In the same boat as you- have heard about them for so many years and finally getting some going this year. Hopefully the fruit lives up to the description.

Awesome. It may be out of proportion to the actual size of my endeavor-9 plants!-but for some reason, I'm really excited about this venture. I've got the land whereby, if it were to prove feasible, I could go fairly big on this. Said land-aside from the portion which is already woods-has been and will continue to be managed as a "tree farm", although that connotes Christmas trees or nursery stock. Neither of those-more of a reforestation for the hell of it thing. But enough clear land remains-we had thought about hops. There's so much interest in that crop with all the microbrews, etc. But in the end, I just didn't see having the time that would have demanded. This haskap now....that looks doable. Let me know if/when you get going.

+oM

Will do. I've read a few years until they start to fruit so am curious to see. I've also wanted to start growing some of the larger fruiting varieties of serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia) and hope to get some within the next couple years.

When my wife and I were in college there were three large serviceberries by our apartment complex and one year they were loaded with plump, juicy berries. I'm talking like 3 5-gallon bucketfuls per tree! She made a strawberry-juneberry pie that was better than any pie I've ever had.

Funny how this stuff goes-that plant is also on my radar. And while pretty much any Amelanchier has fruit which we humans could eat, there's the "Saskatoon Berry" which BTW is being promoted by the same Canadian growers who are pushing the haskap thing, which appear to be especially well-suited for edible fruit production. Those look good too!

+oM

Yeah it was surprising how good they were. We had a very wet spring that year but rather than tasting watery like strawberries can in overly wet soil the saskatoons were juicy and very sweet. I'm guessing in drier years drip irrigation would provide the best crop. Nice part is they fruit early in the year so they aren't as dependent on summer rains to fill out like apples, pears, etc...

Was looking a few weeks ago at different varieties and there is a newer one out called 'JB-30' which is supposed to be a large, very flavorful fruit and able to produce abundantly in variable climates.

I've actually wanted to start a saskatoon farm as I think there is huge potential for it but thus far the returns per acre are pretty low. Maybe as part of a larger business it would work, but land is still PRICEY here in Iowa.

If you're looking at some of the same sites I was the other fruits I've wanted to try are the new sweet cherry hybrids (Romance series or something like that) that have been bred up in Canada. Good brix rating and completely winter hardy. My wife's stepdad ordered a couple of those this year so in a few years we should be able to see how well they produce too.

Seems like a ton of the breeding and introducing of hardier and unique fruit varieties is being done in Canada. Don't understand that. Would love to see ornamental horticulture (or even horticulture in general) here in the U.S. coming out with fruit varieties for us northerners that can be used in the landscape both for their appearance and their fruit.

Agreed. those Saskatchewan guys are really doing some good work. There's videos (youtube) on the site that are fun to watch, including one gal who is doing incredibly detailed (ie.-"science", lol) studies of pollinators. I learned more about bumblebees in that hour than in my whole previous life.

Good luck with your ventures. Yes, it is hard to compete with corn and soybeans!

+oM