We grow haskap — the blue honeysuckle — in the Cannon River valley of southern Minnesota. It is the earliest fruit of our season and among the hardiest.
Cannon River valley, Goodhue County, Minnesota
Haskap is the blue honeysuckle, Lonicera caerulea, a bush fruit from the boreal edge of Japan, Russia and Canada. The berry is long rather than round, dark blue under a silver bloom, and dark red inside. It tastes like blueberry crossed with black currant, with more acid than either.
It is the earliest fruit of the season here by a wide margin, and the toughest. The plants set flower buds in fall and open them in late April, which is the whole problem with the crop: a hard frost in the first week of May takes the year with it. The Cannaberry blooms nine to twelve days later than the Russian types, which is most of what we were selecting for.
Haskap is easy in ways blueberry is not, and difficult in one way nobody warns you about.
Haskap will not pollinate itself. Plant a second variety that opens flowers at the same time, one in five, and put it within about fifty feet. Because the Cannaberry blooms late, most of the old Russian varieties finish before it starts and are useless to it. We sell a matched pollinizer with every order and you should not skip it.
Unlike blueberry it does not want an acid bed. Anything from pH 5 to 8 with drainage will grow it, which around here means you can put it where the ground already is instead of rebuilding a row.
Fruit hold varies a great deal between haskap varieties. Common types soften and drop within about a week of ripening, so a grower gets a single pass; longer-holding selections are what make repeat picking practical. Ask any nursery for hold data measured at their own site.
Cedar waxwings will strip an unnetted planting in two days and they arrive the morning the fruit turns. This is the difficulty nobody mentions. Net before color break, not after.
Haskap breeding is slow work. Selections are grown out for years before anything can be said about how they perform, and we are not ready to publish results yet.
Plants go to nurseries and growers. Fruit is a three-week season and it goes fast.