Huckleberries and Bilberries

Research at the University of Idaho

Danny L. Barney, Ph.D.

• What are huckleberries and bilberries?

• Growing huckleberries and bilberries

• Our huckleberry and bilberry research program

• Managing forest stands of huckleberries and bilberries

We began our research on western huckleberries and bilberries in earnest in 1994 at the University of Idaho Sandpoint Research & Extension Center. Our reasons are obvious. Sandpoint sits near the center of diversity for mountain huckleberry and is home to several huckleberry processors. The mountains around the Center are covered with five species of western huckleberries and the culture of the area heavily emphasizes huckleberries.

From an economic perspective, north Idaho and the surrounding region are transitioning from an economy based on logging, traditional agronomic crops, and mining to an ecotourism-based economy. The myriad huckleberry products commercially available are perfect complements to the tourism industry, providing a uniquely Northwest product and experience.

Environmentally, western huckleberries and bilberries are not threatened or endangered. Supplies from wild stands are, however, dwindling due to loss of forest habitat, forest and fire management policies, and road closures to protect endangered species, such as woodland caribou and grizzly bear. With dwindling supplies and vastly increased demand, we were seeing overharvesting in some areas and insufficient crops to meet commercial demand, recreational picking, and tribal uses.

Our research has two basic goals:

• Protect and enhance existing wild stands for tribal uses, home consumption and recreational picking, and small-scale processors.

• Produce huckleberries from managed forest stands and in cultivation, as we do for eastern lowbush and northern highbush blueberries to meet demands for large scale processors and for export.

We are presently working in four general areas: cultivar development, propagation, environmental studies, and development of production systems.

Germplasm Evaluation and Cultivar Development

As of 2007, there were no named varieties of western huckleberries, other than a few ornamental evergreen huckleberries. This lack of improved, vegetatively-propagated varieties is a significant barrier to an industry based on producing huckleberries and bilberries from managed stands or in cultivation.

Modern fruit production is nearly all based on named varieties, often called cultivars (cultivated varieties). These varieties represent high quality, known production and processing requirements, and predictability. For example, an apple grower planting Gala or Granny Smith has an abundance of information available on how to manage these varieties. Packers and processors know how to handle them and consumers know what to expect in terms of appearance, flavor, and suitable uses. This predictability comes because the varieties characteristics are fixed. A new Granny Smith tree is propagated by budding or grafting from n established tree. Theoretically, every Granny Smith in the world is genetically identical. In other words, a clone.

Note that a clone simply means a plant that has been vegetatively propagated using tissue from a stock plant. The coleus or philodendrons your grandmother rooted in a glass of water on the windowsill were clones. The red delicious apple you bought at your local nursery was a clone. The terms "clone" and "genetically modified organism" have very different meanings.

Uniformity, however, is lost when plants are propagated sexually through seed production. Every seedling in genetically unique. Some fruit crops, like peaches or black currants, breed rather true to seed. The seedlings pretty closely resemble the parents. Western huckleberries, like their blueberry cousins, show great variability in the seedlings' plant and fruit characteristics. Breeding is a numbers game. The fact is, most seedlings do not meet commercial standards for plant habit, yields, or fruit quality. As a fruit breeder, if I obtain one named variety out of one thousand seedlings, I consider myself ahead of the game. An average of one in ten thousand is often closer to the average. That means producing many crosses, and critically evaluating tens of thousands of seedlings to find the very best.

Our cultivar development program starts by obtaining seed for the species of interest. We have collected seed from throughout the northwestern United States and western Canada, and have seed from colleagues collected across North America, Asia, and Europe. We plant out the seed and evaluate the plants over about seven years. We typically see fruit in three to five years and the plants are usually large enough to select seven years from sowing. The very best plants may become early generation varieties, although most serve as parents for controlled crosses. Their progeny (called F1s) go through the same evaluation process. Needless to say, breeding huckleberries and bilberries is a long-term, very intensive process.

At the Sandpoint Research & Extension Center, we presently are developing varieties of dwarf huckleberry, Cascade huckleberry, bilberry, mountain huckleberry, oval-leaved bilberry, and alpine bilberry. We are also making some interspecific hybrids by crossing one species with another (this occurs in nature and we have collected many natural hybrids). Many modern fruit varieties represent hybrids of several species.

All of our breeding at Sandpoint is done conventionally using cross pollination. For security reasons, we do not work with genetically modified organisms at Sandpoint. While we are studying crosses between western huckleberries and domestic blueberries, plants from those crosses are intended for the blueberry industry.  Any huckleberry varieties released from our program represent either single species or hybrids of western huckleberry and bilberry species.

Although the genetics are very complicated, the breeding process is simple. We choose those plants that best meet our criteria of perfect commercial plants There are no perfect plants, of course). For example, I might have a plant that has a good shape and produces large numbers of berries having excellent flavor, but the berries are small. I would choose to cross that plant with ant other desirable plant that has particularly large fruit.

We start by collecting pollen from the flowers using an electric engraving pen that vibrates at about the same rats as bumble bee wings. We touch the pen to a flower and catch the falling pollen in a small glass bottle. Huckleberry flowers produce very little pollen and we have to collect from many hundreds of flowers to obtain enough pollen for breeding.

Flowers to be pollinated have their petals and stamens (male organs) removed with a pair of sharp forceps. We remove the petals and stamens (a process called emasculation) just before the flower opens. We then wait 24 to 48hours for the stigma (female organ) to become receptive and coat the end of the stigma with pollen from the donor plant. Abut two months later, we harvest the ripe fruits and extract the seed. Then the evaluation process starts all over again.

As of November 2007, we have nearly 100 early or advanced selections of western huckleberries and bilberries. A handful of those selections are ready for testing in other areas. We have a small network of cooperating scientists, commercial nurseries, and fruit growers that we have worked with for many years. When we feel we have a selection that meets commercial standards, we send out planting stock to our cooperators for testing in their areas, usually for at least three years.

Plants that continue to meet commercial standards may then be patented by the University of Idaho, named, and released to the public. In the Pacific Northwest, fruit releases are usually done jointly with the University of Idaho, Oregon State University, and Washington State University. Nurseries that are interested in the varieties may become licensed to propagate those varieties, and the plants become available to the public.

As you might guess, we receive many requests for planting stock. Unfortunately, we cannot provide plants outside of our network. First, we do not have the resources necessary to propagate large numbers of plants for distribution to the public. Our focus must be on cultivar development and testing. Also, for reasons involving plant patent laws, we must strictly control distribution of our selections until they are officially released.

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Propagation Methodologies

Knowing how to propagate our research plants is, of course, very important. We have developed and published seed propagation methodologies for mountain huckleberry. We will soon publish seed propagation methodologies for dwarf huckleberry, Cascade huckleberry, oval-leaved bilberry, and red huckleberry. In general, these species do not require stratification or scarification of the seed before sowing.

Vegetative propagation methodologies are required for the development of clonal varieties. Unfortunately, mountain huckleberries have proven very difficult to propagate by rooting stem cuttings. Rhizome cuttings root well, but are slow and collecting the rhizomes can damage or kill the stock plant. Some other western huckleberries are also difficult to propagate using traditional techniques.

Our primary vegetative propagation methodology is tissue culture, also called micropropagation or in vitro culture. Here we take a single bud from a stock plant, sterilize the tissues, and place it into a medium that provides nutrients, moisture, and plant growth regulators (similar to animal hormones) inside a sterile glass or plastic container. Depending on how we treat the tissue, we can form many new shoots, with or without roots. These microshoots are then transplanted to potting soil in a high humidity chamber where the shoots form roots. Several months later, the plants are ready to transplant to a larger container.

Details on our micropropagation techniques have recently been published. The citation is:  Barney, D.L., O.A. Lopez, and E. King. 2007. Micropropagation of cascade huckleberry, mountain huckleberry, and oval-leaf bilberry using woody plant medium and Murashige and  Skoog medium formulations. HortTechnology 17 (3):279-284.

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Determining Environmental Requirements

In order to manage or cultivate these plants, we must know what they require in terms of the environment. Ongoing studies at the SREC involve how huckleberries and bilberries respond to shading, various soils, and bark rooting and growing media.

Development of Model Production Systems

We are presently testing huckleberry and bilberry production systems using raised soil beds, bark beds, field cultivation, and undercropping under a simulated forest canopy. For more information on our production methods, visit our Growing Huckleberries page.

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