JUNEBERRIES

I planted a number of varieties of Juneberries last year to see if they could take the Texas heat and if they could get enough chill to fruit. This variety is called Regent and it did great! There were a few others but this one is the best so far.

Congrats! Watch out that the birds don't get them!

I dont think that any of the berries have been eaten by birds. I had at least 4-5 plants that fruited. I dont think we have a comparable plant here in Central Texas. Blueberries have to be grown in containers only. I cant wait until this tree gets about 12 feet tall. I bet the birds come around after that.



This message was edited May 10, 2010 9:37 PM

The pic looks like my rabbiteye blueberries. Where did you get your Juneberry plants? I am assuming they would like my very acid soil - what do you think?

Paul

You can get them from BurntRidgeNursery.com or many other online stores. They do not need acid soil like Blueberries but can grow in it. They go by Serviceberry on most sites.

Fantastic!

I'm trying 3 types in Jackson Mississippi, to see if they take the heat with humidity....

Susan Mc

There is a variety called Jennybelle that is supposed to love the heat. I only found one source for it and it was 55.00 bucks. If you find a good source, let me know.

Ebay has some really really good deals on Serviceberry/Juneberry right now. I just ordered two Lamarkii for less that ten bucks.

What do they taste like?

Sweet but not similar to another fruit I can think of right now.
I guess if you took a Blueberry and removed the tartness and added a little funky goodness to the taste, you would have a Juneberry.

Many describe it as a very sweet, almond-like taste. Texture is creamy if you ignore the hard seeds. Mine are ripening right now.

This message was edited Jun 4, 2010 1:44 PM

I think the almond taste comes from the seeds if you chew them up. I tested this and agree.

What varieties do you have Krowten?

1 Princess Dianna, 2 Thiessen, 1 purchased from local greenhouse with no id and one purchased from Indiana Berry ID's as Saskatoon.

I don't chew the seeds they are too hard for me.

I have one small juneberry limping along -- I've had it for a couple of years, and it's never bloomed. It has terrible problems with crispy brown spots on the leaves (is this what's called scab? rust? something else?). Last summer it was already losing most of its leaves due to the spots, when some bizarre caterpillars that I've never seen on anything else in my garden came along and defoliated it the rest of the way. I'm pretty sure it's a Northline... or maybe Smoky. Either way, I haven't been too impressed with it so far, but it's good to see someone else is having better luck!

Loligo, Have your tried treating with a fungicide? My first one took about 10 years to start blooming. They like porous, acid soil with lots of organics. Try mulching with pine park each year and watch the water. They don't handle getting too dry or too wet.

I'm trying to spray with neem every couple weeks this summer... so far it hasn't made a difference, but I've only sprayed once. I can keep it from getting too dry -- but as for too wet, well, that's up to the weather. We have very heavy clay soil. I amended the planting hole and made a mound, so that the crown is a bit above ground level (well-mulched, of course).

I think it's ironic that juneberries are sometimes marketed as this "no-fuss" alternative to blueberries, when the $10 blueberries I grabbed from Lowe's on a whim last fall are already bearing, and looking great. I planted them the same way (small area of amended soil, slightly raised), with a few spoonfuls of some soil acidifier tossed in. Come to think of it, now that I have the acidifier, I could go sprinkle some around the juneberry....

I get irritated every time I see the juneberry/blueberry comparison. They are similar only in appearance. Taste, texture are completely different. FYI, my Juneberries are in pots so that I can move them into a screened enclosure when they fruit.

This year, my fruit are sour so far. I harvested some a couple of days ago, they looked ripe, but apparently not. I'm going to give them more time.

We have clay soil here and the blueberries do not do well in it for any length of time. Most of mine are in pots with a few in ground heavily amended with peat and a layer of peat/sand/pine bark every year. I also use a small amount of sulfur from time to time.

I do not think neem will help your problem with the rust. Try Bordeau mixture, lime sulfur or liquid copper. Juneberry rust can be cohosted by Juniper bushes. Any in your area? Juneberries get the same diseases as apples and roses, so you might ask around to see if neighbors have problems with those and what they are using to treat.

krowten,
thanks for the specifics on fungicide; Home Depot has the copper reasonably priced so I will get that - I have some apple tree spots starting and the service berry always has awful spikey looking fungus on its berries as well as some leaf spotting. There are plenty of "cedar" we call them, but they are juniper I think.

I am amazed to learn so much about serviceberry/Juneberry. I learned of downy serviceberry, Amelanchier arborea, from my Dirr book where he raved about it. Never found one so I got another serviceberry, A. laevis, which did well except for the fungus on the fruit. I moved 150 miles away and got another var. of serviceberry, A. canadensis, and it also has no fruit ever maturing due to the fungus. I had only expected to feed the birds with it so no loss for me just the birds. The flowers are pretty though.

Only in this thread have I learned that there are many cultivars for sale that produce larger fruit suitable for human consumption. I will start looking at the mail order cat. and see about getting one.

Paul

Thanks, Paul.

When you said "spikey" and "cedar" you triggered "apple cedar rust" images for me. I have not seen it here but know it is a big problem in some areas. There is a specific fungicide recommended for that, so you might want to look into that.

Raintree Nursery, out of Oregon, sells Thiesen but I think we are past their shipping season this year.

That's one of the nice things about Dave's is that we all get to learn from each other.