Elderberries Show Potential

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

On Friday we reported on the benefits of hedgerows and how elderberries could be a plant that could pay for itself relatively quickly. UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program Deputy Director, Sonja Brodt sees a lot of potential in elderberries based on their growing popularity in the midwest.

Brodt… “It is right now very labor-intensive. Harvesting has to be done by hand. There's no mechanical harvester for elderberries. They also need to be destemmed before they can really be sold in any form. And our farmers - they were very small scale farmers - they were doing this work by hand. And it was still paying off for them because they create value added products. But in the Midwest they have an elderberry industry that's really growing a lot in recent years. And they have a mechanical destemmer that we would like to look into maybe adapting for California elderberry. So that's something for the future. So there are some kinks that need to be worked out, and I don't want to mislead anybody on that. But I think there's a lot of potential. And actually the Midwest industry is a good example. They are really taking off and getting a lot of interest and a lot of sales there.”

If you’d like to learn more about elderberries, as a hedgerows or a commercial crop, you can learn more on the UCANR website.