Establishing Honeyberry Collaborative Trials using SeedLinked to Crowdsource Cultivar Performance Data and Inform Grower Selections

Honeyberry (aka haskap) is a promising new perennial fruit crop for growers throughout the North Central Region for fresh and processing markets. Over the past 15 years, breeding programs in North America, led by the University of Saskatchewan and Dr. Maxine Thompson, have released a number of improved cultivars that are far superior to earlier cultivars. As a result, we are seeing increased interest and adoption from growers. However, as with many emerging crops, significant hurdles make adoption risky. Growers report dramatic differences in yield, growth habit, flavor, and other important traits among cultivars and cite a lack of reliable information about cultivar selection and best management practices. 

This proposal sought to address this issue by partnering with growers, university researchers, plant breeders, and the private company SeedLinked to crowdsource performance data on honeyberry cultivars from a large network of growers and make it freely available to the public. SeedLinked is an innovative trial management platform designed to crowdsource variety performance data from growers and share collective knowledge through an open-source database. SeedLinked has proven to be a powerful tool for annual crops but has not yet been utilized for perennials. This project tested and helped optimize SeedLinked for use with perennial crops using honeyberry as a pilot.  

At the start of the project, honeyberry growers from across the North Central Region and beyond were recruited to participate in the project through outreach conducted by UW-Madison Extension and partners such as North Dakota State University, University of Minnesota Extension, and Montana State University. Growers were surveyed on the varieties they were growing, the most important traits for honeyberry, and management methods. The results were built into SeedLinked to customize trial creation for honeyberries. Throughout the 2024 and 2025 growing seasons, growers rated their varieties in SeedLinked on characteristics such as yield, disease resistance, flavor, plant form, and early maturity, on a scale of 1-5, and recorded their management methods. Growers uploaded photos of the plants and fruit and recorded comments on variety performance. They also provided feedback on the SeedLinked user interface to inform platform improvements at end of each growing season. At the end of each season, UW Extension convened growers to discuss trial results, review photos and comments, discuss platform improvements, and share general honeyberry production knowledge. In addition, UW-Madison Extension hosted annual field days at honeyberry farms that brought project participants together for in-person networking and learning. The 2025 field day brought together a wider community of 115 honeyberry growers, aspiring growers, and agricultural professionals for a full day of presentations, activities and tours at the inaugural Upper Midwest Honeyberry Academy at Haskap Minnesota in Stillwater, MN. This proved invaluable for building community and generating enthusiasm around honeyberry production.

Through this project, 15 growers from across the Upper Midwest entered data on their honeyberry varieties in SeedLinked. We learned that SeedLinked could be a valuable tool for growers to access information on honeyberry varieties, but significant platform improvements are needed before most growers adopt the tool. Growers reported difficulty navigating the site and entering data, citing a lack of user friendliness. They wanted more management information tied to the data to give it more context. Grower engagement on the social networking feature of SeedLinked was limited as well. Needed platform improvements would require significant investment that was beyond the scope of the grant. While some useful information was recorded in SeedLinked, most growers reported that they did not plan to continue using the tool in the future until significant changes were made. As a result, the primary outcome of the project was building a highly engaged community of practice among growers. High attendance and engagement in virtual meetings and annual field days demonstrated the demand for production support and desire for more networking and in-person learning. As a result of this project, project participants developed connections with other growers, researchers, and university extension educators. They gained knowledge of cultivar selection, best management practices, harvest techniques, and post-harvest processing methods for honeyberry through peer to peer learning and at field days.