22 GERMINATION.CA MARCH 2018 Breeding the two together, researchers have been able to produce multiple varieties that have improved flavour and better agronomics overall. Bors’ breeding program generates as many as 20,000 seeds from controlled crosses in a single year. Bors and his team germinate them and select out the fastest-growing ones. Like many other fruit crops, haskap requires pollen from an unrelated variety in order to set fruit. Generally speaking, closely related plants will not set fruit with each other. Haskap plants have complete flowers, mean- ing they have pollen and ovules. Haskap does not have separate male and female plants. When two compatible haskap varieties are planted close to each other, both bushes will set fruit. It’s not enough to have compatible pollen, though. To pollinate each other, both plants must bloom at the same time and be genetically compatible. “Mainly because I’m a professor type who’s kind of curious, we decided to combine different attributes for the purpose of making varieties that could be mechanically harvested. With haskap, no one had ever really done that before. In Japan, they harvest haskap by hand,” Bors says. His breeding program has released 10 haskap varieties, with flavour profiles ranging from sweet to tangy to tart. Boreal Beast is the latest release, available for the first time in 2018. Boreal Beauty and Boreal Blizzard came before it. All produce larger berries and are designed for mechanical harvesting, but can just as easily be hand- picked as well. A Worthy Berry If anyone could be considered discerning when it comes to the flavour of their haskap, it would be someone like Grant Rigby. A director for the Prairie Fruit Growers Association for the last 30 years and owner of Rigby Orchards Estate — established in 1999 as the first winery in Manitoba — Rigby is just one of many entrepreneurs discovering the business opportunities presented by haskap. Rigby Orchards produces a wine made with haskap. “A lot of people don’t know what haskap is. It’s not in anyone’s backyard, and they don’t know it from their regular berry picking experiences. They don’t know what it looks like or where it came from,” Rigby says. Despite that fact — or maybe because of it — the public seems to accept haskap wine being side-by-side on the shelf with Canadian red wines. Rigby Orchards also produces a mead made with haskap. “It really helps distinguish the product when they see ‘haskap’ written on the label. People who appreciate fine wine are the kind of people who want to try new things, different things, and haskap is certainly new and differ- ent. Not to mention the fact it has a wonderful flavour. It definitely makes a worthy product.” The berry is also making a name for itself as a so- called “superfood”. Vasantha Rupasinghe, professor and Killam Chair in Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, and his team have begun a new research initiative to investigate the disease- fighting power of haskap. Rupasinghe notes that the haskap plant is also very cold-hardy — its flowers can withstand a frost event as low as -7 C — meaning it’s not only a healthy addition to the Canadian diet, but ideal for growing in the harsh Canadian climate. Haskap Central is dedicated to the sale and agro- nomics of Canadian-grown haskap. Braaten started the Saskatchewan-based business 10 years ago to service the growing haskap industry. When the University of Saskatchewan released its improved cultivars, Haskap Central became one of the first licenced propagators. Currently, Braaten is exporting haskap plant mate- rial to the European Union, Switzerland, Norway and the United States. “Where much of the discussion of haskap’s potential is focused on exports to Asia and Europe, we sometimes forget we have 350 million people just south of us who are pretty much unaware of this berry,” he says. “The blueberry industry knows we’re coming.” THEFACTSONHASKAP Haskap is the Japanese name (meaning “berry of long life and good vision”) for Lonicera caerulea, also known as edible blue honeysuckle. Haskap is the branding name being used in North America to differentiate new varieties of the plant. It is a circumpolar species native to northern boreal forests in Asia, Europe and North America. It is mainly found in low-lying wet areas or on mountains. The first introduction of the cultivated plant was at Beaverlodge, Alta. in the 1950s. The fruit was bitter and unpalatable. The fruit is an oblong berry about 1 cm in diameter and 1-4 cm in length. Source: Haskap Canada Bob Bors, a plant breeder at the University of Saskatchewan specializing in several crops, spends more than half his time these days breeding haskap. Photo courtesy University of Saskatchewan Curtis Braaten is the owner of Haskap Central Sales Ltd. He exports haskap plant material to the European Union, Switzerland, Norway and the United States.