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N.D. (NewsDakota.com) The Northern Hardy Fruit Evaluation Project will be the focus of one of five tours offered during the North Dakota State University Carrington Research Extension Center’s annual field day set for July 15.
All field day events begin at 9 a.m. with a welcome from center director Blaine Schatz and the introduction of guests and speakers. No preregistration is needed.
The Northern Hardy Fruit Evaluation Project field tour starts at 9:30 a.m. Kathy Wiederholt, Carrington Research Extension Center fruit project manager, will lead the tour of the center’s fruit orchard.
The featured speaker for this tour is Bob Bors, project leader of the domestic fruit program and an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan-Saskatoon. Bors will discuss the new haskap and hardy cherry varieties developed and released under his tenure.
Bors heads one of the most active university fruit programs in North America. His current research and breeding priorities involve maintaining a prairie gene bank and breeding haskaps, grapes and apples. Other fruit crops bred on a smaller scale include cherries, Saskatoons, strawberries, plums, pears and hazelnuts. His research emphasis includes mechanically harvested fruit crops, value-added processing and disease resistance.
The Northern Hardy Fruit Evaluation Project was established in 2006 to introduce and demonstrate alternative, economically viable fruits that will grow in North Dakota. The project features grape, black currant and Juneberry variety trials, as well as demonstration lantings of University of Saskatchewan cherries and haskaps; apples; aronia; red, white and black currants; elderberries; gooseberries; honeyberries; and plums.
The Carrington Research Extension Center’s livestock, crop and organic production tours also will begin at 9:30 a.m. A new tour on unmanned aerial system technology will be held after lunch.
For more information on any of the tours that are part of this year’s field day, contact the center at (701) 652-2951 or visit its website at www.ag.ndsu.edu/CarringtonREC.