MSU Extension MI Ag Ideas to Grow With

 - I am going to hand off our presentations today to Bill Shane and Cheyenne Sloan. You heard from Cheyenna a couple days ago when talking about soil nutrition. She is our Blueberry and Small Fruit Educator based out of Southwest Michigan. She also comes to us with soil nutrition background so she's pulling double duty this week. But before she goes, we're gonna start off the day with Bill Shane. He is our Tree Fruit Specialist based out of the Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center out of Benton Harbor. He is also a peach breeder for MSU and the Great Lakes region. So if wanna know about stone fruit varieties, he is the guru for us. So he's perfect for today. So are you ready to take over duties here, Bill? - Yes, indeed. - Okay. - I'll share my screen here. - Go for it. And once again, everybody, thanks for coming. And enjoy the presentations. - Okay, all I need to do is get that out of the way and figure out why it's not... Okay, there we go. Okay, hello, everybody. And glad to be here. I'm Bill Shane here. I'm Tree Fruit Specialist and this is a really great topic. I like to talk about fruit varieties and at the Southwest Station, we have an extensive variety trials that changes from year to year. And a lot of the information comes from that. One thing I know that everybody listening are fruit evaluators in their own... For themselves. And so, fruit a varieties tastes differ from person to person. And so, what works for one person may not work for another. And there are zillions of fruit varieties out there. But what I'll do, I'll be giving you my perspective, my years of experience with it. Some of the things to consider when you look for tree fruit varieties... Let's see. All we have to do is... Okay. One of the advantages that you have in growing smaller lots of fruit varieties is that the fruit doesn't have to look perfect. You don't have to sell it in a chain store where everything's supposed to look perfect. And it doesn't have to be high yielding. So you have a lot of fruit you (clears throat) can buy weird varieties if you want and experiment. And I know a lot of folks do that. You can go back to some of the old varieties. I've been... Quite often I get asked, well, why aren't we growing these old varieties. These are great varieties. But some cases because the cosmetics are not great for a chain store. But they may have some great characteristics. Another thing to think about is that in a backyard setting, they don't particularly put on the number of spays that are in a commercial operation. So a bit of consideration of varieties that have maybe a bit more plant resistance. But on the other hand, you need not care if there's a little bit of disease or insect bites on it. And so, you're willing to do less work and still have plenty of fruit there for you to eat. Finding the fruit varieties that you want may be a challenge. Local sources are handy, but generally have a limited selection. So if you go online, there's a bigger selection. I've given some examples here. There are many, many others if you go online. One thing to be concerned about, or watching is that some of these national organizations sell to all parts of the country. So they may not know exactly what's good for Michigan. So it's up to you to beware and know that information. And so, I'm hoping to provide some of this. And like any place, especially without nursery stock, that you want to buy early because as... The later that you wait to put in your order or to go look for them, the poorer the quality that you'll get and the selection will be less and less. One thing if you look at the tree fruit in general, you be aware that under a northern climate, we have to be worried about freeze damage. And earliness of bloom makes a big difference. Apricot is a classic example of a variety that is pretty winter hardy but it blooms very early. So we have a tougher time getting apricots, Japanese plums. As you go down the list here, probably our toughest ones at latest bloom are the pears and the apples. So this is always a risk in Michigan. You never know what kind of frost we're going to have. Another thing to consider is the variety selection. You want to choose varieties and rootstock, rootstock is the lower part of the tree in the soil, that are adapted to the region. The north has a shorter growing season, for example. They cannot grow Fuji apples successful up in Traverse City area because they're quite often, it freezes before the variety becomes fully mature. Also consider for apples, add scab-free and low fire blight susceptible types. Those are quite often problems for commercial and backyard situation. Also for pears, fire blight. Also think about spreading the harvest season. You don't want to have three trees of an early ripening variety that doesn't have much self life because you have to be making an awful lot of applesauce to use those apples up. And also you want to consider the storage life of varieties. So of the 10 in general, the later ripening varieties, especially the pomes fruit, the pears and apples, have longer storage life. And so if you want to have stuff that you would stick away in a basement or a garage under cooler conditions, get something toward the end of the harvest season. Also consider pollination types. If you're putting a single tree out in your planting, you might look for something that's self-fruitful. It doesn't need pollen from another variety. Golden Delicious is an example of that. Buy a single Golden Delicious tree, semi-fertile. Red Delicious on the other hand is not self-fertile. Now if you have a Crab Apple nearby, sometimes a bee will bring over pollen from that. And then you might be okay. Be aware of that. Also beyond apple, we in general think peach, nectarine, apricot, and tart cherries are self-fertile. There are a few exceptions, a few pollen-sterile types. Apples, pears, sweet cherries, plums, nut crops, with a few exceptions, you need pollen from another variety. Not only does the variety have to have compatible pollen, but it needs to be blooming at the same time. So sometimes you hedge the bet by putting three different varieties that bloom more or less the same. And you can get these lists on bloom order from nurseries. Also a very important for consideration of planting fruit trees is most fruit trees are formed by grafting a scion, the variety, on top of a root stock. And so when you buy the thing, you might see a little bump here. And that's where the bud was put on and the top bud was allow to grow to form the top of the tree. And the rootstock is a completely different creature. And that is chosen for size control, support, disease resistance, adaption to what conditions, and so forth. Sometimes, quite often the nurseries don't mention the rootstock at all. You just kind of... It says seedling rootstock or dwarfing rootstock. And so that's one of the reasons why you might wanna go with a non-box store, mail order type. Sometimes you get to know that information. Let's see, why are we not moving here. Okay. Okay, so onto the varieties. Peaches, the love of my life. I work a lot with 'em. The main concern with peaches is there is so many varieties. But the big thing that we worry about is hardiness. Peaches are a mid winter susceptible and spring susceptible to freeze damage. Also there's quite a bit of flavor differences. You generally need to control insects and diseases so that regardless of it, there's not a lot of resistance out there for diseases. So here's my laundry list of varieties that I like. And as Mike said, we will make a way to have this information available for you. A hint to you guys that there is such a thing as screen capture with PCs and so forth. So you can, if you see a screen that you like, each operating system has a different way of doing it. But you can just capture that, just FYI. So this is my list. And these are listed in terms of ripening order where we have Redhaven, which ripens for us in Southwest end of July, first part of August. We have some that are ripening 15 days, Harrow Diamond before Redhaven, and onto about 24 days later than that, so toward the end of August. And so a lot of ones out here, if you look for the hardiest group here, this here on the left, Harrow Diamond, Garnet Beauty, Reliance. One thing some of the more and more hardy types have the reputation for that reliance in medicine. They're kinda so-so tasting peaches. So you really have to be in a frost prone site to have to go to those. So again, there's a lot of varieties out there. And these are some of my favorite. So again, well be glad to provide this list to you. There are other... What I gave you in that previous slide were the melting flesh types. Yellow melting flesh, meaning that you... If you can with them, then they slowly soften up. But sometimes, they're called Raggedy Ann Peaches because they kinda get kind of stringy in the can eventually. There's other peach, nectarine types. The white peaches are... Some people really like them. There is a range of acidity. There are some that are higher acid types. Blushing star is an example of one developed here in Southwest Michigan. Is a more acid type. There's a whole list that I could give you of these. Another one, also a white peach, but a kind of interesting variation is a donut peach, Saturn Peach. This one is pretty darn hardy. It's one of the sweetest peaches around. And it's a big favorite. And it's pretty hardy. So that's one that you might want to consider. And it's pretty productive. There's white nectarines. Nectarines tend to be a little bit more prone to rusting problems. And then if you go to actual canning of peaches, the non-melting types. Babygold is a classic example. That one gets a little bit of bacterial diseases. There's another one called Venture that's a little bit better for canning. But Babygolds is a pretty good peach. Going on to plums, there's the concern that we have with plums are fruit and tree hardiness. So as I mentioned earlier in an earlier slide that plums bloom early, especially the Japanese plums. So we run into problems. There is a huge range of fruit flavors within plums. And so if you have any sort of interest in plums, this is a great area. And in the Japanese plum areas, ones that tend to be a little bit more reliable for us are the Methley and Shiro. Early Golden is shown here. These tend to be soft fruit, roundish shape. Elephant Heart and Simka are reddish-fleshed ones that I really like. They're bigger fruit. And they're fairly hardy for our environment. European plums are the ones we think of as canning types. They hold up well when you put 'em into the canning jar. They have higher acidity generally than the Japanese plums. Stanley is the one that is common in Michigan northern growing climates, eastern. And it... It's okay. It tends to be sour, then sweet, then it gets soft. I think a better alternative is Castleton here. Holds up a little bit better. I like the flavor better. Other ones on the list here that I like the Italian, people like that for a little bit more complex flavor. And there's an early Italian. Again, there's zillions of plums out there. If you have a situation where hardiness is a big issue, then you may want to consider some of the American hybrid plums. Toka, which some people know as the Bubblegum plum because it tastes like Juicy Fruit gum, and if you like that in a plum. Pipestone, Alderman is a nice one. BlackIce, that one's a little bit cold tender. Superior and Waneta are older ones that are well proven. These quite often have what I would call a slightly gamey flavor to it. That doesn't sound very appealing. But there's a little bit more of a different flavor to them. So they aren't as clean flavored as the Japanese plums or the Castleton. So I say that's I'd say the downside of it. And the fruit tend to be a little bit smaller. On to tart cherries. Concern with tart cherries is somewhat cold hardiness. Firmness is the... Firmness is a issue with tart cherries if you get hot weather in the bloom close to harvest time, then they can get fairly soft. Insects, they are a magnet for insects. So a spray program is fairly important to keep the maggots, that sounds really terrible, and there's a few other curculios out of them. So the classic one is Montmorency. Northstar and Surefire are two such in the slightly smaller. They're more reliable cropping than Montmorency. But the flavor is pretty, pretty good. And Balaton represents, shown here on the right, represents a pretty nice alternative to the Montmorency. There are what we call the Morello types that have a red flesh and juice. They have a little bit more complexity of flavor, a little bit more firmness. There are a couple within that group, Danube and Jubelium, in addition to Balaton, they are prone to light cropping. So that's the down side of it. And there's a few more ones that we are developing here at Michigan State University that will hopefully be available in not too long. But it's kind of a neat cherry. Some people like making various alcoholic beverages out of the Morello types. Sweet cherries, this I could spend a whole half hour or hour just talking about this. The main concerns with sweet cherries is hardiness, being able to get fruit. Eating quality is really high concern because there is a range of sweet cherries that are productive but the fruit is somewhat soft. And for me, I like to have a crisp fruit when I'm eating a sweet cherry. Also brown rot and the same issue as the tart cherries with insects attacking the fruit. So they do need a spray program for at least insects, especially if you're close to wooded areas is what seems to bring in the outside insects. Older ones, I have a list there. Ulster, Schmidt, Cavalier. Newer ones, I wuld tend to point you toward the... Have better eating quality. Attika, Summit, Kristin, Regina. And there are some newer ones, the Pearl series that I really like, like Burgundy Pearl and Black Pearl. They have better crispness, excellent. There are a few ones that are self-fertile, Stella and Sweetheart. Stella is kind of a so-so quality. I'm not totally impressed with most of the self-fertile ones, except for Sweetheart. That's a really late one. Tends to be... These tend to be smaller size. Also on cherries, remember that there are effective dwarfing rootstocks available. So instead of the huge trees that we normally get, you can get ones that have dwarfing quality. Gislea 5 and 6 are the smaller ones. So I would go with Gisela 6 probably. Pears, storage life is a concern. The summer pears, the ones that have shorter shelf life include Bartlett. It is susceptible to fire blight. There are Gem and Harrow Sweet are ones that if you can get your hands on 'em, I recommend those over Bartlett. Harrow Sweet is shown here on the right is very similar to Bartlett, but it's firmer. It's about 14 days after Bartlett, better shelf life. If you want something to last through through the winter, there are what we call the winter pears. Now, these things you need to subject them to cold in order to get them to ripen properly. So this is whereas the Bartletts, Gems, Harrow Sweet, you can eat those off the tree. You don't have to worry about the cold storage. And there's older, flavorful ones. There's also a group of pears called the Asian pears. Some people call the round types apple pears. They have a nice crisp quality. They tend to have sweetness but not a lot of acidity. They are prone to bruising. Some of the varieties that... One thing about Asian pears, unlike apples and the other more traditional pears, these do not improve with storage. So you want to have them at the optimum eating point on the tree. They're not gonna get any better in storage. And here's some recommended varieties. Apricots, I mentioned before. They are... They're relatively winter hardy, but bloom early. So they run into problems there. The trees are short-lived. They can die for seems like no particular reason. They do accumulate cold damage. They're generally self-fertile. There is a few of them that where you can actually eat the pit. And so squirrels tend to find that out. And some of the better ones, Curtis, Goldcot, Harcot, Hargrand, Harlayne. This shows you Harogem here and Goldcot. And if you can get them on Manchurian rootstock, the trees tend to live longer. Onto apples. The concerns... I have a list here of very common apple varieties. And this is from their survey of Michigan. Gala and Fuji are probably the most... And Honeycrips is getting to be the third most planted variety. So my question to you is if you can get these things in the grocery store, from a chain store at in fairly decent condition, why would you plant them? So I might suggest that you might want to go onto varieties that are less available, unless you like to get the optimum flavor by really watching it, or you want to have a bunch of apples cheap. So various reasons out there. Like sweet cherries, there's a wide range of tree sizes, depending on the rootstock. So watch that when you're buying the trees. And as mentioned before, fire blight is an issue. There are scab resistant apple varieties. If you're the type that you know you're not gonna spray, you may want to consider some of these. And I have my list of what I consider one of the... Some of the better ones. There's new ones coming along all the while. Pristine's early, yellow one. We were surprised these Red Delicious type ripens 50 days before Red Delicious. Is pretty darn good for an early Red Delicious type. Crimson Crisp, if you were gonna plant one and with a pollinator, that's the one I would plant. It is medium size, smooth finish. It's got a nice sweet/acid balance. Pixie Crunch is another nice one. Novaspy, if you like Spys but you want something that's scab resistant. Enterprise is a cooking apple. Goldrush is a real, real late one, which is good for slicin' apples. And even though they're resistant to scab, they will get other diseases from insects. So you won't be able to get away with no spraying whatsoever, unless you like a lot of bug bites. And also if you're looking for something a little bit different in the apple line, things that have more complex flavor that's not everybody's cup of tea, Sweet Sixteen, Swiss Gourmet, Golden Russet. These things have a tough time looking very pretty, but they are pretty nice flavor, kind of interesting. And the final one that I'm gonna end with is Paw Paws. This is kind of an odd one. And you can find them in certain places, kind of lower wine areas in... Here and there. They have leaves that sort of look like banana leaves. And Paw Paws, if you've ever tried them, have a banana texture. They have a tropical banana/mango flavor. As I say, you an find them in the wild. They do need to have two cultivars, two different clones in order to get fruit. So if you have a single clone, they're growing the... That's not enough. The named cultivars do better than the seedling types, if you're looking in the nursery catalogs. Some of the ones that the University of Kentucky, who's done a lot of work with this one, that tend to be on the recommended list are these. We have a modest planting a the Research Station here. So if you wanna take a look at them, you're welcome. They do have really big seeds and they go over the hill. They get soft really fast. But they're kind of a cool thing. The Paw Paw nut bread is really good. And Paw Paw ice cream, I like that a lot too. So with that, again, there's a huge area to talk about. And I'm hoping that this has helped to answer some of the questions, or at least gets you thinking, or maybe getting excited with going out and buying some fruit trees. So with that, I will stop sharing. And then I don't know if there's time for questions or if we wanna leave that to the end. - I'm gonna leave some of the questions to the end because they might have a little bit more of a cross connection to the small fruit. But there were a couple of questions very specific to other varieties. And I thought it'd be... While we've got the tree fruit fresh in our mind. Someone was asking about a couple of the different cherry varieties and asking your opinion on some of them. Lapins, Hedelfingen, and Chelan. If you have any thoughts about some of those. - [Bill] Yeah, and I have a more in depth list that kinda breaks these down. So Lapins is a nice quality one. But the tree is not well suited for a Michigan climate. So it tends to go downhill. Hedelfingens is old one and it's very productive. The fruit size is kinda medium. So there are better ones out there than Hedelfingen. But there is a lot of Hedelfingen. It used to be one of the number one or two varieties in Michigan. Chelan, it's... It's okay. It's got some good fruit texture. It's not on my top tier of varieties. Yeah, Chelan, yeah. And so it's (sighs)... Yeah, it's... They like it in the Pacific Northwest. But it hasn't really caught on in Michigan with commercial growers. - Sure, sure. And I did see one other question. You were... When you talked about apples, you talked to us exclusively about fresh market. They were asking about do you have any thoughts on apple varieties for cider production. And I could even expand that and say what about apple and pear varieties specifically for cider production? - [Bill] Now, with cider production, you have to know whether you are going for cider as being fermented or ciders as being just pressed and drunk fresh. And also how much acidity and how much complexity that you like. Usually, there's a lot of Golden Delicious I put in cider. But it's because it's abundant and it produces a lot of sugary... It's easy to get the juice out of apple. But it's not particularly, I'd say exotic or high quality. So you tend to want Golden Russet is a real favorite to be put into it. It's one of the complex apples that... Macintosh. Something that has a little zing to bring that acidity to bring that in with the sugar with other apples. So every year, every cider maker has their own particular blend that they like. We've had a trial here at the Southwest Center looking for ones that have better, more interest in them. And the ones that I like tend to bring in a little bit of tannin into the flavor, a little more acidity. - Sure. - [Bill] Again, I... - [Bill] Yeah. - Makes sense, makes sense. And one more and then we'll move onto Cheyenne. But someone brought up the idea of multi-variety grafting. So you'd have multiple varieties on the same tree. And I've seen that in some nurseries. With a couple different tree type pome fruits. What are your thoughts on that type of production? - [Bill] I think that if you got limited space, it's kind of cool to look at. But you get parts of the tree that grow faster than the other. So it's a little bit of a... You have to encourage this variety is growing slow and that one's growing faster. You get kind of a lopsided looking tree. But it is a way to get a range of varieties on one tree. So it works. - Okay, well I know there were more questions that came in and we'll get to them, try to get to them at the end. But I wanna give Cheyenne plenty of time before the end of the hour in case people need to leave. So we'll hold off on answering anymore questions at the moment. And I'm gonna pass... We can pass duties onto Cheyenne, who's already shared here screen, thank you. And once again, for those of you that were not here a couple days ago, Cheyenne is our new Blueberry and Small Fruit Educator out of Van Buren County in Southwest Michigan. And so we're trial by fire. We're thrown into a couple presentations on our first week. So thank you and I will pass duties onto you. - Awesome, thanks so much, Mike. Can everyone hear me fine? - Yep, no problems. - Awesome. So good afternoon, everyone. Like Mike said, my name is Cheyenne Sloan and I'm the Blueberry and Small Fruit Educator for Van Buren County. Today, I'm gonna teach you how to select your own small fruit varieties for Michigan, and I'm gonna talk a lot slower than I did Tuesday. Today, I'm gonna cover what is a small fruit, what you need to think about when choosing a variety, why you should be thinking about these things, and finally, cover a few different varieties for the major small fruit crops here in Michigan. So this talk is gonna be geared mostly towards small scale and backyard growers. But it will kinda plant the seeds of good questions for larger scale growers to consider. So what is a small fruit? It's an edible fruit grown on a small perennial plant. So that includes things like blueberries, grapes, strawberries, cane berries, and some other small fruits, You can think of like cranberries, currants, Saksatoons, gooseberries, kiwis, and elderberries would all be examples of small fruit. There's a lot to think about when choosing a variety. But two of the most important things are, include fruit quality, which includes flavor, size, color, firmness. And then, the seasonality of the fruit. Before we gonna talk about some of these more specifics, we're gonna talk about one very, very important thing. And that's where your fruit are gonna be grown. So you've probably all heard of the USDA Hardiness Rating. And this number is really important when you're gonna pick varieties and order things online, or (audio mutes) nursery, or whatever. So here's a Plant Hardiness Map for the United States. And a hardiness zone is a geographic area, which is defined as having a certain range of annual minimum temperature, which is a factor relevant to the survival of many plants. So the USDA one is actually the original and it's the most widely used system. And it is used as a rough guide for landscaping, gardening, and other plant-related things. And it defines 13 zones by long-term average annual extremes minimum temperatures. It has been adopted by other countries, like Canada. And they all have their own kind of different version of it. But kinda like I said before, the United States one is one of the most popular ones. You've seen it before. So here's Michigan. And we have anywhere from a four all the way up to a six, which is along most of Lake Michigan. Any ideas why Lake Michigan is green and has a six where a lot of the other inner parts are more like lower fours and stuff like that? I guess it's hard to (mumbles). Yeah, lake effect. So the lake provides a nice buffer during the seasons to help mitigate extreme temperatures. So the USDA Hardiness is something that you'll see included on most plant purchasing websites or on tags when you go to the nursery. So it's good to know if your planning on keeping, especially if you're planning on keeping your plants outside all year, because the USDA Hardiness Zone aren't an end all be all. If you're willing to put a little bit of extra work in, you can sometimes baby a plant through a harsher winter than its best for. But like I said, it requires extra work and a lot of babying. Now for the fun stuff, fruit quality, flavor, size, color, firmness. Everyone has their own preference when it comes to all of these things when it comes to fruit. So like here's a picture of my friend and I after a long, hard day of quality checking blueberries last summer. For example, I really like firm, tart blueberries, while my friend really likes the softer, sweeter blueberries. So we probably wouldn't want to have the same plants growing in our backyards. Plant nurseries do a pretty good job telling you about the fruit themselves. Because if you want a fruit that nicer firm, or crisp, you'll wanna have... Let me get my laser pointer. You'll want a fruit that is nice... If you want a firm that is fruit... A fruit that is firm, you'll wanna make sure and get a fruit that has a firm texture. So if you don't like the squishiness that you can get with some like apples, or strawberries, or blueberries, or whatever, you'll wanna look specifically for firm when they're describing the texture. Usually in these little descriptions, they'll also describe the size. So large... This can vary depending on like where they're grown, and how they're grown, and if you pick them early, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I mentioned earlier that I like tart berries. So this berry has high sugars with moderate acidity. It says that right there. And acidity is what makes the tart and sugars is what makes the fruit sweet. So if you want a fruit that are super sweet, you want high sugar, lower acidity. And if you want tart fruit, you'll want high acidity with lower sugars. And if you want kind of an in between, you'll want a fruit that has a good balance of both. And I kinda, like I mentioned earlier, here's the USDA Hardiness Zones. Let's see if we can find... There we go. So another example, here's a pink blueberry. And this one says it has a mild flavor, which is usually nice berry breeder words for not tasting like much, or what you might expect a blueberry to taste like. So that's not necessarily bad. That's just it doesn't... It has a milder flavor. And then just for fun, here's a machine that is used to determine firmness. I call it the Berry Hugger. So berries will sit on this little carousel, and then they get gently hugged by this mechanism over here. And that little mechanism is what determines how much force it takes to squish the berry. So the more force that it takes to move the berry down a little bit, the firmer it is. The less force, the squishier it is. Oh, it is gonna play. So it's a little bit and it goes boop. It goes boop. And I think it's really cute. And I think it's really fun. But that's how they do firmness. Just for fun. So the other thing that you really need to think about when you are selecting a variety, arguably the most important thing, I would say, is the season. So for example, maybe you're planning to plant your berries at a vacation cottage that you only go to in the late summer. It would be pretty silly to plant any early season varieties of the fruits because you won't be there to enjoy the fruits of your labor (laughs). Or maybe, you'll wanna have fruit the whole summer. That means you'll wanna plant some early, mid, and late season varieties to make sure that you're getting fruit the whole year. Here's one example of an early season variety of strawberry. When it comes to things like strawberries, you'll either see things like Junebearing, everbearing, or day neutral. Junebearing just means early season. So you might see Junebearing or early season. But it'll depend on... But it'll depend on the website or where you're buying your plants. And then also whether or not it actually bears in June or whatever, will depend on where you are. So then this would be a day neutral, also known as everbearing variety. That just means it'll produce fruit all season long. And you may be asking what does day neutral mean? So day neutral means that flowering or the fruit doing their fruit thing and growing isn't affected by the length of the day. Some days need long or short days before they'll start flowering. And that would be called photoperiodism. And that would be like a short day or a long day plant. Usually strawberries are the only small fruit, like the major small fruit, that'll have day neutral or everbearing, or Junebearing, or whatever. Things like blueberries will just say like mid, early, late season. So here's how it might be shown for a blueberry. So this is Duke, which is my personal favorite, which is an early season variety. Blueberries kind of produce fruit. They don't necessarily produce fruit the whole summer, like a strawberry might. But they can produce fruit for most of the summer, depending on the variety, depending on how you pick it, and a whole bunch of things. So usually like fruit bearing would be like the earliest that you'll start picking fruit. So the earliest (audio mutes). And if you wanna have blueberries all season long, it's probably a good idea to plant early, mid, and late season varieties. So often times, you can find charts kind of like this on the internet. And they'll give you an idea of when certain varieties will ripen and reference other varieties throughout the season. So charts like this can be super helpful if you're trying to ensure that you have fruit all season long. So there's like Duke, which is what I was talking about. So it's an early season. So maybe, you'd wanna plant... If you wanted berries all season long, you'd wanna do Duke with like Legacy or maybe Bluegold, and then following it up with Elliot or Aurora so you kind of get blueberries from... Or even starting with Earlublue and then going to Duke, so you can kind of have blueberries all season long. So they have these for a variety of different fruits, fruit crops. And I think it's pretty cool. And it can be really helpful. I'm like visual things. And so it's a cool visual thing. So we're gonna talk about some different varieties now. Some popular varieties of blueberries here in Michigan include Elliot, Bluecrop, Duke, Blueray, and Bluejay. So Elliot's gonna be really large bushes of really large blueberries. And they are really late season (giggles). And they're historically one of the most widely grown varieties here in Michigan. There's definitely tastier blueberries out there, but they're very... They're still very good and their really disease resistant, which is awesome. And then Bluecrop are high yielding, mid season varieties that have medium sized fruits that are also pretty tasty. And they're... I don't know, all blueberries are cute. But those ones are pretty... Bluecrop are pretty cute. And then Duke are my personal favorite. A lot of people... Not everyone likes Duke. But like I mentioned earlier, I really like tart fruit. And so Dukes are pretty tart and they don't get... And they can be pretty big. But they have a nice texture. Because I'm also big into texture and Duke have a really nice texture, in my opinion. And then Blueray and Bluejay are very similar in taste, and size, and all of that. They're also very pretty bushes with really sweet fruit and they tend to be early to mid season. And then as far as... There is only one variety that I would not recommend planting and that's Jersey. And that's just because they have a lot of pest pressure. Otherwise, if there's a blueberry that sounds interesting or tasty and you think it would grow where you live, go for it. There are so many different awesome varieties out there. These are just a few of them. An important thing to note if you are planting blueberries, you wanna try to include more than one variety though, just to ensure proper pollination. An Elliot and a Duke, a Duke and a Bluecrop and an Elliot, and a Bluejay or whatever. A lot of blueberry varieties aren't super self-fertile. So that means when something isn't self-fertile, that means that it needs other pollen to fertilize it. So having other varieties available for pollen will help ensure that you have a really awesome full crop. (audio mutes) All right, (laughs) in pots or bare rooted. Generally, there will be a price difference between the bare rooted and the potted plants. Potted plants tend to be a little bit pricier. Bare rooted plants are a little cheaper. Chances are if you're buying directly from a nursery, like if you're ordering online, you'll probably get 'em in bare- You'll order them in bare root. And if you go to an in-person nursery and pick out a plant by yourself, it'll probably be in pots. Obviously, that's not the end all be all for when you purchase your plants or whatever. But this is just generally. So grapes, two tried and true grape varieties for Michigan are Concord and Niagara. You probably had them as juice. You've probably eaten them before. Concord are the big purple berries that make juice I'm sure many of you drink. And then Niagara are the green ones that are also pretty big and they also make juice. But they're really tasty, I think, right off the vine. And they grow pretty well in Michigan. They're grown all over here around Paw Paw. And there's a lot of different wine varieties that you can grow in Michigan too. The list would be very, very long if I were to include all the different wine varieties. But kinda like I mentioned before, just make sure that the ones you picked are well suited for the weather in your area, because wine grapes are big old babies and don't always like the winter. So grapes usually come in bare rooted. So this is like a bare rooted grape would look like. They also come in pots. I couldn't find a good picture of a potted plant. But I'm sure you guys have seen potted plant before. So this is what they would look like as bare root. So strawberry varieties, Jewels is probably a personal favorite of mine. They're super sweet and just like the cutest strawberry I have ever seen in my entire life. Earliglow are also really good. They're an early season and they're very, very sweet. Flavorfest are a mid season variety with large... They're a pretty big fruit. And they're very, very tasty. Like Flavorfest, in my opinion, definitely not a misnomer. And then Mignonette, this one, it's a French heirloom variety. And they have a very distinct taste. And they're kinda funny. They're a little smaller and more heart-shaped than your typical strawberry. And they're pretty cool. They're pretty tasty too. So strawberries will also come either in pots or bare rooted. This is what a bare rooted strawberry plant would look like. And I think it's pretty cool, if you ask me (laughs). Now, for cane berries, that's like raspberries and blackberries. Polka is a personal favorite of mine. It's very large, very tasty berries with a really pleasant texture. They are amazing. Get yourself a Polka raspberry. They're delicious. Boyne are also super tasty and have very sweet berries. And then Jewel is a black... Is a black raspberry variety. Not a blackberry, not a raspberry. A black raspberry that are really tasty. And then I forgot to put a blackberry variety, but Chester is a blackberry variety that I really like, that is very tasty. And this is what a bare rooted blackberry plant will come looking like. Kinda similar to... Well, all the other ones. But I think it's cool to see how they would come if you were to order them like (audio mutes). I'm not gonna go into any specific varieties for minor small fruits because some of them don't really even have different varieties. You just buy like a gooseberry or whatever. You don't buy like the Goosey Gooseberry, et cetera. Not all of them, but for some of them, especially the ones that are newer to being cultivated and stuff like that. Some of the minor small fruits would be cranberries, currants, Saskatoons, gooseberries, kiwis, and elderberry. Super cool, kiwis grow on a vine. I don't know if you guys knew that. When I learned that, I thought that was the coolest thing ever. And then there's hardy kiwi, which you can grow here in Michigan. Not all of Michigan, but parts of Michigan you can grow hardy kiwi. But for all of these, the important thing to remember is location. So you don't want to like... You probably shouldn't plant a lemon tree. Not that... Lemons are trees or whatever. But or like a non-hardy kiwi because it's not gonna do well in Michigan. It's cold here. So today we covered... To wrap everything up, we covered what is a small fruit, what to consider when you are selecting a small fruit variety, and then covered a couple of different varieties that are I think super tasty and would do pretty well here in Michigan. So like I said, mentioned briefly earlier, the varieties I mentioned are definitely not an exhaustive list. But hopefully the information presented at the beginning, and then some of the varieties that we talked about will help you get an idea for different kinds of berries that you would like. So you can pick your own tasty fruit. To wrap up, any questions? - Oh, there is several popping in. So not to worry. I know we addressed this in the soil day, but I wanted to address it again. If you wanted to talk about blueberries and their soil requirements. - Yeah. - Because they are kind of unique. - Yeah, blueberries are super weird compared to pretty much all other cultivated plants. They really like acidic soils 'cause they're native to marshes. They're native to North America. So they like super acidic soils and they don't like to be... People will say they don't like wet feet. And so when people say blueberries don't like wet feet, that means that they don't want to be submer- They don't wanna like be living in a puddle. - And adjusting soil pH is not an easy thing. You can adjust it maybe a point, if you're lucky. But it's really not... Someone who has, say a six or seven pH soil, it's not worth trying to go through the effort of dropping that soil pH to where blueberries would be happy. - No, unless you're willing to wait a really long time and accept the fact that it might not work (laughs). - Yeah, you'd have to start prepping the soil for your son or daughter to plant the bush. Yeah. There was a question. I put a response in the chat. But you, both Bill and Cheyenne, you guys both mentioned the USDA Hardiness Map. And I've been looking in to that a little myself. And so I felt the need to address it directly. There are a couple different versions of that Hardiness Map out there. So there was a significant update done to the Hardiness Map exactly 10 years ago. They released it in 2012. So be careful you're using the new updated map because we are on average half a zone warmer than the map from the 90s indicated, where we are currently. And we're expected to get maybe up to a half zone warmer again over the next decade. So make sure you're using the updated map because I'm still seeing that old map in a lot of places. On old seed... On seed packets and mail order sites, that sort of thing. There were some questions about strawberries. You mentioned a couple varieties. But are they Junebearing, everbearing types? Did you have any comments any further about that and how long those different varieties will be productive? - So the varieties I mentioned were either Junebearing or everbearing. I like the early... I think the early season ones tend to be the tastiest. I don't know, like in my anecdotal, incredibly anecdotal experience with strawberries. And how long that they'll live will totally depend on the person and who you ask. My mom has strawberries that she's kept on her porch for like seven years now. And she's very happy with them, and as are the squirrels that live on our porch. But if you're in like a commercial thing, I think it's five years-ish is usually when people will start, maybe sometimes even sooner, will take up their strawberries and add new ones. - Okay. Some questions about brambles that I'll kind of throw together a little bit here. There are newer varieties that are considered thornless but are there any trends for flavor for fruit quality with some of those thorn varieties versus thornless? Can you use that as an indicator for certain fruit aspects? - I'm not super familiar with the breeding of brambles and stuff like that. But usually if they're going so hard for something like thornlessness, something is being sacrificed. I won't say always. But especially at the beginning when new varieties are just coming out, I think that they're going for thornless (laughs). - Yeah, agreed. I see a lot of those thornless varieties being selected for you pick operations or something like that because they are selecting for fruit color, shape, thornless for easy picking, that sort of thing. But (sighs) and it's not.... I agree with you. It's not a hard and fast rule. But usually there's some sort of loss happening in another part of that fruit somehow. And actually, I don't know this one very well. But we were talking about blueberries like that acidic soil, but what about brambles? Where do they fit on that spectrum? Are they acidic soil types too? - So I would... They're more like normal plants where they like neutral, more like neutral soils. But they can do pretty well in acidic... Depending on the type of like blackberry versus raspberry and stuff like that, they can do pretty okay in acidic soils. Because in the Pacific Northwest where there's a lot of acidic soils, they're just weeds. They are actual weeds everywhere (laughs). Like Himalayan blackberry and stuff like that. So yes, no, eh. - Yeah, a little more freedom on those. Yeah. And then, your list of other small fruits was definitely not exhaustive. I saw someone asking about lingonberries as an option. I know those fit within the Hardiness Zone, so those can be grown. I've had a tough time myself learning varieties on those. I don't know if the name or... Varieties are well named. - Lingonberries are very recently commercially cultivated, like within the past, I want to say couple of decades. But it's very... They've only been... They haven't been commercially cultivated for very long. So until things are commercially cultivated, there's not really different... There's not always just different cultivars available. If you like lingonberries, it's very, very similar to a cranberry. - Yeah, and someone just put in the chat, before I had a chance to say it, darn it. One of my personal favorites at the moment to play with that's an "unusual" small fruit is haskaps. Some people also know them as honeyberries. I'm really interested in those because they like the acidic soil, but they don't need acidic soil. So they really are kind of like blueberries in their growth style, but they are a little more tolerant and the fruit comes off super early, which is really nice. They just aren't the nicest looking plants come August and September. So there's always a trade off. But they're an interesting new one to be looking at. I don't know if you've seen much in the haskaps, Cheyenne. But I'm finding those kinda interesting. - [Cheyenne] I haven't see much or heard much about them. But I've heard of them and they sound really cool. And they're very cute. But I haven't heard about anyone growing them in Michigan or anything like (audio mutes). - Yeah, Bill. - The less acidity, the ones that I've tasted, compared to blueberries. - Yep. Yep, they got a little richer taste too. They're almost like a raspberry, blueberry kinda blend. It's an interesting taste. And I see Bill, you were answering a couple of questions in the chat. But there were... I saw someone asking about Paw Paw varieties, and named varieties, and that sort of stuff. And I know we have some different Paw Paw varieties here at the Research Station. But I agree, I haven't seen the different varieties mentioned much. Do the varieties really bring much to the table as far as differences between each other? - Yeah, there's quite a bit of difference in the size of the Paw Paws, productivity, flavor. There's a little difference in the shelf life. But I think that has more to do with the size of... The bigger the fruit, the faster they go downhill. The productivity seems to be some of the issue. We had a question, well, how soon do Paw Paws come into production? And they're kind of slow. And that has a lot to do with... Well, a reason for going for a commercial variety is because they've been chosen to go faster. There are some nurseries that deal with clones. What they'll do is they'll start 'em from seeds, or they will take a clone and separate 'em out, and start plants that away. And with that, you're not really quite sure what you're going to get if it's not a named variety. So it's... The nurseries that are down in the Kentucky area tend to do a better job because they had a breeding program, or evaluation program in Kentucky for many years. It stopped now. But they're probably the best source of information and where to get varieties. - Okay. Okay. It looks like we had to lose Cheyenne due to some complications. But I'm sure she will be available for more questions later. So with that, I wanted to come back to Bill if we have anymore questions. I see someone's been asking. I've seen that gene a couple times, asking about hoop house grow production of small fruits. I can go ahead and go there because I've been working with a couple growers interested in that in Southwest Michigan. And I know a grower. I know a couple growers that have been very successful at cane berries and some brambles, raspberries, and blackberries, also strawberries. And one of the reasons for that is that with this invasive fly, the Spotted Winged Drosophila, having some exclusion screen netting and plasticulture has really helped keep that fly away and allowed for easy production. So you can do it. It doesn't really change your variety selection because most of... You should be able to manage the temperatures during the summer pretty evenly. And it's usually when you're looking at variety differences, it's more about winter hardiness than it is about summer production capability in this part of the country. - Mike, I would add in that one of the great advantages of hoop houses is that they provide a drier condition. And so you get a much better shelf life on raspberries, for example, and strawberries because when they don't have the disease buildup on the fruit. And so we see that. It's more of like a California dry growing conditions. It allows you to go into the fall a little bit later on production. You can keep the temperature up. We found that we don't see that great of an advantage in overwintering, unless you would provide some sort of temperature management, add supplemental heat. We see grapes, for example, do better in a hoop house mainly... I'm not sure if this is from a freed standpoint or opportunities for various cane diseases that are less in a drier condition. But the temperatures get as low, or sometimes lower in a hoop house with a cover over it. There's something about the plastic does tend to radiate heat away, unless you go into some of the fancier double plastic situations or supplemental heat. - Yep. I did see someone mention one of the varieties of haskap, or what some people are calling honeyberry, Aurora is one. There's a couple of others, which I appreciate that being added. Something in addition that I will add about haskaps is the majority of them are not self-fertile. So you do have to be thinking about multiple varieties in your plantings for quality fruit production, which fits pretty well with what Bill was saying with some of the tree fruits. Most small fruits are at least somewhat self-fertile. But you can run across that with a couple of 'em, such as haskaps and hardy kiwis are another one. (sound mutes) - Think I can answer the question regarding apple rootstock and hardiness particularly. There's (sighs)... It tends to relate more to the soil conditions. If you have heavier soils, wetter soils, then certain rootstocks do better. And the apple rootstocks that we have for the most part are pretty winter hardy, ones that are commercially available. So I wouldn't be as concerned about that. More of the issue is making sure that your trees are as healthy as possible going into the winter. Don't over-fertilize late in the season 'cause that tends to keep the trees going and get freeze damage from rapid temperature drops. - And that holds true with a lot of small fruit as well. As Cheyenne was mentioning that a lot of the wine grapes in particular are... She used the term babies. They're really sensitive to cold damage, winter damage. And they are also sensitive to late fertilization keeping them running too vigorous too late in the season. And because they are harvested so late in the year, it's something you have to be especially careful about. Most other variety, small fruit varieties, you are harvesting early enough in the year that if you do a post harvest fertilization program, it's still early enough in the summer that it's not usually too much of a problem. But it's definitely something that you should be aware of regardless of the small fruit variety. Someone asked if you need to redo the RUP questionnaire. No, you do not 'cause I have that recorded on a day-to-day basis. So I know that you submitted the RUP... You filled out the RUP questionnaire today. And I'm connecting that with that code, which this PowerPoint slide is for you guys. I have a separate document that has these codes in them that will be used for when I do the submission. So you're fine. Okay, are there any other questions that we didn't get to? And once again, I don't wanna cover everything and keep you guys on too long. I see a question someone's asking about for tomorrow's round table discussion. And I'm gonna be saving that. Okay. Anything we missed, Bill? - Opinion on self-pollinating pears and multi-grafted, yeah. - I approach the multi-grafting... Oh, someone was asking about rootstock choices for apples and cherries in the UP. I mean, does... Do you have to really think about any changes to rootstock choices when you're going to that cooler of a climate, because they are probably zones four, maybe bumping up against five? Do you have to change your rootstock when thinking about cold hardiness? - When you were busy doing the code, I addressed on the apples. On cherries, cherries are more prone to problems. Sweet cherries are gonna have more problems than tart cherries. Tart cherries are a bit hardier. You want to make sure, again, on the vigor side of things that you get a moderately vigorous tree, not highly and not lower vigor. If a tree has less carbohydrates, then it's not gonna pull through that much. I think the variety on top is gonna be more important than the rootstock. With sweet cherries, Mazzard and Mahaleb are the older style ones. With that one, you have to be aware that Mahaleb is a deep rootstock. Mazzard is a shallow rootstock. So you have to match what your depth of soil is. But the Gisela's rootstocks for the most part, which I mentioned earlier, are fairly cold hardy. I'm not sure if we have the minus 30 or lower temperatures that some areas of the UP have data on that. So (laughs) let us know how it works out for you. - (laughs) And Samantha was mentioning, asked a question about the greenhouse. If using a greenhouse, do you have to worry about the Hardiness Zones? It really depends on what your doing during the coldest parts of the winter. If the greenhouse is being kept at or above freezing 12 months a year constantly, I think you don't have to worry too much about that. It all depends on the plants you're growing because there are some tropical plants that are say zones nine or higher. So yes, it does matter. But you need to shift it to what your greenhouse conditions are going to be. Yeah. - One thing I'd mention that there are some folks that bring in their plants into the greenhouse for production, or the hoop house. And they have them in pots. But they move 'em out of the greenhouse in the off season during the winter because they want to have the material harden off properly. And with a hoop house, sometimes you run into a situation that things are not hardened off enough by the time cold weather hits. So, yeah. And if you want to get really exotic, there are some folks that will put... If you have a big cooler or something, you can keep things cool and then gets the chilling done on the fruit, and then bring 'em out into the heat, and then you get fruit production from 'em. - Yep, yep, yeah. There are so many ways you can manipulate the environment if you are working with a greenhouse. But you just have to be purposeful. You have to know... You have to plan ahead and know what you're doing, know what you want to do. I think we're gonna call it at that for the day.