Well we got about 40lbs of berries this year which is way above the last 3 years. And generally speaking the berries were quite good. Some were rather large! A number of these plants were from seed from Poland and those plants did have some big berries. Sadly many of these also were quite strong to bitter flavoured.
Compare these to the leaves.
Flavour went from medium sweet to quite bitter. Part of the problem is the birds (Cedar Waxwings) got the topmost berries and then the rain caused excess new growth which covered over what was left. Cool weather and lack of sunlight causes a greater uptake of tannins and anthocyanins from my experience in Barley breeding. We always saw a greater increase in red and purple colors during the cool, wet seasons.
The final gathering was from pruning out the lower branches and there were many good collections of berries under the protection of the heavy leaf cover!
I plan to do a lot of extra pruning this year and also will discard some of the plants which have very bitter flavours.
And of course you have to try something with the berries so this year my wife Marg made a pie with 1/2 Edible Blue Honeysuckle and 1/2 blueberries. A good combination but still quite rich and tart. Lots of dark blue coloring though so really healthy in spite of the sugar.
I did gather a few berries for seed but not sure if I will plant anything this year.
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I have applied for a propagation permit but so far no luck. We have therefore started with the seedling program. First seedlings this year. I have a feeling that in order to get some good results you have to do the cross pollination by hand and preferably cross the ones that USK says are not good pollinators because they are too closely related, but isn't that how we create a better variety? Through inbreeding. I am waiting for the Boreal Blizzard to cross with Aurora. As we did with Tundra and Indigo Gem.
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