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Now, one University of New Hampshire plant breeder is hoping the kiwiberry, a small green ball with a tropical flavor, will have the same success.
“Most folks think blueberries have been around forever,” said Iago Hale, an assistant professor of specialty crop improvement at UNH. “Kiwiberries could follow a similar narrative.”
With support from the USDA, Hale’s research group began cultivating a crop of kiwiberries in 2013 at the Woodman Horticultural Research Farm in Durham, N.H. with the goal of developing an optimal variety of kiwiberry and identifying best practices for growing it.
At the same time, the group is also working to assess the possible market for the berries and find New Hampshire growers willing to take a chance on the fruit.
Though relatively unknown, kiwiberries or Actinidia arguta arrived in New England from eastern Asia in the 1870s. They continue to be cultivated by home growers for medicinal and novelty purposes and can be found in the wild where they were once cultivated.
Hale, who first came upon the kiwiberry as a graduate student at the University of California-Davis, says the berry’s real asset is its flavor.
“I threw one in my mouth and it just kind of blew my mind,” Hale said. “It’s a pretty amazing little fruit.”
The small green berry — about the size of a grape — is sweet, acidic and complex in flavor, Hale said. They lack the fuzzy exterior of the more familiar tropical kiwi fruit, so they are easier to eat. When truly ripe, they nearly melt in the mouth, he said.
In an effort to gauge public sentiment about the fruit, Hale and some fellow researchers are taking kiwiberries to 20 farmers markets around New Hampshire, including Hanover’s today from 3 to 6 p.m. on the green, and Lebanon’s on Thursday from 4 to 7 p.m. in Colburn Park.
“We would like to do more, but we just don’t have the fruit,” he said.
Since the UNH crop isn’t ready yet and most of the university’s harvest will be used for research purposes, Hale purchased the berries used for the farmers’ market tastings from Kiwi Korners Farm in Danville, Pa. — the only commercial organic kiwiberry grower in the country.
The farm, which sells most of the fruit from its 20 acres online, is often sold out in the spring, well before the fall harvest season, Hale said. The scarcity of the fruit, which Hale estimated is grown on only 400 acres worldwide, makes it difficult to find.
On his way to the Lisbon (N.H.) Main Street Inc. Farmers’ Market last Thursday, Hale had just 100 berries for the approximately 80 people expected to attend the market.
“Each person gets one berry,” Hale said.
Hale said he is hopeful the berries may offer growers, particularly those in New Hampshire’s economically strapped North Country, a new opportunity.
“It’s a pretty exciting thing,” he said.
The berries, which grow on trellised vines, are suitable to the region’s climate, Hale said. Once dormant, they are hardy up to 30 degrees below zero. They can be found in the cool climates of central China, Siberia, South Korea and Japan.
They are perennials, which first begin fruiting a few years after planting. Once they are established they stay in place for several decades.
The fruit is also nutritious — packed with about twice as much vitamin C per ounce as an orange and hefty doses of potassium, antioxidants and fiber, Hale said.
“The fact that it’s good for you is just kind of icing on the cake,” he said.
Hale’s group isn’t the first to explore kiwiberries in New Hampshire. Elywn Meader, a former UNH plant breeder who died in 1996, also studied the fruit. Meader did not explore the full extent of the fruit’s possibilities, Hale said.
“There’s a lot of room to work,” he said.
Given the recent changes in food culture, moving from a focus on bigger and longer lasting fruits to a growing emphasis on local foods, the time seems right to explore the kiwiberry’s potential, Hale said.
There is further evidence of pent up demand: Hale pointed to Hermit Woods Winery in Meredith, N.H. which produces several wines from kiwiberries and would like to ramp up production. Other value-added possibilities include jams and marinades.
A kiwiberry field day is planned for Oct. 8 at the UNH research plot. More information, when available, will be posted to www.unh.edu/halelab/kiwiberry/.
South Royalton’s Worthy Burger played host to former New England Patriots defensive end Jarvis Green earlier this month.
Green, 37, played for the Patriots from 2002 to 2009, including two Super Bowl wins. He visited the restaurant as part of a tour to eateries serving shrimp sold by his Louisiana-based company, Oceans 97. The company sells wild-harvested Gulf shrimp.
“When we run shrimp now, these are the shrimp we’re going to run,” said Jason Merrill, Worthy Burger’s co-owner.
During his Worthy Burger visit, Green ate some of his own shrimp, a burger and fries, and sipped some lemonade, Merrill said.
Merrill, who is not a football fan, said Green struck him as “very friendly,” “really tall” and “very big.”
The NFL website puts the former player at 6 feet, 3 inches and 285 pounds.
Community members are banding together to bring their surplus vegetables to Newbury Elementary School where Chef Paul Pellegrino prepares them for students’ meals.
So far the program, which grew out of ReNewbury, an effort to develop goals for the town’s future, has brought in enough produce to make tomato sauce and pesto and to include fresh vegetables such as carrots and cucumbers in the school’s salad bar. The effort has also yielded quite a collection of one of the most prolific vegetables.
“NO MORE ZUCCHINI!!” Caroline Nininger wrote in a post on Newbury’s listserv last week.
Nininger, who is a volunteer with the group, calling itself “Grow a Row,” said, initially, she wasn’t sure what vegetables the group would collect due to the dry summer and the usual pest problems, but she’s been pleasantly surprised.
“We want the school and the community to have more connections,” Nininger said. “I feel like this is a good one.”
Those with extra vegetables to share can drop them off at the school cafeteria, Monday through Friday, 8 to 10 a.m.
Next steps for the group include making use of the school’s new greenhouse to grow greens throughout the winter, Nininger said.
Sanctuary Dairy Farm, a 40-cow herd managed by veterinarian Jolyon Johnson and his family — including his wife Susan, sons Jared and Beck and nephew Ethan — has been awarded the Green Pasture Award for Dairy Farm of the Year in New Hampshire.
The annual award recognizes dairy farms for herd management, crop production, milk yields and environmental practices.
Nominations can come from other farmers and members of the state’s agricultural community, said Seth Wilner, of the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension. Nominated farms are evaluated by winners of the three previous years, said Wilner, who works out of the extension’s Sullivan County office in Newport.
Sanctuary Dairy, which has been in Johnson’s family since the 1700s, stood out for its high yields, its pasture management system — the cows only eat grass and hay, not grain — and the family’s neighborliness.
“It’s great when good people are good farmers,” Wilner said.
The farm sits on 800 acres, including 100 acres of pastureland, 100 acres of grassland and 600 acres of forest, Johnson said. His grandfather began the dairy in 1907. Now, the farm ships milk to AgriMark. Beck and Susan Johnson also operate an ice cream business on the farm, which does not use milk produced on the farm because they don’t have pasteurization equipment.
Wilner said the Johnsons’ accomplishments are particularly notable considering the declining state of New Hampshire’s dairy industry. Sancutary Dairy is one of just 14 dairy farms in Sullivan County and one of 100 in the state.
“If you are a dairy farmer in New Hampshire today, you are a darn good farmer and a darn good business person,” Wilner said.
Johnson, who in addition to farming, practices at the Wendell Veterinary Clinic in Sunapee, shared a similar sentiment.
“We’re survivors,” he said.
Vendors may now offer tastings of beer and wine at New Hampshire farmers’ markets, under a new state law that went into effect last month. Such sampling is still subject to municipal ordinances and prohibited in some communities.
So far, neither the Hanover Area Farmers Market nor the Lebanon Farmers Market have had any interest, according to managers Sally Wilson and Lindsay Smith.
“I do not have any current vendors that this would affect, but I could see it opening up the possibilities or imaginations of new brewers,” Smith said in an email. “I don’t know of any in the area at the moment.”
Vermont also allows vendors to provide samples of alcohol at farmers markets. Anne Linehan, of Tunbridge-based Brocklebank Craft Brewing, said allowing customers at the Chelsea and Norwich farmers’ markets to taste the beer is important to the brewery’s sales.
“Lots of people haven’t tried craft beers and worry that they will be too strong or too dark,” Linehan wrote in an email. “When they actually taste our beer, they find that’s not the case, and more often than not, they decide to buy it. People seem to enjoy tasting and comparing the different styles and talking about them, which makes the beer-buying experience more fun and engaging.”
Phnom Penh Sandwich Station, which began serving on the Dartmouth green and at Lebanon’s Colburn Park last year, opened a permanent location on High Street in Lebanon this summer.
Last year, the Cambodian food truck closed from the end of November to the end of April. The new location will extend the truck’s season.
“We can open in the winter,” said owner Lay Yi.
The truck is operated by Yi, her husband Sarin Tin and Sarin’s father, Sreang Tin. All are from Cambodia.
More information about the truck, its hours and menu can be found on its Facebook page.
Science and history writer Rebecca Rupp speaks Thursday at Latham Library on Thetford Hill about common garden vegetables in a Vermont Humanities Council event: Wolf Peaches, Poisoned Peas, and Madame Pompadour’s Underwear: The Surprising History of Common Garden Vegetables. Stories will include those of the tomato, the potato, kale and Gilfeather turnip. The free event begins at 7 p.m. For more information contact Peter Blodgett at 802-785-4361.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
