Goldenberry - coming soon

General Fruit Growing
#1

According to Goldenberry, new superfruit, grows in US - Fruit Growers News
Pay close attention where it says " Growers interested in growing goldenberries can contact Durner at durner@sebs.rutgers.edu for more information." If you dont grow fruit already this is an annual and will get you in fruit today while you wait several years on your apples, pears and cherries!

APR 19, 2019

Goldenberry, new superfruit, grows in US

South America’s goldenberry is poised to be a new superfruit for North American consumers, but a USDA-funded study shows they can be grown in the U.S.

Rutgers University plant biology researcher Edward Durner is starting the second year of research into goldenberries as a crop for farm market and community supported agriculture in the Northeastern U.S. He gave a presentation on his work recently at the Mid-Atlantic Fruit & Vegetable Convention in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Goldenberries (Physalis peruviana) are an annual crop. The fruits – about the diameter of a penny or dime – are yellow and tart with a unique tropical flavor, tasting “like a mixture of pineapple, strawberry, sour cherry and citrus,” according to Durner. The yellow fruit sometimes can be seen through a translucent, golden brown husk. They are closely related to ground cherries and tomatillos, and can be grown much like tomatoes, peppers or eggplant, started indoors and transplanted to a field after frost.

The fruit is thought to be catching on with North American consumers. Food processing giant Nestlé a year ago bought a majority stake in Terrifertil, the world’s largest buyer of goldenberries. A news release from Nestle called the goldenberries “an Andean superfood high in vitamins and antioxidants.”

“This investment allows us to strengthen our presence in fast-growing categories such as plant-based foods, beverages and healthy snacks, known as ‘superfoods’ due to their high natural nutrient content,” Nestlé Zone Americas CEO Laurent Freixe said in the release.

Durner also has noticed goldenberries popping up on cooking shows, at least once as a “secret ingredient” in a chef competition. A marketing effort in the U.S., the American Pichuberry Association, has also trademarked the name “Pichuberry” for goldenberries and would support growers that would adopt Pichuberries as a new crop.

The excitement over a new superfruit is worth growers’ attention because currently they are not grown commercially in North America, Durner said.

“I think they have potential to be grown anywhere in North America,” he said.

In the first year of Durner’s research, growers in the Northeast tried growing the berries. There was a problem with growers receiving the seed in time for planting, but those growers who had enough season to harvest the ripe fruit did have some favorable reports.

The plants are vigorous and need space to grow.

“They need to be at least 5 feet apart in the row,” he said. “They need to be probably 7-9 feet between rows. These plants will fill that space up. They’re a pretty large plant. They could become 10 feet wide in circumference and they easily get to 6 or 7 feet tall.”

“Those folks who were able to harvest some fruit and try them, and have other people try them – most people really liked the flavor,” Durner said. “Several of them actually liked them better than ground cherries, because they had a fruitier, more tart, fruit-like flavor than ground cherries.”

Goldenberries and goldenberry seed are often confused with ground cherries.

“Ground cherries have more of a mellow flavor,” he said.

Durner said a good way to tell the seed apart is to look at it after germination. Goldenberries are distinguished by being fuzzy when germinating.

During his second year of research, 116 growers in the Northeast and Midwest are planting goldenberries and sending him their feedback. Goldenberries need a long season to grow but if planted in time can be harvested in September and early October.

“I’m also focusing on possible methods of training and pruning to induce earlier flowering and fruiting, so the plants are more productive and they come in earlier in the season,” Durner said. “That was probably the biggest complaint, if you want to call it a complaint, from the growers, is that they’re such a long-season crop.”

Growers interested in growing goldenberries can contact Durner at durner@sebs.rutgers.edu for more information.

— Stephen Kloosterman, associate editor

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1 Like
#2

Good issue of Fruit Grower News.

(About the ‘ground cherry’ or ‘husk tomato’…50+ years ago as a barefoot boy I was chopping these down in my watermelon patch and from among the sweet corn. Not a substitute for tomato, unless you’re hungry and don’t have a tomato.)

2 Likes
#3

I like ground cherry, usually fresh but did make a really good pie the one time i cooked it.

In the garden they are a “less pest, more work” fruit—they self-seed like a mother- and a gallon bucket of husks is maybe a half-quart of fruit. We usually grow 4-6 plants a year as a curiosity, they are worth a try, but i gotta laugh when the newest fruit on the block is something the amish were growing for over a hundred years. It’s relative obscurity has more to do with the market then it’s recent availability I think

5 Likes
#4

@BlueBerry @markalbob
These are different "They need to be at least 5 feet apart in the row,” he said. “They need to be probably 7-9 feet between rows. These plants will fill that space up. They’re a pretty large plant. They could become 10 feet wide in circumference and they easily get to 6 or 7 feet tall.”

"Those folks who were able to harvest some fruit and try them, and have other people try them – most people really liked the flavor,” Durner said. “Several of them actually liked them better than ground cherries, because they had a fruitier, more tart, fruit-like flavor than ground cherries.”

The thing i think about is pc, swd, jb etc cant touch them inside that husk! I like that they are an annual so field can be cleared every year and crop rotation can be done. Chemical could be eliminated all together and they could be grown organic. Thats all hope and not fact but i would like to test crop them.

2 Likes
#5

I have grown the cape goose berry

Physalis peruviana
The last two years.
I love the flavor, but the yields have been low.
The plants do get rather large, much bigger than the ground Cherrys . If I had another month or two of growing season they might do good.
I started them early , as one would a tomatoe. But at frost they look like they are just really starting to produce.
Season just not long enough here.
Maybe if they were started really early or a different variety they may do better
Yield has not been enough to justify the space.
The flavor is amazing, and they will keep in the husk at room temp. For several months.
Would like to try another strain, mine came from Costa Rica.

5 Likes
#6

Interesting, I’ve definitely had them before from stores and in Spain, and they are tarter than aunt mollies, yes…I had assumed it was a different variety of ground cherry itself because I’ve seen ground cherry and cape gooseberry listed as synonyms for one another which it sounds like they are not actually

3 Likes
#7

Actually, Meijer grocery chain sells them in produce ……green. I’ve used them as a substitute for “fried green tomatoes”, but not the best. The ones they sell are big as a golf ball…bigger even.

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#8

Thanks for sharing this. The Physalis crops have a lot to recommend them! We grew Aunt Molly’s ground cherry (P. pruinosa) in our home garden for the first time last year, and loved them. Tasty, fruitful and easy to grow, even under the questionable care of a four-year-old. It takes some time to husk them, but at least they’re easy to husk - not stuck in there like tomatillos can be (though I love tomatillos, too).

Not sure if my growing season is long enough for Goldenberry/Cape Gooseberry (Physalis peruviana), but I’ve enjoyed those on the rare occasions I can find them at the supermarket. Bigger and a different flavor from the little ground cherries. I’d love to see them sold more widely. I hope they catch on with the big growers!

5 Likes
#9

Fresh they are so yummy! Dried are great too.

2 Likes
#10

We grow these, my kids love them. I have only ever eaten them fresh, but have heard that cooked and put in a pie they taste a lot like cooked apricot. I want to try them dried but my daughter eats them as fast as I grow them.

On average the fruits weigh about 2g, and we get a little over 500 per plant, so they average ~1kg per plant which isn’t overly impressive.

Mites tend to defoliate them here which puts an end to the season early. Plus some small yet aggressive ants get in and hollow out a few. If I could get rid of the mites I could increase the yield considerably.

3 Likes
#11

These dont really seem to be as visible as i would have expected yet in 2020.

#12

I have grown them, a few years ago here. They did do well and produced big plants but we are just too far north for much ripe production in a regular year.

I also was not super fond of the flavour, compared to a regular groundcherry. A bit too “perfume” for me and the rest of the family.

My groundcherries self seed and I will say they are pest free (except for the occasional earwig) and don’t seem to need much in terms of feeding. They have even done well volunteering in my cast iron urns so organic growing should be very possible. The cost is all going to be in the harvesting/processing. Pick-your-own?

3 Likes
#13

I took some seeds from one of those and am trying to grow the plants. They just germinated in fact. Probably not going to be exactly like the original but should be interesting in either case

4 Likes
#14

I really like these (Cape Gooseberries). But I considered them a failure (here in Ellicott City), granted, I do not have full sun all day in any part of my garden, due to being so suburban. The plants grew as easily as tomatoes (which are cousins). However, did not get far along enough to produce fruit. A couple flowered. I would be willing to try again. I had collected the fresh goldenberry fruit from WholeFoods, and isolated the seed, (sampling to confirm that the mother berries were tasty), and also from Aldi, I purchased dried goldenberries, thus I felt I had some genetic variety depth.

3 Likes
#15

I will reach out to Dr Durner to see if he has advice (perhaps a more north latitude friendly cultivar). Once I set up my greenhouse, I guess I should be able to extend the growing season sufficiently to try them again.

1 Like
#16

Growing goldenberries and ground cherries | EcoFarming Daily Helpful article differentiating P. peruviana from and also referring to some North American experts on the topic, Drs. Andrew Ristvey and Edward Durner.

4 Likes
#17

Thanks for sharing! Here’s the relevant portion for those scrolling by:

P. peruviana : One of the main drawbacks of P. peruviana seems to be the long growing season required before fruits can be harvested. Production of fruit can also be somewhat moderate. In addition, reliable sources for seed are limited. Some of these issues are being addressed by Dr. Durner in his trials.

An advantage of P. peruviana is that the plants are larger and more upright and that the fruit does not abscise when ripe, giving more control and easier conditions (not stooping on the ground) for harvesting. On the other hand, because they don’t abscise when ripe, they must be cut off the plant, which makes harvest more time consuming.

P. pruinosa : Ground cherry gives the grower a much longer harvest window and seems to be more productive than P. peruviana. There is also ample and varied sources of seed, though there is little documentation about specific differences between varieties. The major disadvantage of P. pruinosa is the very low, sprawling habit of the plant, which makes harvest difficult.

My seeds that germinated definitely have very upright growth versus something like Aunt Mollies variety.

The part about the fruit not dropping with this peruviana species is something I’m very much looking forward to. I stopped growing Goldenberries / Groundcherries because they made a mess.

3 Likes
#18

I have grown these for about three years. I grew them both from seeds saved from South American fruit and from Baker creek. I also grow ground cherry. The Cape Gooseberry or golden berry grows to 5 feet high in my NY garden. It needs a long season so I start them before I start my tomatoes. They are very tasty, slightly different from ground cherries and the berry is just slightly larger.

4 Likes
#19

& @kakasamo When you say they require a long season, how long are we talking about here? When would fruit start ripening?

Nevermind, should have read the article in full:

P. pruninosa starts to fruit after about 75 days from transplants. P. peruviana needs a much longer season of about 120 days, and so plants started inside in New Jersey (zone 6b) in late March will start producing fruit around the end of August.

Here are my two plants that are already 1.5’ tall:

image
image1250×938 636 KB

7 Likes
#20

Mine are re-growing now. They die back to the ground every year. Then i cut them and grow again on spring.

5 Likes