that’s amazing that honeyberry survives and produces in z1. do they need any special care or do you just let them do their thing? what other fruits do you grow up there? ive seen z2 hardy apples listed but not z1.
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The modern high quality honeyberries or haskaps are very recent products of a number of breeding programs. Being a circumpolar, boreal plant in nature, many early selections have lots of very cold tolerant DNA in them from Russian stock. This has been mixed with high altitude Japanese Kiril Island selections that imparted better flavour and likely size of berry and plant. The most prolific in terms of new cultivars produced have come from the University of Saskatchewan’s plant sciences department. There has also been breeding in Washington which has established lines that have more Japanese blood in them, making them more suited to the lower 48 conditions. New selections are coming on line regularly, more suited to each region of the continent, so watch for selections developed for your region/climate. They all like a good chill period and are very frost tolerant.
In my zone I have to use the hardiest lines Boreal Blizzard, Indigoes and Aurora being a few which can suffer cold damage in bad years but generally flourish.
I choose to cover all 70-ish of my producing apple trees to overwinter them, most being grown in some kind of shelter year round, as even the hardiest like Noret, Rescue and Trailman, all apple-crabs can be seriously damaged by -50C temps which we can get any winter. I hope to see my first Honeycrisp flowers this spring on a 15 year old limb on a +30 year old, multi variety tree in one of my larger shelters.
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i have many of the Canadian bred cultivars and a few pure Japanese ones . mine had seen -43f 3 years ago and had no damage. didnt know they could take -50c. that’s damned cold! there are a bunch of farms growing honeyberry in eastern Quebec about 20min. from here. i live right across from Edmunston, N.B.
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Yes, Quebec and NB have both embraced haskaps in a big way. Its a good thing, they’re great!
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a farmer in my hometown planted 50 acres of them as well. seen them for sale for a while at the local shop n save supermarkets but i guess they didn’t sell because after 6 months they didn’t carry them anymore. must be selling them to a processor somewhere else.
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