Propagate Honeyberry / Haskap cuttings? Follow along

Did you have to stratify the seed? From what I gather it seems like you went straight to planting them with no cold stratification.

I’m hoping I will get some volunteer seedlings this spring as I allowed many of the berries to fall into the pots I have plants in.

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I sowed them fresh, no,strat. Seedlings are very tiny…

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Awesome! I can’t wait to start making crosses with hand pollination. When my new plants arrive this year I’ll have 14 varieties of honeyberry! It’s gonna take awhile because all the plants should be showing up as first or second year cuttings.

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Curious what varieties you are getting, maybe we can swap some cuttings…

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Currently I have: Maxie, Solo, Eisbar, Honey Bunch, Sugar Pie, Kalinka, Sugar Mountain Blue, Borealis, and Berry Blue (which I believe is also known as Czech #17 if I’m not mistaken.)

Most of those I received in the mail last year and are quite small, I’d be hesitant to take cuttings from them before they’ve established well. But I’d be happy to take cuttings from my Sugar Mountain Blue, Borealis and Berry Blue this year as they are my oldest and most mature plants. I still don’t have any that have reached their full size yet though.

Coming in the mail this year I have: Boreal Blizzard, Boreal Beauty, Indigo Treat, and Indigo Gem. (edit: forgot to mention Honey Bee is on the way as well.)

Chances are I’ll be ordering more to round out my collection. My goal is to acquire everything available from the Universities of Oregon and Saskatchewan.

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I want to wait a bit and see if any new ones come out. Berries Unlimited made connections in Europe and scored all kinds of new cultivars from Russia. Some are said to be extremely sweet, but we will see. I have 2 of about 6 of them. See if they are really sweet in a couple years. I just hope both survive the winter.
Anybody have Honey Joy, Honey Delight, or Blue Drops?
Mine are still too young for cuttings too, but maybe fall 2018 I can take some cuttings.
I have the super sweets Honey Gin and Blue Banana.

I don’t really want to buy anymore for now. I will trade though.

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Im ordering a bunch of aurora, blizzard, beauty and beast from a canadian propagator this spring, 15 of each but 21 of beast. Might have extras if anyone is interested. Im not sure my blue banana is going to survive drew, it looked pretty rough last fall… Also my happy giant wasnt looking too hot. I think I over ferted them last spring… Indigo Gem is my wifes favorite so far, but Ive only gotten fruit from that and Honey Bee in any quantity. Im not a big fan of its low/drooping habit tho, makes it harder to pick, etc. Hopefully Ill get a few aurora berries this spring, its supposed to be a real step up from the first gen offerings from U o S.

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Blue jewel cuttings growing very well in coir…

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Checked progress of my cuttings today. Haskap callused and more buds breaking. Especially on branch tips.



Cherries, Juliet on left, cj on right. Buds breaking more on Juliet than cj.


I bundled everything back up and stuck them in a cold corner of my heated garage for now. Not sure the best way to proceed. Thinking about going direct to small pots in a month our two, outside, once winter breaks… suggestions appreciated if anyone has done something similar b4.

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Looks good! Yes the tissue culture plants seem to have a problem thriving. The Honey Gin I have is fine though, it grew a lot, looks like any other plant. Blue Banana may be a problem child. It never took off for me, so I pretty much bare rooted it, and put it in ground in prepped soil with lots of organic manner. Zone 6 is hot to them, so it is in a partly shaded spot. Besides these two I have a total of 10 plants. One is from Brady that he bought at Doctor Thompson’s orchard. She is responsible for Maxie, and Solo and many others. A Japanese cultivar. The one he bought is unnamed.

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I’m hoping for a few more berries on my aurora , tundra, and indigo treat this year got 4-6 off of each one last season. going to give them a good dose of compost next spring so i hope to get a decent crop. the i treat and tundra were slow to establish but the aurora produced berries and good growth the 1st season! aurora was the best of the 2 and has bigger berries too.

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If this works with the Juliets I’ll give it a try. I had one root last year but then died. Is that pure coir in the bag? I wonder if the toothpick method will work on these too. If your method works that would be great! I like your method because you can check them to see what’s going on. I don’t have enough branches yet to make all those cuttings. I might try it on a couple. How wet do you have the coir? Is it soaked at the bottom of the bag?

Coir was pasteurized to 180f in tap water 300ppm here, cooled and squeezed by hand to the point where most water was out but i still could get some if i tried. U could prolly just sterilize it also. I dipped the branches in water with 10cc bleach for about 1 minute before i started cutting them up. Wore gloves to try to keep it relatively clean.
Uploading…
Updated pic of cuttings inside under lights for a week now…

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How are those Juliet cuttings doing, and the rest in the bag of coir?

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I took the cuttings off heat because they were ahead of schedule by a bit. Still pretty cold here. I just put them back on the bottom heat yesterday. I opened the honeyberry ones and they were basically where they were previously. Figured its better to have them start to root if possible before slowing them down. I built a new box for my heating element that has 2x6 sides, plywood bottom with a 1 inch layer of foam insulation on top of it, heating pad on that and then shredded cardboard on top of that to insulate the heat/cuttings. I should have taken better pictures during the process but didnt really think of it.


I added some new HB cuttings of a different variety and also some Illinois Everbearing cuttings from last years wood. Dont expect anything from the IEM really, but it needed pruning anyway… Branch tips, where cut, were sealed using coconut oil.

Here are my honeyberry cuttings from earlier. The tip cutting died, it woke up earlier than the other cuttings and it had a single root on it when I checked it last week but Im thinking I broke it when I repotted them, after checking for roots. These are uncovered now and all 3 of the remaining cuttings have multiple roots as of yesterday.

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Good job.

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Stuck bunch of callused cuttings today. Couple starting to show small roots. In coir, deep cell tray with humidity dome.


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I have that going on with about twelve cups in a clear plastic bin. I’m rooting currants. They are easy to root. The easiest I’ve done so far. I saw roots just after a week. Good luck with yours. I like watching. I’ll get a picture of mine.

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Looks good. What kind currants?