Ep. 240 Beyond the usual: Exploring some lesser‑known fruits for the garden | #GoodGrowing

Chris Enroth: 00:05

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with the University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. We're gonna be talking about a couple different types of fruiting crops that maybe you haven't heard of. Maybe you've heard of some of these, but they've they've changed a little bit over the years. So we're gonna cover that, with our local food small farms educator Grant McCarty.

Chris Enroth: 00:28

But before we get to Grant, we you know I'm not doing this by myself. I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Ken Johnson: 00:38

Hello, Chris. Get excited. Talking about weird stuff.

Chris Enroth: 00:42

I knew it. Ken's like, let's talk weird plants. I'm like, this is Ken's wheelhouse here. He's he's into this. Yeah.

Chris Enroth: 00:50

So but, hopefully, I think we're gonna get people pretty, you know, excited for these. Maybe, you'll find a spot for one or two of these in your own yard because I really do like, a couple of these that we're gonna be chatting about today. If I get my hands on them, that is.

Ken Johnson: 01:07

Yes. Just more plants to add to that mythical property than I'm gonna get when I won the lottery.

Chris Enroth: 01:13

Exactly. Yes. I'm eyeballing that property that doesn't belong to me. How many of these plants can I put on it? And it it's Ken's property too.

Chris Enroth: 01:21

So you're my surrogate garden, Ken, down at Jacksonville. Okay. Well, let's bring Grant on here to introduce. Grant, you've been on the show before, but we are happy to have you here today. Welcome.

Grant McCarty: 01:36

Yeah. Thanks for having me back.

Chris Enroth: 01:38

Yeah. So, Grant, you're in Rockford, Illinois. You're a small farms local foods educator. So I I guess, you know, I don't I think that's all the introduction I suppose we need for you. But is there anything else you want us to tell?

Chris Enroth: 01:52

Any got got anything coming up that you want people to know about?

Grant McCarty: 01:55

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, we we I mostly work in, you know, with fruit growers and vegetable growers up in Northern Illinois. So a lot of times, we do a lot winter programming where we're providing updates on on things that they wanna get growing or concerns for the upcoming season. I am just launched the Illinois Beginning Orchard Academy.

Grant McCarty: 02:15

It is closed. So it's launched. Too many people are in it, and so now it's closed. But, you know, this is kind of a new program that I have started and will do in the winter and the fall. And it's kind of for new kind of commercial growers that are interested in starting their own fruit tree orchards throughout the state.

Grant McCarty: 02:35

And it's also a bit towards geared towards also maybe, say, backyard systems too if folks are interested in in that side of things. But it's kind of a combination of direct education via Zoom as well as the kind of expert assistance that a lot of the local foods team and horticulture educators really provide throughout the year. So if anyone's interested, you know, they can kinda reach out to me via email, and I could put them on the list for notification for the fall version. But the winter program has reached capacity.

Chris Enroth: 03:03

Well, that's a great problem to have. So, yeah, congratulations. So that sounds like a good program, and we will leave Grant's email down below in the description so folks can get re get in touch with him. Alright. Well, we should dive into the the topic of the day.

Chris Enroth: 03:18

So, Ken, would you mind kicking us off with this week's questions, please?

Ken Johnson: 03:22

I would love to. So I guess when we were first talking about doing this emailing back and forth, you mentioned you had some, shall we say, duds when it comes to growing some stuff, some grapes and peaches. So, are these I guess, in general, is it hard to find reliable food crops for Northern Illinois, or is it just more depends on what you what you pick?

Grant McCarty: 03:44

Yeah. I mean, it it's nuanced. Right? I mean, I don't live in Calhoun County, so it's not as if I can put out peach trees and be very reliable in most years with with crops. And, certainly, we don't see commercial peach production up in Northern Illinois either.

Grant McCarty: 03:57

So when we're thinking about some of those that are just on the edge, like stone fruit or some of the others, we're factoring in that there might be some limitations just with its lifespan or even just what you might see year to year. You know, in the case of, especially stone fruit, we expect that that we're we're not not gonna gonna have a crop every single year. We also expect that there could be severe winter damage in that season that really pushes things back. And so when I was looking at my kind of backyard area, we had I planted two peach trees in 2020. They had produced for two or three years there.

Grant McCarty: 04:35

And then I had one year where we, you we reached negative six, negative seven degrees Fahrenheit for a number of days, which killed the fruit buds. The following year, I then had severe winter damage, which delayed the actual, leafing budding out of the trees, till Memorial Day weekend so that I knew that year was gonna be messed up. So at that point, I'm facing, you know, a very small area where I can really plant. And I'm thinking to myself, is this really worth putting a crop in there that's gonna be risky? And so they came out.

Grant McCarty: 05:11

Grapes was a little bit more of a you know, I think what we see in extension. Right? It's like we wanna experiment in the backyard. We wanna have knowledge because we know that people are asking questions, homeowners, master gardeners, commercial growers. Having that hands on experience can be really vital.

Grant McCarty: 05:26

And for grapes, I just looked at it and I'm like, well, I'm not gonna be a grape expert. Maybe we move to something a little bit different that, especially with grapes having, what, like, thirty, forty years, a long lifespan. That's a long time for that plant to be there, taking up space. And I'm not a wine expert or planning to make wine or grape juice. And I strategized that we needed something a little bit different.

Grant McCarty: 05:54

You all might have this experience too where your family puts limitations on what you can grow and where you can grow, And that means that there are a great big area where everything should be planted, and you were told that, no. Can't plant there. So that means that you just get this smaller space over time, and that's what we ran into. So, you know, it's to say that, yes, there are challenges in Doroth, Illinois, but there are further challenges that are more family related when it comes to growing.

Chris Enroth: 06:32

So if you could negotiate a little bit more, would you ever consider replanting a peach or a grape, or you think you're out of the peach and grape growing game altogether?

Grant McCarty: 06:42

I think peaches still have a place. I think that peaches can still and, know, like like we know with fruit trees, you just need one peach tree to get peaches compared to some of the other fruit trees out there that require multiple varieties flowering at the same time. Other ones that are, you know, more risky even, you know, obviously, we don't recommend sweet cherry because it requires two trees for for pollination, and there's a risk that one of them won't make it that wintertime, the buds will die. So, you know, peaches, I think, can work fine. You just have to recognize that it there may be some challenges with it.

Grant McCarty: 07:24

And, you know, they also have a pretty short lifespan. I mean, sometimes they're looking at fifteen to twenty years for some of these. So that is kinda factored into it as well.

Chris Enroth: 07:35

Is there is there anywhere in Illinois where you'd say, you know, here's the line south of here. Go to town on peaches. Or where is it a good investment maybe for some gardeners in the state here?

Grant McCarty: 07:50

I mean, I still think that you're thinking maybe South Of Springfield if that you know, I I know that there are some commercial peach growing that's occurring and blooming to normal. I mean, we even have some commercial peach growing that's occurring up in Wisconsin. There's a couple of, like, peach farms there that are supplemented with apples. And even guys up here that have apple trees are still putting out, say, a row of peaches just on that one year that they get good peach crops with it. So but I I I still think we're looking at kind of, like, South Of Springfield.

Grant McCarty: 08:21

And, like, you've probably experienced, Ken and and Chris, like, what was it? Like, 2023, like, December 2323 or one of those years where the trees hadn't even gone into dormancy yet of the peaches, and it affected that following year's crop. So there's still those outliers that happen.

Ken Johnson: 08:40

Well, even, this this winter, talking to some of the growers in Calhoun, we got those real cold temperatures, and they've been out cutting flower buds to see if they're still viable. And it's like some cultivars are fine. Others, there's some damage. And then, you know, we're getting real warm right now. Things start waking up.

Ken Johnson: 08:59

We get a cold snap. You lost everything. So, yeah, it's it's always tricky, especially with peaches because they do kinda bloom a little bit earlier than apples, and they're less cold already.

Grant McCarty: 09:10

Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 09:12

But and now you have spotted lanternfly for your grapes. Like, you know, it's making me kinda sweat a little bit when you hear about spotted lanternfly and putting in a whole row of grapes. I'm like, I don't know if I wanna have to deal with all that.

Grant McCarty: 09:25

Absolutely. And, you know, there are are wonderful Midwestern varieties of grapes out there. And, you know, I think as you know, for me, grapes wasn't necessarily the winter issue. I think it was just more of, like, this is a big commitment, especially knowing how prolific diseases and insects can be. This is just one more thing to really kind of consider and focus on when it comes to everything else I'm wanting to grow.

Ken Johnson: 09:50

Mhmm. Alright. Let's move on to the happy stories. So I think we had, what, four different things we're talking about. So I think the first one we had on the list was honeyberry.

Ken Johnson: 10:04

So for those of us out there who have not eaten honeyberry or familiar with it, I guess, what are they? And kinda what does a a typical growing season look like with these?

Grant McCarty: 10:15

Yeah. So I I I was fortunate to be on a special crop block grant probably in twenty eighteen, twenty seventeen, somewhere around there. And we planted honey berry in our extension office here in Rockford, which honey berry is also known as Haskell. You might see that as well. And the idea was to try to see where it might fit into the growing season.

Grant McCarty: 10:35

And one of the things that really emerged from planting these just to see how they were growing in the Rockford area is that they tend to flower in spring, and then they will tend to be harvested around Memorial Day weekend for us. And so when we look at the growing season where if I'm a farmer's market grower, you know, I'll have, like, three or four weeks of just rhubarb and asparagus, maybe some leafy lettuce or radish. Here was a fruit that was showing up Memorial Day weekend that they now could sell. And it tastes it's very it's oval in shape. It's blue, and it tastes very similar to a blueberry.

Grant McCarty: 11:14

And so as you're thinking about the complications with growing blueberries, here is one that could just be an easy replacement, not having to modify the soil or lower that so lower the soil pH and kind of also show up in a time when the growers could really benefit from having something like it. It's very bush like in structure. It still is very, like, similar kind of shape and structure as you might see with a blueberry. We have them in raised beds here at the extension office. I have since planted some in my home off my home planting.

Grant McCarty: 11:47

And the benefit too is that they have a nice flower quality. The fruit is, like, as mentioned in our Memorial Day weekend, and then it also tends to have more of this bright orange brown color on the leaves in the fall. So as a kind of edible landscaping plant, it also has some really good benefits there too with it. And we've seen that it has great cold hardiness. A lot of these varieties were developed from University of Saskatchewan, and we've seen a lot of research emerge from University of Minnesota as well as University of Wisconsin Madison in trying to kind of get more information out there about this plant that, you know, really has been around for a while, and yet we're now seeing more interest in it just where it's fitting in with these kind of growing seasons.

Grant McCarty: 12:39

So it's possible, especially in, like, Central And Southern Illinois, by growing this where it should grow fine, you may actually see an earlier harvest window, say, the May. Maybe you're even pushing it into the April even.

Chris Enroth: 12:54

I I like how you you equate that flavor. Did you say the flavor's kinda like a blueberry in in that way?

Grant McCarty: 13:03

I I say so. I mean, sometimes folks say it tastes like a mixture of a couple of different fruits. You know, it still is within that kind of aronia kind of you know, the berries that tend to be more tart, have more pectin that still need some kind of combination of sugar within them, but I don't think we see it as strong of a tartness compared to aronia. That is very tart.

Chris Enroth: 13:29

I I as I was doing a little research, I I I read, like, a tagline on something, and it said honey berry because we can't all be blueberries. So I I'm like, well, I guess it's it's not quite to the blueberry s, but blueberries can become many different things. We can put them in muffins, and we can make pies and stuff. Is this the same? Would we do something similar with our honeyberries?

Chris Enroth: 13:53

Can they be processed into other items, other foodstuffs?

Grant McCarty: 13:57

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that's where you kind of open the door for kind of that value added type of of piece, right, with jams or jellies or baked goods. Even yesterday, I was talking to one of the UW Madison fruit specialists that has done some outreach on this, and she was talking about making ice cream with honey berry. So, you know, they're they're utilizing a lot of different ways to kind of combine that sweetness to balance out some of that tartness.

Ken Johnson: 14:27

Are the fruits are they real soft? Are there, like, issues with handling or or shipping or anything like that?

Grant McCarty: 14:32

You know, there there can be a little bit, but I I still think that most of the time, the markets we're seeing are more of, like, directly to consumers coming, you know, out to them. And I I find also too that it's no real different than, you know, how a blueberry might feel as well, with it.

Ken Johnson: 14:50

Okay. So this so honeyberry is a is a honeysuckle. And as you know, there are some problematic honeysuckle species out there. Is this one I don't know if we should be concerned. Is this something that, you know, that should be on the way that this could cause problems potentially?

Grant McCarty: 15:09

You know, there there could be. I think some of the things that work against it is that, you know, some of these cultivars that have been developed, you know, all of them require cross pollination. And so, you know, if you just had a planting of one singular variety, it's maybe less liable that it would become, you know, as invasive because it's missing its cultivar for cross pollination. I have found, at least with some of the ones that we're growing in both the the landscape setting as well as in, say, some of the raised beds here at the extension office, they tend to stay pretty compact. I don't tend to see that they, you know, go to different places.

Grant McCarty: 15:49

When we got this grant for the Honeyberry, we also got a grant for GojiBerry. And GojiBerry had the wildest invasive qualities to it that was just extremely hard to control, that we were still removing after years and years of actually removing the singular plant. And I still have photos of the goji berry plant that's, you know, here, one part of the garden, and then you can also see it 25 feet away where it has emerged. And it also had giant thorns as well. It was, you know, great plant.

Grant McCarty: 16:22

Love this plant. So, you know, I think there's concerns for honeysuckle, and I think also that for for the honeyberry because it's in that family. And they don't have necessarily enough research to to really say whether this is something to be cautiously concerned about. But I also still tend to think just based on how it has been bred that they are controlling some of those mechanisms too.

Chris Enroth: 16:51

Well, that's good to know. So maybe plan with an eye of caution, keep an eye on your surroundings a little bit, but definitely not goji berry.

Grant McCarty: 16:59

No. You know, it's, I don't know if you've had experience with goji. It and, you know, one of my, one of the growers up here, so we planted the goji berries along with the honey berry. We definitely did not recommend goji berry, and then one of my growers ended up planting goji berry. And I was out at his farm.

Grant McCarty: 17:14

I was like, I told you not to plant this. I told you not to plant this, and you still planted it. And and I it's yeah. We I do not endorse goji berry. It is it is not, it's very, very hard to control.

Grant McCarty: 17:30

Okay.

Chris Enroth: 17:32

Well, good to know. Well, let's shift gears to another fruiting crop here, and these are primocane blackberries. So, Grant, tell us about, well, what what what's the big news about developing a blackberry, the fruits on primocanes? Can you describe, like, why is this a big deal? What's what's the change?

Grant McCarty: 17:55

Well, I think the change, especially with with the primocanes, is that it's, you know, this one season of a plant. Right? These are fall bearing blackberries. The primocane emerges in the screen time. On the blackberries, you have to do a couple of kind of heading cuts, if you are tipping rather, twice, and then you're getting in Northern Illinois climates, we're getting them from about mid August to maybe Halloween.

Grant McCarty: 18:21

Right? And then the canes are not overwintering. They're being cut all the way to the ground. What is beneficial with this system is that it's actually allowing us to grow blackberries, commercial cultivated blackberries this far north. For you all in the South and central parts of the state, you're able to grow these pretty well and also be able to winter over winter the canes with protection on some of those kind of flex trellis systems.

Grant McCarty: 18:47

Whereas up here, we just can't do that. You know? And so that really means that mostly what we have is raspberry production, where we are able to do summer raspberry where the canes will overwinter pretty easily. And then now we're calling them floricanes, and then they're producing, and then they're done. And also that we can also do primocane raspberries too, where they would be emerging in the springtime.

Grant McCarty: 19:10

They're producing the fall raspberries, and then we're mowing them down. So this kind of opened the door for us to actually be able to grow good blackberries and also grow blackberries without thorns, which is, you know, one of the major issues that growers are always wanting to address is on UPIC systems is to not have thorns. It it doesn't it doesn't go well when you've got these thorns. And, you know, these varieties like Freedom, ARC 45, they all have come from Arkansas. You know, they have such a great prolific breeding program down there there.

Grant McCarty: 19:48

The fruit quality is still maybe similar to the size you might see at some of the growers in Southern Illinois. It's just that we are kind of having these as, quote, unquote, fall blackberries. And I've had a couple of different varieties in the backyard, because we're a bit more of a blackberry fruit family than we are a raspberry fruit family. I don't know if that's, you know, if that's how it is with all families, but that's how we are in in our house. And so that meant that, you know, it was never gonna be raspberries.

Grant McCarty: 20:20

It was all gonna be blackberries that we're going to grow. And what has also helped is that we just you know, if you're growing them this far up north, you have to accept that you need winter protection if you're going to overwinter these primocane blackberries into next year, but you still also have to recognize that there can be some limitations with the flowering quality as they occur next spring if you're trying to overwinter them. So we really don't see that. Like, we're yes. We're growing primocane fruit up here.

Grant McCarty: 20:52

We have the potential to overwinter them and as they move into floricanes, but it's too much work. There's too much winter damage. And so instead, we're just accepting that these are primocane, fall, blackberries. Because truthfully, I mean, like, if you look at the blackberry production in Southern Illinois and Central Illinois with these bryvacam varieties that will become floricane varieties, in the next year, you're getting fruit really early. I mean, you're getting fruit maybe a couple weeks in June on your blackberries, and then you're getting that big fall crop later on that year.

Grant McCarty: 21:28

So you're getting that double crop, which is really beneficial. Whereas we just can't do that. We just get the one the fall primocane crop.

Ken Johnson: 21:38

So with the the primocane, you kinda talked hit at this a little bit. So it the the pruning you mentioned for, you know, tipping them and stuff. How is that, I guess, the pruning and just general care differ than, I guess, your your typical BlackBerrys that people may be more familiar with?

Grant McCarty: 21:56

It doesn't look too different. Right? I mean, like, I think if you are if you're growing BlackBerrys with the idea that you're having renewal canes so that the canes are gonna then have to overwinter, there can be some tipping that needs to occur there. But, you know, really, if it is that fall crop that you're doing for blackberries, you need to have two tipping that occur. The other thing to to also mention is that most of these Primocaine BlackBerry are not requiring much Trellis support either.

Grant McCarty: 22:28

So they're not these kind of wild floppy things. They're very upright, and the tipping allows for more support. The side branches to basically develop is what you see with that. So, I mean, those are the the two kind of actions that need to occur in the season. And if you forget them, you just don't get BlackBerrys, or you get them, like, you know, nine, ten feet all the way at the end, and there's just, like, nothing on them.

Grant McCarty: 22:52

The first year, I missed a couple of cans, and you could just kind of see, like, oh my gosh. I've got nothing here on these. So the management is not too different. It's just you have to be on top of it. I think that's the whole piece of it.

Grant McCarty: 23:09

And it does get, like, as as you both know and a lot of us know, it gets very confusing talking about primocanes and fluricanes and, oh, now we call this flurican, but this is prime. So, you know, I always think about that with with this type of outreach and education is that it can get a little confusing there with the terminology.

Chris Enroth: 23:30

Always just let Ken answer the bramble questions. Like, take it. I'm I'm I'm all backwards twisted with black raspberries and blackberries and raspberry. Yeah. I don't know what I'm doing right now.

Chris Enroth: 23:42

So I I am curious. So you said this came out of the Arkansas breeding program, which I I'm a little bit familiar with it. I'm kind of a fanboy when it comes to Arkansas blackberries because they look so delicious. They they they show these promotional videos of these new varieties that they've done, and they have this, like, green little, like, pint sized thing of blackberries in there. They look perfect.

Chris Enroth: 24:08

And I'm like, I really wish it was summer so I could have some blackberries right now. But one of the interesting things I heard from that is that one of the parents might be from Illinois, from the Illinois black blackberry breeding program long time ago, the Alinae Thornless, I think it was. Oh. Do you know anything about the parentage of the the the prime primocane blackberries that go back to Illinois?

Grant McCarty: 24:38

I'm not sure. I mean, I know, like, the traditional Illinois hardy. Right? I mean, that was more of a floricane fruiting. It was thorny variety too.

Grant McCarty: 24:47

And I think it might have been, like, Chester Thornless and maybe New York 95. So I I'm not necessarily sure, you know, with it. I I do know, you know, for some of these, like, ones that were varieties that were bred in Illinois, they're very hard to find. You know? I know that some of our older guides for fruit production will mention, like, this is a great variety.

Grant McCarty: 25:09

It's like, you can't find it anymore. Like, this is, like, good luck. You know, most of the ones nowadays, the Arkansas ones and others, I mean, you can find them very easily compared to some of these others. So we don't really see it more more often with the Illinois Hardie.

Chris Enroth: 25:29

Well, don't tell too many people. But when I was down at Carbondale, doctor Alan Walters had his hands on some of that Illini blackberry plant stock, and I might have taken some cuttings that now reside at my folks' place. And they it produces an amazing

Grant McCarty: 25:49

Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 25:49

Fruit. It it it's one of those that's a little wild and woolly, but all you gotta do is mow around the bed and boom, you've contained your blackberries. So, yeah, we've we've had really good success, and I think they've probably been in the ground almost twenty years now. So it's yeah. Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 26:07

But don't tell anyone.

Grant McCarty: 26:07

Yeah. Well, no one knows. How is the fruit size really good? You have a good fruit size to it with it too?

Chris Enroth: 26:14

I think so. I mean, I think we're looking at anywhere from half to maybe an inch in terms of, like, that fruit. Very seedy, I will say that much. There's you know, you're picking your teeth quite a bit afterwards. But yeah.

Chris Enroth: 26:28

And thornless, of all things. It's it's it's amazing. They do get pretty large, though. I I will say it it does benefit from every few years just coming in and just chopping everything down, kinda just raining it back in.

Grant McCarty: 26:43

And I know that there's been some, some research and studies have also shown that some of these thornless varieties and this this primocane fruity ones, they can also have, a shorter lifespan. You know? That's that's one thing we've you sound the same. So to hear that, you know, some of these older ones are much longer living and still prolific is kind of another way to really think about it too. Is it

Chris Enroth: 27:06

Yeah. Mhmm. So next next time I grab a a pint, I'll see if I can get some up to you.

Grant McCarty: 27:12

Yes. We'll we'll trade out. I'll bring the honeyberries and, yeah, and the goat cheese.

Chris Enroth: 27:17

Perfect. Yep.

Ken Johnson: 27:20

Alright. Move on to our next one here. So we've got bush cherries. So I think most people have heard of tree cherries. Well, is it bush cherry?

Ken Johnson: 27:30

Are you just pruning it differently? Is this a different species or or cultivar? How do they I guess, how do they compare to one other bush and tree cherries?

Grant McCarty: 27:38

So it's pretty different. You know, we're we're talking about something that's more compact and, say, four to 10 feet tall. Some of them are. And, you know, yet again, University of Saskatchewan has has really led the the charge and kind of this breeding program. And and they really developed between a sour cherry as well as a I think was like a Mongolian cherry that they bred to kind of get this more small compact bush.

Grant McCarty: 28:05

And so these are varieties are like carmine jewel. There's a kind of a romance series. They call it, like, Juliet, Romeo, and others. But as a lot of us also know, like, the Nanking cherry is another kind of common one. They're similar when it comes to the amount of production you get off of them.

Grant McCarty: 28:26

And also, like, some of our other tart kind of sour cherries, you don't need more than one variety. They're able to kind of produce. You might get a benefit. Right? You add another variety, maybe get more fruit from it.

Grant McCarty: 28:39

But as far as this, like, a compactness, as far as even, say, kind of addressing some of that edible landscaping, it can fit in pretty well. So my group cluster was planted last year, I think, or maybe the year before. This might be year three. So it's not produced fruit as of yet. We're still just in that establishment phase.

Grant McCarty: 28:59

And there's space, I think, for fit centers. So they're kind of tight. Primarily, it's Carmine Jewel. Some of our growers up here are using the Bush cherries just because it fits in well with the UPIC system compared to, say, some of the larger tart cherries that you might see out there. So it's maybe one to consider if you have smaller spacing or if you're in just thinking of, like, you know, I wanna put it somewhere as a kind of more of a decorative piece to it.

Chris Enroth: 29:32

My neighbor has a chair in their backyard, and we we pick from there every so often. And then, you know, across town, there's a farmer that they grow cherries. And even though they're kinda similar cherries, I think they're both sweet. The flavors can be really different. So do we have a lot of diversity in flavors with our bush cherry as it seems like our tree cherries that we have?

Chris Enroth: 29:56

So whole spectrum of flavors almost with some of these cherry trees.

Grant McCarty: 30:01

I think you could see some. You know, I don't know if there is as much nuance as as you might be ex experience with seeing with yours. You know, we know that some of the, like, the Juliet and the Romeo tend to be a little bit sweeter than the Carmine jewel. The Carmine jewel is a bit more of, like, a balanced flavor to it. Nanking, you know, we've described as kinda being a little bit between the sweet and the sour with it.

Grant McCarty: 30:28

We we see so much, like, backyard tart sour cherry trees up here.

Ken Johnson: 30:33

Mhmm.

Grant McCarty: 30:34

And I think also they live, you know, very long time, sometimes twenty, thirty years. So people don't even know the varieties that they're growing. They just know they're getting a lot of cherries in in most season. Because, you know, as I've been in this position now for almost thirteen years, we have a tart cherry tree at the at the extension office. There's maybe even one year when it didn't produce.

Grant McCarty: 30:56

I mean, they just are very good about producing every single year for us in Northern Illinois. So, you know, as we think about any sort of fruit trees, it's almost like you start with tart cherry or sour cherry. You go with apples, and then you work your way down that list of what's really gonna survive with it.

Chris Enroth: 31:17

Well, very cool. Well, I'm getting hungry for cherry pie now, blackberry cobbler. Yeah. The honey berry smoothie. So no.

Chris Enroth: 31:29

This all sounds delicious. So and I take it bush cherry. You you just treat it like a cherry. You could make a cherry pie if you want. You could just it's the same essential thing.

Chris Enroth: 31:38

Right?

Grant McCarty: 31:39

Yeah. Absolutely. And then I think it may also be more beneficial if you're dealing with, say, birds or anything like that. Like, the netting is gonna be much easier to control and put around it compared to, say, some of the tart sour cherries that are much taller. And I do apologize.

Grant McCarty: 31:57

I go back and forth between tart and sour. I don't think there's been an official guidance which words used to be used, so I go back and forth. But, yeah, I think there can be some benefits from a netting perspective, something that's more compact with it. And, you know, many of the varieties I'm talking about today and these different crops, everything's pretty readily available as far as finding them. I mean, now, of course, as we know is the time to be searching and finding these varieties.

Grant McCarty: 32:23

You know, nothing like I'm talking about has been, you know, secured in Southern Illinois and taken up north to Macomb, Illinois. It's all been, like, you know, from a website that I would regularly purchase from, so forth. As of now, who knows what the future holds?

Ken Johnson: 32:40

So how how tall do they get approximately?

Grant McCarty: 32:43

I think the max is gonna be about 10 feet. So you should still you know, as of now with the ones that I have, we're sitting at about seven feet. And then, you know, they're kind of growing upwards, of like that bush type shape to it. And so I fully expect kind of the fruit's gonna be on, you know, kind of covering all sides of of that plant.

Ken Johnson: 33:06

Is it is it multi stemmed?

Grant McCarty: 33:08

It is. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. You have a bit of, like, a central leader, but then you have a lot of kind of main multi stem branches emerging from it and emerging from the bottom too.

Grant McCarty: 33:19

And we've got to explore the pruning. I I I have got to explore the pruning. Sometimes you just you know, with fruit production, especially in fruit trees, we've we've shifted over a lot to be like, just don't prune for the first, you know, four to five years. You'll fix your mistakes in year five. Like, that's kinda what we say.

Grant McCarty: 33:38

Work on, you know, the bending of the branches, working on making a better shape, you know, keep the pruners in the garage for four or five years, if you will.

Chris Enroth: 33:48

Very cool. I might have found a new screening shrub for the yard. Yeah. I like that.

Ken Johnson: 33:57

Alright. We'll move on to our last one here. One that I'm gonna assume everybody's heard of, apples. But we're gonna talk about the PRI apples. So what what are guess, what what is PRI?

Ken Johnson: 34:08

And I know a lot of times you see apples, but they're only available to you have to be a member of a club or was it Cosmic Crisp? You have to be in Washington state to grow those. So are these PRI available to the general public?

Grant McCarty: 34:23

Yeah. So so yeah. So PRI stands for Purdue, Rutgers, Illinois. So it was a apple breeding program that started in nineteen forties and released a number of varieties in the nineteen seventies and and eighties, maybe even earlier than that. And the main focus was scab resistance.

Grant McCarty: 34:43

So they wanted to really focus on having good apple scab resistance in these varieties along with having them, you know, taste taste good. You don't wanna just grow scab resistant apple. That's trash. And so the other benefit here too was that you had two different or rather three different universities a part of this growing in different regions to be able to also have some comparisons with that. And what came about from this is that you ended up with a number of apples that most of the commercial growers in Illinois are still growing.

Grant McCarty: 35:16

You know, these are things like Crimson Crisp, Pixie Crunch, Liberty, Enterprise, Goldrush is the state apple. So it's one that a lot of people grow and use for cider. And you still see these up in Northern Illinois and and kinda throughout the state. And I know that for a while, were of course, because this program came with U of I, many of these trees where they were doing variety trials were were based on campus before they, I think, might have taken them out. So these are ones that are available to homeowners, to backyard growers, to anyone compared to, say, the Midwest Apple Improvement Association where you're having to purchase a membership fee to then purchase those trees to plant in your backyard.

Grant McCarty: 36:03

And I think one of the benefits is is I think we've kind of talked about already today too. It's like, you know, you're growing a variety that has a connection to Illinois, that has a connection to the actual kind of research. And and it we're so focused sometimes on, like, I want honeycress to grow in my backyard, which we really don't you don't want to grow honeycress in your backyard or or gala or something like that. Here is one here are some that are really unique. They have good flavor to them.

Grant McCarty: 36:32

They grow really well. I've been fortunate the last, say, six to seven years to really focus on apple production, and so I spend most of my time, especially in the fall, a lot of apples. And as I thought about replacing the trees of the peaches, I felt like this was a time to maybe bring in something that's a little more Illinois, especially as these are some varieties I really like, like pixie crumbs and crimson crisp.

Chris Enroth: 37:02

Yeah. And if folks if if you do not believe Grant about this debate of Honeycrisp versus these p r I PRI apples, I remember I think it was the first time. Maybe first time we met Grant, it was, like, 2012, 2013. I'm I'm not sometime around then. Doctor Mosbah Kushad, he was doing the apple program on campus.

Chris Enroth: 37:24

Mhmm. And he brought in these Pixie Crunch apples, and I'm like, I've it was one of those feelings of, I've never eaten an apple before this moment. It was so good.

Grant McCarty: 37:35

Pixie Crunch. Yes. It I do not like big apples. I really like a smaller apple, and I and so many of the apples these days are just, you know, feed a family with a single apple. I'd need something small, and the Pixie Crunch fits in really well with that and also is just a great flavorful apple.

Chris Enroth: 37:56

Yeah. Yep. Highly highly recommend it. So if if you're wondering, you know, why is my Honeycrisp not growing? It it's because it's it's not supposed to be growing in Illinois.

Chris Enroth: 38:08

Get a PRI apple. That is that is the way to go. I'm telling you that Honeycrisp has too many problems.

Grant McCarty: 38:16

Yeah. Sadly. I mean and it is the most prolific one in at Illinois orchards. I mean, if you're an Illinois orchard, you almost have to grow Honeycrisp. And we know, you know, that's a whole other podcast episode of Honeycrisp.

Grant McCarty: 38:30

And it just has a lot of challenges to it that you're able to overcome that season, and sometimes you're just not ever ever able to overcome. But, you know, it is the number one apple grown in Illinois. Probably Zestar is is number two because Zestar is a very early one, and both are Minnesota varieties.

Ken Johnson: 38:49

So when we think about apple trees, if you're growing a a standard apple tree, they can get rather large. You're getting out ladders, and stuff to to to pick them and stuff. So are you and you so how are you planting? You you mentioned you planted trees. How did you plant those?

Ken Johnson: 39:07

You've got multiple trees. Did you do, you know, dwarfing rootstock, high density, all that fun stuff?

Grant McCarty: 39:15

I did a lot of fun stuff. You know, Apple production has has moved in a very different direction than what it looked like twenty, thirty years ago. And especially as these varieties from PRI were being developed, they weren't being grown in the systems that we see now. And that doesn't mean that they are showing things that are can't be addressed that season, but it just means that we're now growing things much differently. You know, we went from the standard trees that we're gonna get 25 feet tall in an orchard, and then we're moving to semi dwarf, which is 14 to 16 feet tall.

Grant McCarty: 39:51

And both of these systems don't require trellising systems. They usually don't require irrigation. And now our Apple production has now moved to what's called the high density trellising system. Tall spindle system is also kind of the other word we use, and it's requiring a lot of inputs. A lot of so you see this with irrigation, and you see this also with they need a dwarfing rootstock, and they also tend to need a lot of support.

Grant McCarty: 40:19

And so as I look at these systems that I'm working with and the growers I'm working with, I basically took pieces of it and did my backyard that way. So as of the planting of this new, quote, unquote, mini orchard in the backyard is that they are three feet between each other, which is gonna require kind of an individual trellising system, an individual stake. I don't wanna get the big trellising system. I that is my family will definitely not be happy if I have a giant, like, trellising irrigation system for eight trees, but we're gonna modify. We're gonna take pieces of it.

Grant McCarty: 40:55

And the other thing you also see with the system is that you will get less apples because it's dwarfing rootstock and because they're much they're tighter together. You also have it to prune it very differently. And so it means that that main central leader trunk is the only thing that stays permanent. All of those side branches are gonna go in two and three year cycles, and you're gonna be bending them. There are gonna be a lot of, like, production systems.

Grant McCarty: 41:21

But it is gonna mean that you're gonna be able to get, you know, your trees in a much smaller area, which could work really well for a backyard setting, for a community garden, for other pieces, other smaller plantings, but it does mean there is some more work. And if you have this, maybe idealistic idea of this, like, beautiful, tall apple tree covered in apples, that's not necessarily what you're gonna see in this kind of system. It's gonna be a very fruiting wall, and the branches are gonna look kind of gnarly, if you will. But you need, the dwarfing rootstock for this to happen. And as much as it sounds like, oh, man, three feet between each, that sounds really tight.

Grant McCarty: 42:05

I was reading about some of the other growing systems in other states. Some of them are going at one and a half feet. So, I mean, like, they were getting tighter and tighter spacing. And what we see is that if I had an acre of high density apple trees, I would get more collective yields because I have more trees. But on a per tree basis, I have less yields.

Grant McCarty: 42:30

So there's trade offs. Right? There's there's trade offs with this kind of modified system. And sometimes the trade off is that I get to go trees, and my my family doesn't push back against it. That's the trade off for me.

Grant McCarty: 42:42

Do

Ken Johnson: 42:45

you know I always forget these numbers off top of your head. Like, commercial when they're planting in a how many trees they're putting per acre on a high density?

Grant McCarty: 42:53

They're you're up to twelve hundred twelve hundred trees. A thousand to 1,200 trees. And that is, like, a shift from, like oh gosh. I mean, I think the standard trees was about maybe 50 to a 100 trees per acre. And then, you know, when we moved to semi dwarf, we went up a little bit more with that, maybe 400, 500.

Grant McCarty: 43:14

And so, yeah, now we're up to 1,200 for for a lot of these guys. And, typically, you know, your tree height is maximum is about nine, ten feet tall on this tall spindle system. And then in between rows is, like I think they call it, like, it's almost, like, 90% of the expected height that the tree will eventually get. So, I mean, you're the row is tight, down the row, and then between the rows is really tight too.

Chris Enroth: 43:44

And we were on a tour, remember, at Iowa State University, and they were showing us some of their high density apple plantings. I remember someone remarked I mean, it's not this dense, but it's like someone said, it's like corn out there. You know? They're, like, so close together. It's crazy.

Grant McCarty: 44:00

Yeah. I mean, it it's really interesting to kind of see, you know, especially up here with our UPIC systems. And I know you all have UPICs in your your areas as well. Just, like, how different of a growing way it is and and much different than just how you expect to maybe grow in the backyard. Mhmm.

Grant McCarty: 44:21

And that we're still getting more ideas of how to grow these closer together, which is even crazier to me.

Chris Enroth: 44:29

It's wild. Well well, Grant, I think we've we've, like, talked about some really neat different crops. I think everybody would be interested in them. But with these apples, people, they really like apples, and you've just told them you can fit them into small spots in their yard. Is there anywhere people could look up, like, some PRI apple cultivars?

Chris Enroth: 44:52

Is there any resources online that you might direct folks to if they wanna learn more about PRI apples?

Grant McCarty: 45:00

You know, there there there was a great article that I will I will share with you all that kinda just gave the history of PRI apples, and I think that sometimes gives a better idea as how you think about incorporating these into your backyard and, you know, what were the goals of this project. And especially as I know some of your listeners are very into kind of just understanding the history of, like, research and development and so forth. That would be kind of a great place to start with. You know what? I'm unaware you know, I I think I I read a couple weeks ago that in looking more about this, that the last kind of researcher of this group, he since has has stopped, you know, working in this field.

Grant McCarty: 45:38

So we really don't, at this point, expect much PRI apples to emerge, especially as we've seen more of a push towards kind of club apples to occur. And but I think what we see, right, is, like, the commercial growers are growing the PRI apples. The backyard growers can also grow the PRI apples. And it just opens you up for, you know, growing something that was as an Illinois connection to it much more than, say, some of the other ones out there.

Chris Enroth: 46:05

Yeah. And Northern to Southern Illinois. You know, we're talking the whole climate range, right, for Yeah. Capability of these apples?

Grant McCarty: 46:13

Yeah. We really don't see too many challenges with them. I mean, I I think the one thing to kind of keep in mind is that depending on the rootstock you've chosen, depending on just kind of the, you know, circumstances that happen in that growing season, you just may find some challenges with with with apples, with these certain varieties just because the research at that point really wasn't looking at, you know, the rootstock combination. And we've really seen a lot of issues with rootstocks, the last number of years where there's just a lot of things that are happening in that graft union that we're seeing on the commercial scale as well as on the noncommercial scale that are getting to a place where we just don't have the research or the guidance to to consider it. But, certainly, you know, I think that we we find PRIs apples to be a a great addition.

Grant McCarty: 47:02

I have heard mixed results about Goldrush. Some growers love Goldrush. Some growers hate Goldrush. So that might be one to taste test for you. It's not the same as, like, or Crimson Crabs, the ones that people like, oh, these apples.

Chris Enroth: 47:18

Yeah.

Grant McCarty: 47:19

And, you know, you know, you keep in mind, you've got, like, 12,365 varieties of of named apples out there. So you have a lot to choose from if you can get your hands on them. We will not get that far in my backyard orchard of 12,300 and whatever varieties.

Chris Enroth: 47:39

Not with that kind

Ken Johnson: 47:40

of attitude.

Grant McCarty: 47:42

Yeah. Not not with the guidance of three foot spacing. Maybe if we get to six inch spacing, that's a difference.

Chris Enroth: 47:48

There you go.

Grant McCarty: 47:49

So yeah.

Chris Enroth: 47:51

Oh my gosh. Well, I gotta we gotta cut you off there, Grant, because this is dangerous. Ken, these episodes, it's your suggestion of unique plants are just dangerous. We don't have enough room for for all this stuff because I wanna try all of this that we've talked about today. So my goodness.

Chris Enroth: 48:10

Well, that was a lot of great information about unique fruiting plants that we can incorporate in our own backyard. Well, the Good Growing podcast production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson. Grant, thank you so much for hanging out with us today and finding adding to the list, essentially, of of what else can Chris put in his yard. The list is long, and the yard is shrinking, it seems.

Grant McCarty: 48:40

Yes. Thanks for having me.

Chris Enroth: 48:43

And and, Ken, thank you as always once again every single week for being here talking about your fave second favorite. Right? First favorite's gonna be insects. Second favorite, weird stuff to grow.

Ken Johnson: 48:54

Weird stuff to grow. Thank you, Grant. I'm gonna I start getting all this stuff. May direct all my wife direct my wife to you. So, it's all your idea.

Ken Johnson: 49:06

And Chris, thank you as always. And let's do this again next week.

Chris Enroth: 49:11

Oh, we shall do this again next week. We got some plants of the year coming up. So let's look at one of those. A spring bloomer known as Crocus. Maybe be popping its head up in the well, sometimes it's snow on the ground, but not right now.

Chris Enroth: 49:26

But every once in a while, it pops its head up here early spring. So we'll check it out next week. Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, that is listening, or if you watched us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.

Grant McCarty: 49:48

University of Illinois Extension