It’s not a typical way for a university academic to spend a sabbatical.
Bob Bors, an assistant professor of plant science at the University of Saskatchewan, used his sabbatical to travel and conduct research by traipsing through the wilds of northern Canada collecting samples of native haskap shrubs.
He was in every province except Newfoundland and gathered 800 plants from 250 locations, to add to the university’s already large and diverse collection of Russian and Japanese stock.
“Professors love to have stuff like that,” Bors said during the annual haskap field day at the U of S. “Even if it’s not useful, I can still study it.”
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He also visited the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido during the sabbatical, where he gathered more plants and gained first-hand knowledge of production and marketing methods.
Bors has spent the past 10 years working with the berry bush, known variously as blue honeysuckle and haskap, and breeding new varieties.
Last year, 80,000 haskap plants were sold, with about two-thirds going to farmers and one-third to home gardeners.
All were varieties developed by Bors and his team at the U of S. The two main varieties are Tundra, aimed at commercial growers, and Borealis, more suitable for home gardens.
Bors expects more than 300,000 could be sold in 2009.
“More than 100 farmers are seriously testing haskap across Canada, mostly in Saskatchewan, because they’ve heard about it,” he said.
He added there are currently 12 nurseries in seven provinces propagating haskap varieties developed at the U of S.
The field day attracted 50 people, including some from Alberta, Ontario, North Dakota and Japan, and home gardeners from Saskatoon.
During the tour, Bors said one of the advantages of the plant is how early it blooms (around May 1) and produces fruit (mid-June), well in advance of any other berries, including strawberries.
“The insects are just waking up, so they pose no problem,” he said, noting that birds, particularly waxwings, love the haskap berry.
About the only disease issue is powdery mildew, which can show in July, well after harvest. New varieties in development have good resistance.
The early production is a limit on yield potential, currently in the range of five to seven kilograms per bush, but also provides a marketing advantage and possibly a premium price.
“People are willing to pay more for the first fruit of the season,” he said.
Haskap is one of the few plants that can go toe-to-toe with a Saskatchewan winter and come out on top and that’s one reason growers in Saskatchewan are excited about the future for the berry crop.
“It’s ideal for our climate,” said Rae Getz, a grower from Birch Hills, Sask., attending the field day.
He has seen haskap bushes with their flowers encased in ice after a six-degree spring frost bounce back as if nothing had happened.
“They never missed a beat,” he said.
Marg Sullivan of Parkland Agroforestry of Melfort, which propagates haskap for resale, said nothing seems to faze the hardy shrubs.
“It’s uniquely suited to our climate and geography and we have it here,” she said. “For once we have the benefit of being in the right place.”
Bors said the haskap industry is still in its early stages of development, with many growers planting an acre or two to see how it works out.
He said there are several potential markets for the berry including food and confectioneries, in particular ice cream, health foods and pharmaceuticals.
One of the visitors to the field day was a representative from a large Japanese pharmaceutical company eager to use haskap in a number of its products.
Bors sees nothing but good things in the future for the crop, as new varieties provide better quality, better taste, higher yield and overall higher standards.
“And we’re going to grow more of it than anywhere else,” he said.
