It’s bloom time for shadbush, I.e. Amelanchier. I have a fairly massive naturalized planting that I’ve been tending and encouraging over the last 15 years. I should get a massive yield, too, though for the most part it’s disappointing. There are insect and disease issues I could do something about, I imagine. They’re very tasty berries too, one of my favorites. At least I can enjoy the blossoms.
And they provide top tier bird habitat. All of that cover, plus some food- many birds, especially wax wings adore the fruit above all others, and they usually polish off the meager harvest after bugs and disease have their way. I keep hoping some year it will be different.
A neighbor ~ 2-3 miles up the rd. has excellent harvests, albeit with some amount of wormy fruit. Mine shrivel and drop. The flowers also get some malady. I had thought fireblight, though looking at threads related to pears, I’m thinking perhaps it’s pseudomonas.
These being naturalized rather than properly cultivated spaces, I find they lend themselves mixing and matching into interesting guilds. This whole area of the yard is very shallow and ledgy, with vertically oriented shaley schist bedrock less than 1 ft. down. Under and around the shad, i have big patches of lowbush blueberry, lingonberry, wild honeysuckle, lowbush Aronia, some bunchberry, black huckleberry, black currants, gooseberries, Hansen’s bush cherry, and flowering raspberries. 2 kinds of native Spiraea too. In the lingonberry bed, I have a couple of low creeping juneberries I found on rocky open summits. They never exceed 2 ft. in height, and spread through stolons. There’s a meandering path through part of this area up to where we park our cars.
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Pretty space, sorry you are not getting decent yield of good fruit from them.
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Last year I got a regent from Nature Hills and a northline from edible native foods. The northline has yet to come out of dormancy and the regent never came out of dormancy last year. I got a regent this year from hidden springs which is looking to show some promise this year. I hear they taste great and grow well where I am so I am certainly hoping to get some good ones going.
Elsewhere on the property, I have some patches of Saskatoons- all ‘Smokey’ and ‘Northline’ seedlings from Burnt Ridge. They actually yield pretty well, so there is hope for this patch too, I think. The birds can be dealt with to some degree with sheer volume of fruit. Kind of what most people seem to find with mulberries. Many are eaten, but there’s usually enough to go around. I’d like to sort out the disease and insect issues though.
Really curious if anyone has a handle on the black crooked flower racemes. As I said, I thought for years it must be fireblight, though it seems to never move down the branches. Now I see that that is common to Pseudomonas, which casually resembles fireblight. I’d think weather would eventually break my way.
Insect wise, there are minor ones like leaf rollers and aphids that I could easily nip with a dormant oil spray I’d think. But tougher customers too. Many of the fruits have a small black spot on them and drop prematurely. I’m not sure if it’s a curculio, perhaps apple curculio, or some type of fruit worm. Whatever it is is common. There are native Amelanchiers in everywhere here, and usually when I look I see these black spots, which I believe to be oviposting sites.
There’s scant info on Amelanchier pests and management, except that tailored to western Canada where it’s a big deal. I’ve perused some of this info but haven’t found it all that helpful. When I reached out to the local extension agent who specializes in berry crops, he kind of chuckled and shrugged his shoulders.
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maybe try a spray schedule like you would for a apple. i have wild serviceberry here as well and have the same issues. i just grafted them over to northline so i plan to spray them with my apples. hopefully that takes care of the problem.
Our native Juneberries started dropping petals yesterday.
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I think juneberries are awesome.
City hall here has 2 planted. I got maybe a quart of berries (before the birds) a couple of years, but then cedar apple rust set in and has decimated the crop every year.
This has discouraged me from planting my own, otherwise they’re so tasty I would grow them.
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Around here (Southern Adirondacks) you know the Serviceberries are ripe when the Cedar Waxwings show up. They clear out the berries in record time and then disappear.
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I have to spray all of mine or all of the fruit is lost to rust.
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Curious to hear how your grafted plants fare.Northline might be an ok match for the native ones. Some of the other alnifolia like ‘Smokey” maybe not so much. These grow so prolifically, my impulse is to let them do their thing. But I have toyed with the idea a bit. Also tempted to try grafting on some pears as it’s potentially workable dwarfing rootstock. Definitely experimental though. I put a fair bit of effort into field grafting pears onto some of many volunteer hawthorns and 7 or 8 years later only to have them mostly wither. I am not eager to repeat such an escapade.
Lots of fruit here, so I’m ok with not getting it all. Such a tease though as they are very yummy and I’ve definitely seen them do ok with minimal attention elsewhere. Funny too that the younger ‘Smokey’ bushes do as well as they do just across my driveway. Probably, I thought, I should try a modest targeted spray regime and see if I could break some of the cycle. Interesting to hear everyone’s accounts ofAmelanchiers in their area. Little in the way of rust here, for the most part from what I’ve seen. I hear it’s a pain though
put 4 grafts on my 20ft tree growing out of my spruce hedge. its only about 1.5in diameter as its been shaded until i bent it down and tied it there. left a small nurse branch under the top worked one. its leafing out right now…
Perhaps you are referring to Amelanchier bartramiana? If so that is a very cool find. I’d love to get my hands on some. Amelanchier bartramiana (Bartram's serviceberry, mountain shadbush): Go Botany
As far as the insect pressure you are experiencing, I have read that apple maggot as well as it’s close relative the blueberry maggot attack the fruits of amalanchier species. I have seen maggots in the native fruit and believe this to be the case.
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I planted a bunch of A. arborea a couple years ago, they’re still small. This spring however I’m going fruit-batty & along with tons of other stuff I planted a Thiessen, a Lee #8, & a Northline (all from St. Lawrence). Might try a few more later - I have some Ukrainian A. ovails I’m hoping to germinate for kicks also. Hoping for the best.
When I am able to find the wild fruit of any species they’re sublime. I can also say that in MI & WI at least I never really see any bug problems (perhaps the birds eat the whole snack!)
The A. spp. are blooming quite nicely along Whitefish Bay (Lake Superior, Upper Peninsula) this time of year. For some reason, hmm, I usually can’t find the fruit later in the summer though!
Even one fruit is a gift though. I remember finding a single fruit in the mountains along the Yukon River in Alaska fieldwork about a dozen years ago - only A. alnifolia fruit I ever came across in many years of Alaska botany fieldwork, but all the more precious!
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I know regent is quite small reaching only 3-5 feet according to many. I am not sure about creeping though.
looks like my wild one i grafted 3 weeks ago, has accepted the northline cuttings and is pushing growth.
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That Sounds like a good fit description wise. Just in full bloom now, a few days after petal fall on the bigger shad. (canadensis, laevis, stolonifera, whatever they are) In addition to being obviously very short (lingonberry in the background for perspective) they have diminutive leaves and flowers. The fruit of these is of reasonable size though, and of good flavor. Not dry or mealy as is suggested in some descriptions.
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Well, post fruit set, here’s what my wild /endemic Amelanchier pathogen woes look like:
There are brown rotting fruitlets with green calyxes. The seem to ooze a droplet or two. I’d noticed this in past years, but haven’t really documented it or looked very closely at it until now. Does this pathogen look familiar? Fungal or bacterial? I always thought fireblight and it fits the descriptions I’ve seen but does not seem to progress or go systemic. Nor does it seem to hop to other species or varieties. Maybe a weaker strain ? Climate? Curious what anyone’s take might be.
You can get a sense what the impact on the crop is at this stage. Some clusters are reduced to a single fruitlet. Some area relatively less affected.
They ‘Smokey’ alnifolias, on the other hand look great. I see no sign of the same issue.
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I wound up with a good crop on most of my Amelachiers despite some of the usual disease and pest issues. Im finally getting enough berries that the birds cant possibly eat them all too. The alnifolias lack flvor from too much rain. The native ones are sooo tasty though
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NAFEX is holding a virtual Interest Group meetup on growing Amelanchier sp. It’ll be held on ZOOM/phone next week, Tuesday, July 25, 2023, at 6:30 p.m. Central. It will also be recorded for members to watch after the fact in the Members section. Membership is only $19/year, FYI. More details at nafex.org/events.
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my serviceberries are starting to ripen. been grazing Northline and my 20ft. wild one.
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