What's the verdict on Honeyberries...are they tasty?

[Viktor]

A sufficient pollination is the foundation, and only then can other factors influencing fertility come into play.

I wouldn’t rely solely on self-pollination, and it’s better to have other unrelated varieties. Even if there is some degree of self-pollination, like side doors for the plant, it cannot compete with cross-pollination by unrelated varieties, as cross-pollination ensures a larger quantity of fruits that are bigger and tastier. If a high level of self-pollination shortens the lifespan of flowers and leads to significant clogging of the stigma, it would hinder cross-pollination. Self-pollination would precede cross-pollination, causing flowers to age immediately, reducing sensitivity to pollen. Low sensitivity to its own pollen is advantageous for the plant, as it allows the extension of the flower’s lifespan and provides an opportunity for more suitable cross-pollination. Constant replenishing of different nectar levels indicates that the plant aims to increase the number of visits and the frequency of pollinators. If the plant favored self-pollination, it would be unnecessary expenditure, as it increases the energy costs of maintaining the flower. Plants make compromises depending on conditions. However, this is just my opinion. Regardless of how self-pollination works, I am certain that with multiple unrelated varieties, fertility is incomparably greater.

There have also been discussions here about some varieties being self-pollinating. I also have a variety - Violet - about which this is said. However, I don’t rely on it and have many different varieties.

[BlueBerry]

If available, I’d try some European varieties. But, I have the Berry Blue/Czech 17 and also 6 other cultivars ending one called Tana to bring up the rear in blooming. Mostly I have Aurora, and am still patient for a good harvest. Over a decade ago I planted a couple older cultivars, but sold them and don’t have them. Have had 3 or 4 that died or I sold, but currently I think I have at least one plant of 7 different varieties.

[Viktor]

My experiences with mineral fertilization have been confirmed by some sources.
I fertilize Haskap only during the winter season. If it’s organic fertilization, I always do it in the fall. Ash or NPK is applied on the snow around January-February. I avoid using nitrogenous fertilizers during the growing season.

According to the sources I have gone through, in the first three years after planting, concerning mineral fertilization, nitrogenous fertilizer had a negative impact on the uptake of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium by plants from the soil, precisely the nitrogenous fertilizer.

The use of nitrogenous fertilizers had a detrimental effect on yield, quality, and the biochemical composition of fruits in young Haskap plantations. In 15-year-old plantations, the use of nitrogenous fertilizers had a positive effect only on the content of ascorbic acid in the fruit.

The most significant positive impact was observed with potassium fertilization. The application of potassium fertilizers had a positive influence on the uptake of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium by plants.

Regarding self-pollination of some varieties, according to the sources

I have reviewed, in terms of partially self-pollinating varieties, some reportedly produce more than 20% of fruits from the total number of flowers. This would allow plantations to consistently yield fruit in certain cold areas with frequent and prolonged spring frosts, even in the absence of pollinating insects, ensuring some fruit production. However, most varieties in self-pollination resulted in inadequately developed seedless fruits. The likely cause of this phenomenon in a monoculture setting is probably parthenocarpy. The ovaries developed poorly, and at the fruit coloring stage, the fruits dropped, with small, unfilled fruits prevailing. The number of matured fruits in self-pollinating variants was significantly lower, 1-13 times lower, than in freely pollinated variants.

[Viktor]

I’ll try implementing this knowledge from Poland on some shrubs.

In the European region, we often face issues with the autumn awakening of plants and subsequent swelling and blooming.

Excessive nitrogen fertilization at the beginning of vegetation negatively impacts fruit quality. However, it seems that generous watering and nitrogen fertilization after harvest have a positive effect on extending vegetation and reducing the occurrence of secondary blooming in the fall.

It appears that the browning of leaf surfaces, which starts in our region as early as August, and autumn budding, including secondary blooming, are interconnected. This can be addressed by preventing plants from entering dormancy after harvest, thereby avoiding swelling and blooming in the autumn. Essentially, extending vegetation by providing ample watering and nitrogen fertilization after harvest is necessary. Plants will enter dormancy later, prolonging the vegetation period. Additionally, any autumn warming may not have as much impact, as frost and cooler weather will set in later.

[danzeb]

@Vault22dweller

This looks like fall leaf drop, but I thought the plants were evergreen

Not evergreen. Also they do well in northern areas with fewer hot summer days.

[Viktor]

Last fall, concerning the secondary blooming, the shrubs performed quite well. Only here and there, flowers were observed at the tips of the branches. With varieties from Canadian breeding, I didn’t notice it at all.

Essentially, the summer was exceptional compared to previous years, with abundant rainfall potentially extending vegetation and limiting autumn swelling. It seems that after harvesting, we shouldn’t ignore the shrubs and should water them properly in case of drought.
After harvesting the fruits, I will try applying irrigation and nitrogen to some early Russian varieties that have a greater tendency for secondary flowering.

[Darby64]

OK update and bad news with my DFW Texas Honeyberry experiment. I knew this was risky and by no means expected success. I should note I like to experiment and zone push so not discouraged.

Texas summers are variable in their severity. A year and a half ago that summer was hot with a few days reaching 110F and otherwise was around 100F for a lot of it. 110F was a first in 8 years. See my earlier posts for details but managed to get Blue Pagoda and Boreal Beauty to survive.

Now this past summer was far worse with many days over 105F and several days at 110F and about 3 months without rain. I lost a few more fruit trees that are more adapted to Texas than Honeyberries despite aggressive efforts at watering. So not too surprising all the Honeyberry plants I had in ground did not survive. Again with lots of hand watering. In the spring we had basically one month of spring like weather then it went to the 90’s very quickly (much hotter than normal) and almost every day from June through Aug. over 100F with something like 15-20 days over 105F (hottest summer in 10 years for me).

Unfortunately the Blue Pagoda and Boreal Beauty did not flower but had leafed out. I bought these as 1 year old plants when planted and were in ground here almost two years before the murder…err…before the heat killed them. This is to say they were old enough to flower most likely. I cannot say if this was due to lack of enough winter chill (which I was hoping to determine) or the excessively high early heat. It is my understanding that Honeyberries flower on one year old wood (please correct me if you know better). If so this was another possible issue as the summer 1.5 years ago was also excessively hot so did not get much new wood growth, if any, thus possibly lacked 1 year old wood. Another possible reason for no flowers.

Last winter as noted in earlier posts I planted new, dormant, Willa, Boreal Beast, Aurora (4 year old plants) and Maxi (one year old plant). One month after planting they started growing in our mild winter (mid Dec.) then started flowering in Jan. (and weren’t dormant long enough for significant chill before I got them). So maybe chill is not an issue? No promises, that is the data I have.

I have noted much recent discussion here about lack of productivity in different varieties. For me when flowering occurred when there were few or no pollinators available and I hand pollinated everything. I got very high fruit set on Willa, Beast, Aurora and Maxi. I mentioned prelim fruit tasting earlier. I managed to fully ripen berries off of Willa, Beast and Aurora. Willa and Beast were sweet and sour and quite good. If you do not like somewhat sour fruits then you may not like it as much but they were winners for me. Not exceptionally complex taste but were good. Mentioned earlier that the Aurora were exceptional. More sweet with a sort of black berry jam flavor and just a hint of sour. Maxie also fruited but given it was a one year old plant the berries were exceptionally small (due to plant size) so was difficult to get a good clean read on the taste. They were so small I was eating more berry skin than fruit flesh. As best as I could tell it was similar to Willa and Beast. Three of four plants put out a reasonable number of flowers for the given plant size. Willa was a stand out with many more flowers relative to the others.

I definitely liked them enough to continue experimenting despite the risk. For now I have an order in for a 4 year old Willa and Keiko and a one year old Aurora. This time they will go in large pots and will be outside in the cool fall, winter cold and cool spring and will be brought indoors for the hot summer. As before I will likely need to hand pollinate which I do on a lot of plants so I don’t mind. Once I have these plants established in pots and satisfied they are growing and happy in the first year I will experiment further outdoors in ground with rooted cuttings from these plants. Future plans outdoors: more shading, much more aggressive mulching and soil quality improvement with drip irrigation to insure excellent moisture even if there is drought, shade cloth for the hot months. The results of this won’t be known for a year and a half but am thinking of buying even more plants that I can do this with plants in pots and in ground. I just cannot find some of the larger older plants I prefer to do this with (I am getting old lol, don’t have as much time to be growing up tiny plants for years!). If anybody knows of vendors with larger 3-4 year old plants let me know. Since I ordered late at Honeyberry USA there were only some varieties of available as 4 year old plants. Unfortunately Aurora was not one of them.

I hope this proves helpful to others with what little data I could contribute regarding southern environments. 110 degrees is a problem but most summers are not that hot. I should not have issues growing these in pots and ultimately should get some more concrete information on whether 800 hours of chill is enough but that will be a while. If it is we shall see if I get fruit in pots (which I doubt will hinder fruiting). When I get more data which will be a while I will share. But at the very least these varieties I had were worth growing based on fruit quality for me and I suspect Aurora at a minimum would be pleasing to most anybody. Given that I am motivated to find a way to make this work and get more berries.

[Phlogopite]

@Darby64

shade cloth for the hot months

I suspect this may do the trick, perhaps immediately after they are finished flowering. You can install permeant poles above your patch and attach your shade cloth to those every year… keeping it from blowing away in the Texas wind might be a challenge though

[BlueBerry]

Glad to see someone enthused about doing honeyberries under trying conditions. Some folk obsess over their persimmons or jujubes or figs into thousands of posts…bringing their thoughts and trials and successes to light. Like blueberries, honeyberries have a bright future.

My Aurora is leafed out … broke dormancy last several days in the 50’s and a couple 60’s. willa & Taka are dormant of the 8 or so varieties I am trialing in pots.

[danzeb]

We had several days of 50’s and one 60 in the last two weeks. Night temperatures have ranged from upper 20’s to low 40’s.
All buds swelling on pluots but almost non on honeyberries.

[Vault22dweller]

I have buds greening/pushing on Keiko, boreal beast, boreal blizzard and seven unlabeled ones. Three of the unlabeled ones have not pushed buds (I ordered two of each kind, so one variety is pushing while the other is not). As of 2/10/24 I have received 865 chill hours under 45 F (or 524 chill hours 32-45, or 713 chill hours with Chill Mainland Model (solid crop)).

This is the first winter any of these plants have gone through, so I wouldn’t say they have adjusted to the climate just yet. There are also heat units that should be considered when waking up from dormancy.

I plan on fertilizing them if our rain chances are good this Friday. I also hope to hit them with zinc sulfate too, if I can get around to that.

[BlueBerry]

I already see the bloom buds exposed on Aurora and Beauty. Those are the 2 that are definitely no longer close to being dormant.

I’d try some of the more recent Russian, Czech, Serb, Polish cultivars if I could get scions of them or plants.
I’d trialed Blue Moon and Blue Velvet 13 years ago…and they rated ‘ok’…but I’ve moved on to more promising ones for nice fruits. Giants Heart is the only current one I’m trialing from Arkansas. My first impressions are that the Maxine Thompson ones are apt to be my most successful ones in 6b/7a.

[Vault22dweller]

I’d say my little frost pocket of a garden where I have the plants planted is 7b/8a. It hit 7 F this winter. Other two years I have data on it was only 14 (Not including Snowmageddeon 2021). We will see.

[steveb4]

for you guys trying them in the south, i would stick with the pure Japanese plants. they flower and fruit later and are less likely to come out of dormancy too soon. in my experience 3 or more days above 50 will get the Russian/ Canadian bred ones to start to grow here, and that’s with some snow still on the ground… my Maxie and strawberry sensation start growing about a week later… deep mulch, a drip tape and shade cloth will definitely help.

[Jwar9]

Almost that time of year again! Just ordered a few new Aurora and Boreal beast. See how they fare in UK. I’ll have around 20 plants going into age 3/4 years this year. Hopefully a half decent harvest will mean I won’t know what to do with them all. May try some honeyberry wine on top of preserves.

[swincher]

My Blue Forest is already flowering and my Blue Moon is barely even past budbreak, as usual. It’s interesting that they both have pretty good fruit set even though their flowering barely overlaps. I guess they are fairly self-compatible?

Blue Forest:

Blue Moon:

[garymc]

I bought some honeyberries from Arkansas 8 or 10 years ago. Out of 6 plants, one remains. They couldn’t take the hot weather in Southeast Missouri.

[Gkight]

Keiko pretty fully leafed, strawberry sensation starting to, and solo in last place with barely visible buds. Curious to see what they do

[FarmGirl-Z6A]

@Darby64

shade cloth for the hot months

Is there a reason that you can’t plant fruit trees to shade them? That’s what I did. It seems to be working well. They keep their leaves and look pretty decent the entire summer now that the trees provide dappled sun. Of course, I am not in Texas, I’m in zone 6a.

[Gkight]

Mine are under a very old live Oak with that exact intention, I think that’s a great idea myself.