Selecting Pome Fruit Crops and Varieties - Growing Organic Orchard Fruits - page 196

grow saskatoons on raised beds 10 to 12 inches high and 3 feet wide. Choose
a full-sun location.
Planting. Saskatoon bushes resemble blueberries in appearance and how
they are managed. The canes are generally upright and form vase-shaped
bushes. In cultivation, most varieties are kept about 6 to 10 feet tall with
rows that are 10 to 12 feet apart. If you plan to harvest mechanically, you
may want to space the rows a bit wider, depending on the harvester you are
using.
Saskatoons are sometimes spaced as closely as 1 foot apart, so that orch-
ards can be established quickly and fruits can be harvested rapidly using
over-the-row blueberry harvesters. At this density, crowding soon develops
and pest and disease problems increase. For an organic orchard, particularly
one that will be handpicked, space the plants 4 to 5 feet apart in rows.
Pestsanddiseases. Despite their hardiness and adaptability to a wide range
of climates, saskatoons are susceptible to a number of diseases and pests.
Compounding the problem is that wild saskatoons, which are abundant
across much of North America, serve as reservoirs of these diseases and
pests, which affect not only cultivated saskatoons but other cultivated fruit
crops as well. Eliminate wild saskatoons from in and around your orchard. As
with other pome fruits, removing junipers and eastern red cedar from your
property can help reduce rust disease problems.
Saskatoon diseases include saskatoon-juniper rust, Entomosporium leaf
and berry spot, and powdery mildew. Fire blight, brown rot, and Cytospora
canker can become serious in some locations and during some years. Typical
orchard pests are wooly elm aphid, saskatoon bud moth, apple curculio, saw-
fly, mites, leaf rollers, pear slug, and shoot borer.
Varieties. Although saskatoons have been harvested from the wild for cen-
turies and probably millennia, they have only been cultivated as an orchard