It has become a deep passion to explore and develop a greater understanding of the Sambucus genus (elderberry), with long-term goals centered on providing new cultivars through selective pollination/seedling trials, as well as collecting and studying unique and exceptional specimens found in the wild.

Ethos:

This program is primarily focused on the needs of small farmers, gardeners, and homesteaders. Currently, only two breeding/selection programs exist, both with a commercial focus aimed at producing elderberries with consistent growth habits and narrow ripening windows to enable industrial machine harvesting.

The goal of this project is to increase genetic diversity with maximum flexibility, offering wider ripening times and indeterminacy for ongoing harvests of flowers and fruit from the same plants. A key objective is to gain a more precise understanding of cross-pollination needs in order to build the strongest recommendations for establishing the most productive orchards in the shortest possible time.

Specific Goals:

Short Term:

• Gather as much diversity of known cultivars as possible.
• Track the successes and failures of known cultivars in local conditions.
• Collect wild specimens from the region.
• Open and grow a nursery that increases the diversity of elderberries as the orchards expand.
  
  Long Term:
  
• Develop new cultivars or variations (sports) of elderberries.
• Produce educational materials for growing and harvesting.
• Provide a long-lasting buffer against the rise of large-scale monocrop orchards in the next 10-20 years.