Breeding Program
Breeding and selecting varieties is an undertaking that requires decades of focused commitment and evaluation
How we do it
We take two cranberry varieties that we want to cross pollinate.
Collect Pollen
During bloom we take a tuning fork to collect pollen from a variety to be stored in a jar.
Cross Pollination
We take the pollen and put it on the blossom of a different variety to produce a brand new variety.
Protect from Bee Pollination
The cross-pollinated blossoms are protected by a small screen so bees cannot add a new type of pollen.
Berries develop and mature
Once the berry forms from the blossom and grows throughout the summer, the berries are placed into a cooler and remain there until next spring
Plant seeds
In the spring, the seeds are removed from the berries, planted in soil, and placed in our greenhouse under grow lights.
Producing Seedling vines
Each berry has 15-30 seeds and these are planted in individual trays. Each of those seeds will hopefully produce a seedling vine.
Testing for purity
Prior to planting the new seedling outdoors, a cutting is taken from each new plant and is sent to the University of Wisconsin Madison to be DNA fingerprinted for purity.
More specifically, pure means that the two varieties cross pollinated are the true “parents” of the newly grown seedling. Sometimes they are not pure because it may have self-pollinated or other pollen may have accidentially mixed in. Only the pure seedlings are used.
TESTING...
PURE ✓
TESTING...
PURE ✓
Evaluating small plots
Each pure seedling is planted into its own 4' by 4' plot in the spring. This process creates about 200 seedling plants.
These pure 4’ by 4’ plots are grown and evaluated for about 6 years to test many characteristics such as: yield, size, color, time of harvest, rot, and more.
Evaluating Larger Plots
Once evaluated for a period of at least 6 years, the 4’by 4’ plots that look promising are scaled to larger 10’ by 20’ plot.
About 5% of the smaller plots are chosen to expand in to larger scale plots. These 10’ by 20’ plots take another 5-6 years to grow and evaluate. From there, promising seedling plots are expanded into full beds.
