One of the most active and exciting university fruit programs in Canada today. The U of S fruit researchers have been carefully breeding and selecting cold hardy plants for superior fruit quality and yield for over 90 years. China, Mongolia, Russia, Hungary, India and Japan have all contributed to one of the most extensive and diverse collection of cold hardy fruiting plants in North America.

Announcements

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2012 U of S Fruit Program Plant Sale

The 2012 Fruit Program Plant Sale will be happening Friday June 8th at the Horticulture Field lab off of 14th st. We will be selling plants from 9am until 3pm. This sale is meant for home gardeners. Maximum 15 plants per customer, and no customer may buy more than 3 of any cultivar. Anyone wishing to purchase more than 15 plants is welcome to enquire about leftover plants after the sale. Sorry, no shipping. This is a pick-up only sale.

More Information, including a list of plants for sale click HERE

Map and directions click HERE

NAFEX (North American Fruit Explorers) annual conference

University of Saskatchewan

July 18-21, 2012.

Fruit Enthusiasts will be able to participate in up to four days of fruit workshops and tours. Currently we are in the planning stages of this event that will be co-sponsored by the Canadian Society of Horticulture Science, U of Saskatchewan Fruit Program, NAFEX and the Saskatchewan Fruit Growers Association

A webpage has been created for the 2012 NAFEX meeting. You can find it at:

https://sites.google.com/site/nafexsaskatoon2012/home

This page is will be updated as speakers, venues and schedules are finalized, so keep checking back for more details!

July 18: Various tours and workshops

Banquet in the evening

July 19: Lectures and meetings

July 20: Haskap Day

July 21: Saskatchewan Fruit Grower's Summer tour

More details to come!!

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Way to go Rick!

Congratulations to Rick Sawatzky who just celebrated his 40th year with the horticulture department. Thanks to Rick's dedication and experience, we have been able to maintain and expand our collection of plants as well as provide new crops for prairie horticulturalists.
Thanks Rick!

Indigo Haskap

New names for older cultivars. By popular demand, the rest of the '9 series' Haskap has been named. Read more about it here.

U of S Coleus

Ornamental breeding is a small but lovingly attended to part of our program, a part of the program that has rarely had the opportunity to pay for itself. With a recent pickup by US propagator Hort Couture that may all change. A nation-wide distribution of our coleus may put a dent in the rather monstrous greenhouse bills these plants have accrued over the years! After participation in the pack trials, it seems that the press may be picking the story up as well. Watch a video taken at the recent pack trials here (go to about 1:10). Like them on facebook here.

ADF Funding

Our grant application for "Breeding of grapes and apples with emphasis on juice products and rootstocks" has been accepted! We're very excited about getting started with this one. Tyler Kaban will be able to ramp up his grape breeding program, and the apple breeding will be accelerated with renewed focus. We will be generating several thousand seedlings over the next three years. Special attention, including fireblight screening, will also be given to our potentially superior dwarfing apple rootstocks.

New Articles

• Prairie Fruit Summary 2010 by Bob Bors
• Popular Fruit Varieties 2010 by Bob Bors, Rick Sawatzky and Clarence Peters
• Tree Fruit Production Presentation-LANTA 2010 by Bob Bors(~5MB. To download right-click, "save link as")
• Edible Apples in Prairie Canada[~3mb] (Special thanks to The Friends of the Garden, University of Alberta Devonian Botanic Garden, for allowing us to post this.)

See our Articles page for more.