor from winemaking, but jelly makers and pie makers are your best bet and then fresh sales Prices are pretty good. We have we do have about But I know we have about four to five Juneberry orchards in North Dakota that sell out of their I think they sell out of their fruit every year Oh, do you know how many acres are in North Dakota? No, I would less than five acres commercial. I would say about five acres, maybe so there's not very much An opportunity to satisfy Delicious opportunity there. Okay. How about, you know Sometimes the people see Juneberries at Available to their soil conservation district Are those varieties or just wild Juneberries? Those are seedlings from soil conservation and you should ask soil conservation I should make a point of calling them what I have read is they are now Growing seedlings from some of these more superior varieties of Juneberries. So things like Martin and Teeson and North Northline They're collecting seeds from those better varieties and then planting those up to sell to people That is what I've heard But I know other people who have established Juneberry patches from soil conservation. Some people get fruit. Some people don't so Yeah, we have one person from Burley County who had that experience and he says that it does have berries But they never grow larger than a small pea Doesn't know a variety So he's wanting should he try a new variety? I would try a new variety. I really I would try a new variety. If you like small peas, you don't have to do otherwise if you want something a little more Substance might be a good idea Are Juneberry self-pollinating? I'm going to say yes, I think that they hardly need to be pollinated I think they're they kind of form their seeds with no pollen needed for the most part So you can just have one plant and get Juneberries many plants So it's good to have two varieties and maybe you have a little different ripening time. So, but I think you can just have one plant You mentioned using diatomaceous earth as a possible way to control aphids So how would you? You would get a bag of it and you would just take a little dust measuring Spawn or something and just dust it right around that I would say the crown of the plant Just spread it around that crown of the plant so that the aphids would have to go through it to get to the roots About a spot spray and insecticide instead Well, it's just hard because those you have to see them when they are on the plant But once they get on the plant they crawl right down to the roots and then they're covered by soil So it's really hard to spray an insecticide on them Have you seen actual damage caused by woolly elm aphid to older Juneberry plants? Well, they have them aren't our ten years old this year and I know they have the damage I showed you that root where it looks all knobby and what you see are weak shoots coming out of the base of the plant And that is from woolly elm aphid damage If we controlled all of the aphids there would be really nice hardy healthy shoots coming out of them But when you have a lot of small shoots, that's indicative of woolly elm aphid damage We just wanted to reinforce out there about that rust Because those hairs can be grayish before they Sporily they're kind of green. They're kind of a light green before they turn orange. Yeah, yeah About how do you handle getting your stuff from a Canadian nursery? If you buy a large quantity from a Canadian nursery They will have a plant inspector come in and they inspect the box before I get shipped to you and that inspection costs as far as I know About $20 so that's on you and then the shipping they'll send it by their like Quick post although it's not often that quick depending on how the trucks go and then That's about $60 and I believe you probably have to sign you may have to get an aphids aphid APH is it's USDA aphids service You might have to get an aphids import permit, which is free You just have to do it call the aphids office in Bismarck and they can help you out and tell you what the form name is You need to fill out not hard. It's not hard So the Canadian apps and seems to be something when you're really getting into this big time We're not just buying three or four plants Hundreds you would want to buy right from Canada right and there is that nursery that is they sell seedlings on my slide there and You can use seedlings from From these varieties if it's a known variety you can use seedlings from that known variety Once you grow those out. It's not a good idea To take seeds from them because they're a little more removed from the parent block But definitely seedlings are okay and cheaper a question about the netting again. How do you secure the netting to the ground? Well, I leave my netting long I said that I I sew two pieces together and then so it's extra long and then I use those garden staples They're u-shaped like hanger wire or whatever But you buy them garden staples and then we just push them in the ground about every five feet Something like that at every at every bamboo post we stick them in and then maybe one in between Have you seen the chlorosis on June berries? We see chlorosis on a few plants in that planting and I know some of the soil was more shallow than others didn't have as much black soil So we do see a little chlorosis. You could apply sulfur or somewhat, but you could also apply I can't think of it. Maybe it's just sulfur But if you really if your soil is really high in pH, you know, it's so hard to change it If your soil is really high in pH, I would maybe Not try a different cry a different crop Try Aronia. I try Aronia But that's a good but any man have a good comment there get a soil test done Yeah, find out the pH and see like is it higher than 75 or you know, it's like really high That's gonna be really getting to 7 7 if you're higher than 7 7 that's when you really start to see problems in our soil Contact your local extension agent look online for soil tests and as you extension agents can help you do a soil test They can help you interpret their results how it applies to your area that you want to plant and do this the year before you plant So, you know what you might need to do to adjust your soil About You said you shouldn't plant June berries near Juniper. How about spruce trees? That's just fine They're a whole genius and a whole different family. So spruce trees are okay Can you don't plant spruce trees because they get a lot of diseases themselves Sorry, I'm getting into the Silk plants everything gets diseases. How about Can you talk a little bit about your masterful pruning technique like when do you do it? You said you targeted the little the little sprouts in the ground My mask you have to just spend a minute and describe give me a little You know it was hard this year because we had so much snow in the orchard and I should have I mean Really stuff should be pruned probably by another week or so because of the way the weather is going But I couldn't even get in there because there was so much snow and now all of a sudden it's 60 degrees But you want to do it before your buds break dormancy. So for apples it's usually the end of March early April now and Plants that bought a little earlier like currants and has gaps even earlier than that. I haven't even gotten to those yet this year Yeah, you want to if this is if this is your stem You want if this is the shoot you want to remove you cut it off right here you don't want to cut it off here because what's left is a stub and the stub will rot and Eventually it could move disease down into the lower part of the branch It's just a waste of no stubs. You just want to cut it off right there right there Kathy are you gonna discuss honey berries? Just say no no we are running out of time. That's right. We don't Start billings, but The good thing about this is can he has talked about honey berries or has caps in the past at spring fever Or the spring fever website and look at the archives. It's all there for you What's better son or shade getting back to June berries Oh son son keep those diseases away. Let's dry up early in the morning before the humidity Gets all that fungus going on them How about has that dreaded past spotted winged or safflower affected your June berries? Yes Yes, yes, it's terrible. I get your June berries picked as soon as possible My new theory is to do that pick them early. You know, they don't have to be totally ripe They actually will have more pectin when they're a little less ripe So if you want to make jam out of them or even pie, they'll be a little more tangy and they'll be more pectin But get them off as soon as you can Those the fruit flies shows up about July 10th How about Do you ever thought about using a product like a root starter for propagating June berries? Oh, they've tried everything University here has done tissue culture on them and they will tissue culture They form little plants in the medium But then you have to take them from there and put them in another something or other to make them form roots That's the hard part getting them to actually from the little leaky part to making roots That's the hard part. They're just a weird funky Unhelpful plant to propagate About organic Fungicides like besides that, you know, I have meals. Well, you could use copper. Copper's kind of toxic to humans It can build up in your soil. So It's actually not the best For us for our safety The commercial fungicides are actually probably safer to you as a human But there, you know, there's things like mill stop. There's Actinovate it's one of the actinomyces is possible to use something like that a bacteria that Will hopefully keep the funguses off So many things to try You got a comment about spotted winter safflower In Fargo on June berries it only the only correct the end of the harvest season At that time picking the fruit before it gets very dark colored If you do that like you were recommending it gets ahead of the insect problem And get them frozen get those berries frozen as soon as possible because that will stop that little worm in its tracks You know, it goes in as an egg and within a few days it becomes the little maggot But if you can stop it when it's still Uh an egg or a very very tiny worm, you know, then you'll never notice that you're eating it Don't worry about it. Just big it in a pie Okay, yeah, right. They're perfectly Yeah, they taste better with june berries Uh, do you wash your june berries before you freeze them? Uh, we do not we do not just get them in the freezer as soon as possible and then when they're frozen I run them underwater Okay, any last questions out there Okay, see none. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Excellent. Okay. Have a great spring Thank you Okay, everybody. We're gonna take About a five minute break before next talk. We're gonna learn how to graft an apple tree There you go. Take a break