July 23, 2015

Dieppe Discovery

Copyright Bob Osborne

There should be an ode written for the serviceberry.  This group of native plants has everything-beauty, colour, form, hardiness and taste.  The other day I ran across the most exciting serviceberries I have ever seen.  It was a group of several multi-stemmed small trees growing not far from the Petitcodiac River in Dieppe.  Covering the trees were the largest, sweetest, most luscious fruits this plant fanatic has discovered.  Not only were they large, they were prolific.

To a nurseryman such a find makes the heart skip a beat.  Here was a population of similar plants that surpassed all expectations for serviceberry, but once found you must act quickly.  Too many times I have thought tomorrow, I will pick them tomorrow.  By the time you return they are digesting in the stomachs of birds who have stripped them.  In this case the birds might have been leaving them because the fruits were so large. They always prefer the smaller fruits, easier to swallow.

I would guess that most people have never tasted a serviceberry.  This is in part due to the fact that it is usually found in the wild and there is a natural reluctance to try a berry you do not know.  At its best the serviceberry is a more enjoyable treat than any other wild fruit.  Forget the much touted haskap.  Though they are extremely hardy and have their place, give me a ripe serviceberry any time.

Out west the Saskatoon berry, a close relative of our natives, is the fruit of choice for pies, jams and jellies.  There has been a lot of work with this species, Amelanchier alnifolia, and many wonderful cultivars have been developed.   Names like Thiessen, Martin and Northline can be found in the many Saskatoon orchards in places like Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. As a rule the Saskatoon is larger than our native serviceberries, so it was a revelation to find fruits even larger than the Saskatoon in our local population.

A quick check of all the serviceberries in this newfound group led to one plant in particular that had the largest berries and appeared the most productive.  Though I wanted to stand and eat every one of the ripe berries, I began filling an old cup with them instead.

We will crush the berries, stir them into a tub of water and pour off the pulp that floats to the surface.  The good seed, because it is denser and heavier, will sink to the bottom.  As a gold prospector pans for gold, we will keep swirling the water and removing the light material until all that remains is a small handful of seeds at the bottom.

Once we have the seeds separated from the rest of the fruit we will plant them in flats.  These will be kept moist over the summer and fall and then kept in a cold storage unit till Spring.  This moist, cold period, called stratification, is essential for many temperate climate plants for germination.  We are mimicking the winter sleep they would experience in the wild.  If we are lucky, most of the seeds will grow into small seedlings that must be kept over for another year.  The next spring they will either be potted or grown in the field until they reach salable size.

In the case of these seedlings, we will grow them on to see how true they are to the mother plant.  The very best will be chosen and planted in a stock block, allowing us to collect superior fruit for seed in the future.

As well, we have taken cuttings from the most promising of the original trees.  Terminal shoots are cut from the tree and cut into sections of approximately four leaves.  The base is stripped of leaves and dipped in a rooting hormone.  These will be stuck in a sand/peat mix in the greenhouse where a fog system will keep the cuttings moist so that they do not wilt and die.  The hope is that we will be able to create clones of the original tree.

We don’t expect much to come of this method as the serviceberry is a reluctant rooter.  We have not had much success with these species, but one never knows until you try.  If we are lucky, a few will root and we will have an exact replica of the tree that excited us so much.

These are the moments plant hunters live for.  It may seem inconsequential to most, but the discovery of a new and useful plant can often lead to unimagined consequences in the future.  Think of the McIntosh apple or the Bartlett pear.  Such discoveries have changed the world of food.  Perhaps one day there will orchards of the Dieppe serviceberry.