Given my limited exoburban home orchard space, in order to plan to have a long harvest window, I’d like to select Seaberry varieties that are spaced apart. From what I’ve read in forums the description of cultivars I planted this year was wrong with my “late” variety being earlier than my early varieties.
I’m asking if people growing Seaberries could make replies with this information:
USDA Zone
General Region or Latitude (e.g. near Madison, WI)
Soil type (e.g. dry sandy, clay, wet loamy, etc)
Anything unusual about your climate (e.g. 5,000 ft)
(Open text) Describe when cultivars harvest?
Hypothetical Example:
Zone 4b, near Minneapolis hence 45 degrees N, sandy soil, N/A:
Cultivar01 starts first week of Aug with Cultivar02 about 5 days behind.
Cultivar03 and Cultivar04 start together last week of Aug. Note Cultivar04 has the widest harvest window of 6 weeks (ending into October) while the others are only 3-4 weeks.
This has Radiant harvesting the opposite end that OGW description would have you believe.
This forum:
Orange Energy and Gardens Gift < Titan.
This has Orange Energy on the opposite end that OGW description would have you believe. It also has German varieties before Russian but Russian varieties ripened first at the Wisconsin test farm.
I am just learning about Sea Buckthorn, aka Seaberry. According to GRIN Plant Taxonomy, it is not a true buckthorn but rather in the Elaeagnae family – as is Autumn Olive. The species name is Hippophae rhamnoides. It is endemic to the north-eastern hemisphere. They are known to contain saponins which can impart a bitter flavor. This is not such a bad thing if you consider making beer. While the berries are on the plant, sustained freezing outdoor temperates can significantly increase their sugar content. This matches a symbiotic behavior between certain other fruiting plants and wildlife in non-temperate regions of the world. Hippophae can be diarrhetic owing to concentration of toxins. This varies by region (wild plants) and cultivar (landrace plants). In many cases, cooking will break down the toxins and eliminate the side effect.
The Hippophae have a sister genus on the north-American continent. It has 3 species:
Shepherdia argentea, silver buffaloberry
Shepherdia canadensis, russet buffaloberry
Shepherdia rotundifolia, roundleaf buffaloberry
All three of these contain saponins. The first two are considered severe diarrhetics and toxic when eaten fresh. However, Shepherdia rotundifolia contains less toxins. Obtaining cultivars of this species can be problematic owing to distributors and sellers with mislabeled plants and seeds.
Canada Buffaloberry
The Shepherdia canadensis Canada Buffaloberry aka “soopolallie”, having a much higher content of saponins, was used by Native Americans to cure bison meat or whipped make an whipped food given the moniker “Indian Ice Cream.” It can grow as an understory shrub that might work where I need more erosion control but face rabbit and woodchuck pressure. It has little brown spots evenly distributed on underside of leaves. Burnt Ridge sells these singly, though like others in the family are dioecious (they have separated sexes). https://aihd.ku.edu/foods/soapberry.html
For me this year;
Orange Delight: second to third week of August
Orange Glow and Golden Sweet: First week of September
Titan: 3rd week of September.
Titan and Orange Glow where the easiest to pick since the are not quite as “spikey”. Golden Sweet is the hardiest to pick and has the smallest berries of these four, however it is the sweetest. Everyone who has tried them likes them. I typically juice them, and then freeze the juice in cube form. The juice makes a great substitute for citrus juice. The juice when added to water with a little sugar reminds me of ‘Tang’ in flavor.
What was especially interesting to me is aparently in 1921 they had not yet succeeded in any cultivation of high bush blueberry. i had no idea it was that new. Crazy how there is more info on whatever buffalo berries are than blueberries!
So we just got our offical large damaging storm for the summer here in Wisconsin. Two of my seaberry trees got knocked over a bit but I was able to set them back straight, hopefully they didn’t lose too many roots. While doing this I realized the two still quite small star of altai plants have produced little green fruits O_o… Other than the one I planted for this year, the… possibly 5-6 other trees including the one male I’ve had planted for around 3-4 years… all of them 4-6+ feet tall, none of the other females seem to be flowering or fruiting at all Along with the fact the one male is on the opposite end of the row from the ones that are fruiting, so I guess I can safely assume pollination won’t be a problem at all whenever the other decide to start xD
Finally remembered to come back here to report… I was wrong xD
Under closer inspection… ALL of them have berries
Of course it seems some of them have much smaller ones and my newer ones simply have larger berries so, meh. I have some pictures around here somewhere…
Also yea I’m right smack in mid western wisconsin in 4b, the trees seem to REALLY like the soil, all of the trees are planted pretty… a bit too close together but they don’t seem to mind, been pulling out suckers from the ground and occasionally accidentally digging up roots when planting other things around them. Definitely going to be pruning the hell out of the older trees this winter due to their growing huge over just a few years. Also note I planted a… I keep forgetting the name, ah a roselle. I planted that a little bit within the swarm and oddly enough the thing seems to already be producing flower buds, not very large but figured the properties of the seabuckthorn would possibly aid the plant even though it’s definitely shading it a bit. Guess I’ll add more info as the berries ripen. Probably take more pictures too.
Update July18 26, So it appears that the Star of Altai have basically fully ripened at this point, a little over ripe at that. The others appear to be quickly following, the titan… and… a couple others that I’m not entirely sure what they are, I’ll have to refer to my old orders. But yea It’s definitely something else to get a handful and just pop it in my mouth
Also whipe pulling up some suckers I noticed these odd granular things on the roots. Pictures here.
The… star of altai seemed to ripen first, which is very odd because they were only a year old O_o The rest which were titan, orange energy… and maybe leikora or however it’s spelled, those ripened pretty much the same time a few weeks later.
But yea I’m 100% sick of these now and will be getting rid of them to probably grow some wild strawberries instead xD
Other note the star of altai were definitely MUCH better tasting and even a little bigger than the rest so I’d highly suggest grabbing those if you’re looking, I think I remember you talking about those but ah well.But yea those I mentioned were nicely ripened in July.
Just not enough fruit imo to justify the space needed so I’m out a bit of money but it was a cool project for a while.
Seaberries are meant to be blended with sweetener. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
They don’t taste good with plums nor sloe nor (IIRC) blueberry. Peach, apple, cornelian yes. So Star of Altai leaves you looking for something to blend into it available late July. Maybe Everbearing Mulberry?
Along with the fact the one male is on the opposite end of the row from the ones that are fruiting, so I guess I can safely assume pollination won’t be a problem at all whenever the other decide to start xD
