The University of Saskatchewan’s Dr. Bob Bors is a world leader in haskap breeding. If you’ve never tried haskap (an edible honeysuckle), you don’t know what you’re missing. This relatively small shrub is the first fruit to flower in spring and also the first to bear fruit. It produces dark blue/purple soft fruits that are highly nutritious and rich in antioxidants.
Breeding his line of haskaps was a long and laborious process, which resulted fruit which is described as having the richness of blueberry with the tang of raspberry. Dr. Bors describes his initial work with breeding haskap: “I was first interested in haskap because we had 4 varieties in our fields that began producing when I first got here. That got me curious about the plant, but I was not excited to breed it yet. I saved some open pollinated seed and deliberately crossed the best of the 3 early ones with the variety that bloomed usually late. When those started fruiting a couple years later, I became very excited because it looked like I could improve haskap. To simplify it I often say one parent had long skinny berries and the other parent had short fat berries. Several of the hybrids had long fat berries that were bigger than either parent. That was the most noticeable trait in the hybrids. Another factor was the long skinny berries were sour but had nice aroma and flavour. The short fat berries were sweet but kind of boring. The hybrids were delicious in comparison to their parents having aroma, a little zing and sweetness. There were other things too, like mildew resistance, sturdy branches and bigger leaves that made it exciting. It became apparent to me that this was a crop with much capacity for improvement.”
Dr. Bors has released 10 cultivars of haskaps: ‘Tundra’, ‘Borealis’, ‘Indigo Gem’, ‘Indigo Treat’, ‘Indigo Yum’, ‘Aurora’, ‘Honeybee’, ‘Boreal Blizzard’, ‘Boreal Beast’ and ‘Boreal Beauty’. Widely grown commercially, they are a must-have fruit for home gardens too. For growing information see: Growing haskaps