Domesticate Huckleberries?

One of the International Wild Huckleberry Association’s friend and reader has made local news with his attempts to domesticate huckleberries.

Here is part of his story from the Coeur d Alene Press website:

Joe Culbreth

Berry and Nut Farm now producing huckleberries

Joe Culbreth’s 15-acre swath of land is beautifully organized into arcing rows of flowers, berries, grapes and a wide variety of fruit trees. He always wanted to plant and grow things when he retired, so he did….

Six years ago, he bought more than 1,200 huckleberry plants for his farm. Usually, when people want huckleberries, they go into to forest and pick them wild.

“I wanted something different and I love huckleberries,” he said. “I’ve been huckleberrying in Idaho since ’79.”

Culbreth bought huckleberry plants from a variety of locations, one of which was from the University of Idaho’s Sandpoint Research and Extension Center where Dan Barney, head of the center, was doing research to domesticate huckleberries.

Over the years Culbreth has used Barney as a resource for information about maintaining the plants.

He learned huckleberries like partial shade. So, he planted blueberry bushes and dwarf apple trees on the west side of the huckleberries, to make that partial shade.

Unfortunately for Culbreth, Barney moved to Alaska recently, leaving Culbreth alone to tend to the huckleberries, which never grew. And year after year, they still never grew any berries. Each year, Culbreth held out hope the next year the plants would bear fruit.

Finally, in their sixth season on his property, the huckleberries are growing.

He thinks this year’s mild winter and early spring have helped the plants produce fruit. As of right now, most of the huckleberry bushes have produced fruit that looks ripe, but tastes green. One bush had good berries on it.

Read the full article here

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