MOSCOW, Idaho — Huckleberry seedlings always sell out whenever the University of Idaho’s Pitkin Forest Nursery has them for sale.

“Demand for huckleberry seedlings is skyrocketing,” nursery director Andrew Nelson said. “It’s a charismatic species. It fills a lot of interests.”

For many in the Pacific Northwest, he said, “Huckleberry is synonymous with this region.”

In a good year, UI’s forest nursery may sell 10,000 seedlings, depending on how well the plants germinate. Only a few nurseries in the region produce huckleberries. Customers include conservation districts for post-fire restoration, Native American tribes and members of the public, he said.

The huckleberry is an enigma among berries. Though it is popular, it has never been domesticated. Research on cultivating huckleberries has lagged since 2010, when the University of Idaho ended a program that was aimed at breeding them for commercialization.

But now several projects are underway to restore huckleberries in their natural habitat and potentially make them more widely available.

Wild berry

Huckleberries are a wild blueberry primarily found at higher elevations of the Pacific Northwest. They ripen from July through September. They’re the only berries “truly picked from the wild,” said Bernadine Strik, professor emeritus in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University.

The taste is similar to blueberries but “more complex,” Strik said. Native Americans and others cherish them for the unique flavor and as a symbol of the region that hasn’t been domesticated.

“It was one of our main foods that we gathered during the summer time up in the mountains,” said Peter Mahoney, cultural resources protection program manager for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. Tribal members still take youths to gather the berries in the summer, he said.

They’re a food source for birds and bears, and patches provide cover for small mammals. Huckleberry bushes used to thrive on hundreds of thousands of acres in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, but their range is a fraction of that, said Mark Swanson, Washington State University forest management associate professor.

That’s reflected in the price. Huckleberries range from $20 to $40 per pound online.

About 14 species of the berry are native to the region, but the black huckleberry “by far has the greatest name-brand recognition,” Swanson said.Shifting weatherWhere and when huckleberry hunters find them in the wild may also change as shifting weather patterns bring more heat and drought, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

A 2020 study, published in the scientific journal Elsevier, predicts the habitat may move to higher altitudes and latitudes by the end of the 21st century. Flowering and fruiting may also shift by more than a month.

“We’re trying to understand how we can help huckleberry persist on sites that are getting warmer and drier,” Swanson said.

Pollinator research

“I was shocked to find out that we do not know what insects pollinate huckleberry,” said Steve Cook, a UI entomology professor. Anecdotal reports name bumblebees and mason bees, but no one’s ever found them on the flowers, he said.

Cook wants to capture insects as they’re pollinating huckleberries to get an accurate record of the association between the insects and the flowers. Positive identification would allow Cook to figure out where pollinators are nesting in proximity to the huckleberries.

He’s also using soil amendments to enhance plant growth after transplanting seedlings in the field.

Huckleberries prefer an acidic soil, which is why it grows so well among conifers, Cook said. “I think there’s some sort of microbial connection that we miss when we try to grow them outside of a forest,” he said.

Black vine weevil

Huckleberries are often planted for restoration after a wildfire, Nelson said. His research involves raising healthy plants for those purposes. Nelson and Cook, with UI Extension forestry specialist Randall Brooks, want to improve the quality of huckleberry seedlings they produce.

They’re also targeting a common pest, the black vine weevil. Its larva eats the huckleberry plant’s roots. Other shrubs and hard woods grown in nurseries are also vulnerable, Nelson said, so the research extends beyond huckleberries.

Huckleberry seedlings were planted at UI’s organic agriculture center in Sandpoint last spring to evaluate their growth after a simulated insect attack. Cook is also evaluating biological controls for weevil larvae. That project is funded through the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and slated to wrap up next year.

Secret spots

The shortage of huckleberries is becoming more evident to Native Americans. Mahoney, with the Coeur d’Alene tribe, blames the declining harvest on changing weather patterns and winter freezes that destroy plants.

“There also seems to be some damage to plants by people that harvest commercially” using rakes, handheld devices with metal or plastic “fingers,” he said. Commercial picking in the Idaho Panhandle’s national forests is not permitted.

Huckleberries may be harvested for personal use unless specifically prohibited, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

“I don’t think much of our membership would appreciate huckleberries being sold commercially,” Mahoney said. “In the past, we’ve looked at other culturally important plants and cultural resources in a way where we wouldn’t want to exploit them for financial gain.”

Competition for huckleberry picking spots has intensified, said Olney, with the Yakama Nation. “People like to go to their favorite spot, also known as their secret spot,” he said. “I’ve seen people who share ‘secret spots’ and don’t know it.”

Non-natives will enter forests “on busloads” to pick as many as they can, he said. The best-case scenario is that people learn to take care of their favorite spots, Olney said. He recommends looking to proper blueberry farming techniques.

With some “culturally historical land management practices,” huckleberry populations could return, Mahoney said. The tribe supports research to increase huckleberry availability, he said.

Huckleberry products

Due to small crops in recent dry years, many value-added producers quit selling products made with them, said Mal Dell, head of the International Wild Huckleberry Association.

“The thing about huckleberries, because they do grow in the wild, we can’t control what Mother Nature is going to decide to do, as far as giving us moisture or it being extremely hot in June,” said Rhonda Hause, spokeswoman for Larchwood Farms in Post Falls, Idaho. “This year, we’re definitely hoping and praying it’s a plentiful year.”

The business sells huckleberry jam, syrup, barbecue sauce and chocolate year-round at a Post Falls store, online and through regional rural gift shops and grocery stores.

Sustainability is the biggest need, Hause said.

“We don’t want the huckleberries to disappear,” she said. “You don’t want it to become something that people can’t enjoy when they want.”

Commercialization

In 2010, UI Extension shuttered longtime huckleberry researcher Dan Barney’s program, citing budget cuts. He had been breeding huckleberries for commercial production. Since Barney’s departure, most UI research on the berries has stalled, Dell said.

“They basically canceled the program,” Dell said of UI. “They just wanted to do beef, potatoes and pigs — the same thing 40 other states are (working on). It was pretty sad. Huckleberries were small potatoes.”

The huckleberry association is now practically inactive, he said, although he still provides some networking. Barney ultimately retired to Alaska, and Dell has not been able to contact him recently.

According to emails Barney sent Dell in 2016, all the seeds from his collections went to the USDA Agricultural Research Service plant gene bank in Ames, Iowa. “No better or safer place in the world,” Barney wrote.

Reviving research for huckleberry commercial production isn’t a priority at the moment, said Carly Schoepflin, director of communications and strategic initiatives at UI’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. “But often what that takes is an interested and dedicated researcher to change that — much like Dan Barney,” Schoepflin said.

Huckleberry hybrids

At Washington State University, plant genomics and biotechnology professor Amit Dhingra has been working on several huckleberry projects since 2016. His team developed a method to micropropagate huckleberry, which has produced fruit in the greenhouse.

Now he’s developing hybrids, crossing a huckleberry plant and a cultivated blueberry plant. The work continues “slowly but surely,” Dhingra said. He’s using genotyping to study the new huckleberry seedlings.

The biggest need is a concentrated effort from the blueberry industry to incorporate huckleberry as a priority, allocating resources and funding, Dhingra said.

“Wild huckleberry lacks all commercially important traits present in blueberry,” he said. “If a commercial huckleberry operation is to become a reality, comparison with blueberry has to stop and create a separate niche for it.”

Outlook unclear

It remains to be seen whether a commercial huckleberry enterprise could be successful, said Swanson, the forestry researcher.

It takes 10 years for shrubs to produce fruit, he said.

“It really takes a forest landowner with a long-term investment and interest in the topic to even go there,” he said.

He recommends forest owners plant their seedlings in the shade on the north slope of a hill using woody debris. About 2,500 to 3,000 feet of elevation is about as low as black huckleberries can go, he said.

Replenishing wild populations may be more likely than developing commercial production, said Strik, the OSU berry researcher.

Domestication has been tried, but there are several hurdles. The Northwest’s species have particular habitats, affected by elevation, sun exposure and the soil’s acidity and the thickness of its organic layers.

“Trying to grow them in a different ecological zone just hasn’t worked well,” she said. Huckleberry varieties have a low yield, insignificant for a grower accustomed to raising blueberries commercially, she said.

Dell would like to see Barney’s work continue. “People say, ‘If you do commercial, then the mystique of the wild huckleberry will disappear,’” he said. “Well, it hasn’t with blueberries. There’s two markets there, and there would still be a market for wild huckleberries.”

A commercial crop would protect the wild crop, he said. He’s tried to organize huckleberry processors and restaurants, to no avail. He is worried that “exploding demand” for wild huckleberries will coincide with declining acreage.

The idea of losing any iconic forest species greatly bothers Cook, UI’s forest entomologist.

He has a ready list of huckleberry research questions remaining to be asked. For example, the insect spotted wing drosophila is a relatively new invasive pest.

Management techniques will be needed, even for wild huckleberry populations, he said. Also, a strategy is needed to limit damage done when harvesting huckleberry bushes, he added.

Cook’s willing to work on huckleberries for the rest of his career.

“When I walk into a deep forest at the right elevation, I expect to see huckleberry,” he said. “And I don’t want to lose that.”