Black Nightshade/Garden Huckleberry/Wonderberry Grex/Landrace?

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

Can we start a Black Nightshade/Garden Huckleberry Grex for GTS to offer next year? So many species belong to the Black Nightshade group & all are cross-compaible (Explains why there’s so many species ).

Here’s a Phylogenic tree of the Black Nightshade group (aka morelloid clade, Species inside this group aren’t strict & blur lines between species by constant crossing), all have edible berries when ripe & some are even cultivated for edible leaves (But not every species, mostly certain cultivars from certain species).

Below represents some of the diversity available to work with.

Garden Huckleberry
The domesticated/Improved Black Nightshades (Often called Garden Huckleberries, Sunberry or Wonderberry). Often they are bigger than the smaller wild types. They are scientifcally classified as Solanum retroflexum or Solanum scabrum.

Small Wild Black Nightshade
These are mostly known as the Black Nightshade (Solanum nigrum) Complex, it’s made up of the following species that all cross with each other (S. nigrum, S. americanum, S. ptychanthum, S. douglassii, S. emulans, S. interius, S. nigrescens, S. chenopodioides, and many other species can easily cross into this group as well).

Red or Orange Fruited Black Nightshades
Just like Black Nightshade except makes a Orange or Red, Sometimes even Yellow berries. These are usally Solanum villosum & Solanum alatum (Sometimes S. nigrum genetics get involved).

Greenberry Nightshade
Typically these are just Solanum opacum, Altho some say that name applies to a different species, It’s a taxonomic nightmare , or plant breeders delight . Regardless Greenberry nightshade ripen their fruits Greenish-Yellow (The most ripe berries are Lime-Yellow), that are soft, delicious & sweet.

Bi-Colored Nightshade (Solanum physalifolium)
Fruits are 2 colored, very interesting looking. Have no idea about their flavor.

Those are all the main types I know of (Minus the cultivars bred for edible leaves specifically), I’m sure there’s much more diversity out there to explore. Let me know if I missed any varieties? My goal is to increase size, yield, ease of harvest & Flavor! I hope to get Black Nightshades to Cherry or even Beefsteak sized fruits, I may have to try grafting them with Tomatoes if I want to Horizontally Transfer those Big fruited genes.

[Tanjaeskildsen (Tanja)]

That would be a cool project! Have a look at deaflora.de they have a huge selection of improved cultivars to get you started.

[MichaelFomhar]

I could definitely contribute wild germplasm from a handful of counties in Eastern Iowa. It’s a really common weed in cultivated fields in my area, especially mine! Black nightshade has never not shown up in my garden. I get to travel to a lot of farms for work and I see it all the time too. Its also a great trap crop for hornworm.

[Lauren (Lauren Ritz)]

Interesting. I’ve never seen hornworms on them, but I’ve also never planted them near my tomatoes.

[Joran (Joran's Seeds and Research)]

I have owned many accessions, naturalized following a selection project:
S. villosum, S. alatum, S. melanocerasum and S. nigrum.

Concerning interspecific hybrids:
I have never observed hybrids between them.
Except between Solanum melanocerasum and nigrum.
But these hybrids are not interesting to make since S. nigrum has nothing to bring to Solanum melanocerasum…

Some accessions of S. melanocerasum have glabrous leaves and are therefore more interesting since we can eat the leaves.
But this must imply a lesser resistance to drought.

I have an accession of S. villosum whose fruits (small and yellow) are much better than the purple fruits (regardless of the species), and which is perennial down to -5 or -6°C. This winter some plants have even kept green leaves after frosts of around -3°C.
But its fruits are much smaller than those of S. melanocerasum…

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

@Tanjaeskildsen

That would be a cool project! Have a look at deaflora.de they have a huge selection of improved cultivars to get you started.

Thank you! Just checked the site & oh wow! Lots of new edible plants I didn’t even knew existed.

@MichaelFomhar

I could definitely contribute wild germplasm from a handful of counties in Eastern Iowa. It’s a really common weed in cultivated fields in my area, especially mine!

Fantastic! Have you tried any of the berries? What flavors did you notice? Mine in Maryland taste like Purple Grape x Tomato.

@Joran

I have owned many accessions, naturalized following a selection project:
S. villosum, S. alatum, S. melanocerasum and S. nigrum.

That’s Epic! So glad you have lots of types. This gives me hope GTS may offer them one day.

@Joran

I have never observed hybrids between them.
Except between Solanum melanocerasum and nigrum.

How strange, Species in that group all hybridize like crazy & it’s so hard to distinguish other species. Some species even made certain species, but I’ve also read there are some polidy issues with wild ranges of polidy. I’m wondering if Mentor Pollination & Grafting can by pass these issues?

Lets say if i cross 2 different Black Nightshade species with mis-matching chromosome numbers but I mix pollens from many sources (Including some that are same matching chromosome numbers), I can force the “Incompatible” species to accept pollen it either-wise wouldn’t have. With such wide crosses, who knows maybe a Mutation happens & Chromosomes double again. Nature always finds a way, already well known in Brassicaceae, Asteraceae, Poaceae, Cactaceae, Rosaceae, and many more familes who make Mis-matched chromosomes work (However Solanace seems not be one of those, yet but lots of Chromosome doubling has happened in the Black Nightshade group).

@Joran

But these hybrids are not interesting to make since S. nigrum has nothing to bring to Solanum melanocerasum…

Isn’t Solanum melanocerasum the old scientific name for Solanum retroflexum? I’ve read Solanum retroflexum was a species that created Solanum nigrum when it introgressed with another species. Also Some Solanum nigrum have yellow fruit, this group is such a taxonomic Nightmare to sort thru.

@Joran

I have an accession of S. villosum whose fruits (small and yellow) are much better than the purple fruits (regardless of the species)

Very very interesting, are they better than the red fruits? Also noticed the Yellow-white tomatoes taste better than red tomatoes, is something similar going on with yellow black nightshades, if in both cases yellow tastes better?

@Joran

But its fruits are much smaller than those of S. melanocerasum…

We might have to try grabing genes from Huge Tomatoes, should be graft compatible at least. Maybe Horizontal Gene Flow can get Those “Big fruit genes” into Black Nightshades? I might have to do that with limited germaplasm of Black Nightshades.

Also you say perennial down to -5 or -6°C? So the plants you have a true perennials & not annuals that self-sow so much, functioning like perennials?
Cuz Bittersweet Nightshade group (Solanum dulcamara) is direct sister to Black Nightshade group & it’s the most cold hardy Solanum I know, not to mention leaves can remain after frosts & stems are woody. Grafting with That plant is worth experimenting with. Who knows maybe Bittersweet Nightshade can become an edible crop too. It might even help make Tomatoes & Less cold hardy Black Nightshades cold hard too as Scions.

Breeding Bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) For edible fruit?

Why is Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) Poisonous? Is there anyway we can make it edible & is it worth it? It’s the most cold hardy woody Solanum I know & grows like a Weed in much of the temperate regions. From all the research I’ve done it appears the least toxic part is the fully ripe red berry. Green and yellowing Berries contain a higher percentage of the glycoalkaloids than ripe red fruits. Phylogenic Trees show that the Black Nightshade Group (Morelloid Clade/Solanum nigrum com…

[MichaelFomhar]

The ones around here actually taste like a diluted elderberry to me, sometimes with a tomato-y undertone but not always.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

I’ve never tried elder berry cuz they don’t sound delicious without lots of sugar. Plus being related to Viburnums (Of which most fruits taste bad except Nannyberry), doesn’t excite me. Were yours fully black fruits or Bi-colored like in Solanum physalifolium?

[MichaelFomhar]

Fully black, they were pretty sweet on the spectrum of wild berries. I might make jam with them this year if I cant get out to my good black raspberry patch. They didn’t have the almost tannic(?) (Not quite sure how to put the off aftertaste, I enjoy it) Flavor that our local elderberry has.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

I’ve never tried tanic but i’m getting the sense it’s some kind of metalic taste?
Fully black berries, were they big? Did you take any photos? Pretty sweet sounds pretty good

[MichaelFomhar]

I wouldn’t describe it as metallic, it’s adjacent to an astringent taste. Its not strong and would probably go away after heating and processing. I’m not even sure if many others can taste it. There usually isn’t enough elderberry after the birds to collect to confirm, just light snacking.
They weren’t any larger than a wild gooseberry if you’re familiar with those. Pardon if all my comparisons are with wild forage, it makes up a bit of my family’s diet. Maybe a better comparison is they’re about 1.5x the size of a spoon tomato?
As for pictures, I unfortunately never had the forethought to document it. Maybe this season I’ll snap a few dozen before harvesting for seed to share if you’re interested.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

@MichaelFomhar

I wouldn’t describe it as metallic, it’s adjacent to an astringent taste. Its not strong and would probably go away after heating and processing.

Hmm, thanks for describing the flavor, I kind of get what you mean. I’ve heard elderberries are only edible if cooked? I’ve had zero experience with elderberries & kind of dismissed them as a garbage berry .

@MichaelFomhar

They weren’t any larger than a wild gooseberry if you’re familiar with those. Pardon if all my comparisons are with wild forage, it makes up a bit of my family’s diet.

That’s Awesome! I also do a lot of Wild edible foraging, mostly suburbs & occasional forrest. How much wild foraging do you do? What kinds of things do you forage? I’ve never found a wild gooseberry but the 1.5x spoon tomato is excelent size. My local black nightshades are much smaller.

@MichaelFomhar

As for pictures, I unfortunately never had the forethought to document it. Maybe this season I’ll snap a few dozen before harvesting for seed to share if you’re interested.

Bet! Did you save any seeds of the wild edible plants you foraged for?

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

I believe tannins taste bitter. Apples with tannins taste bitter.

I’ve only tried black elderberries, because my neighbor has a bush. Those things are BITTER. They take an absolutely insane quantity of sugar in order to taste good. However, once you dump that truckload of sugar in, the flavor is very nice, and pleasantly distinctive.

Black elderberries are a nuisance to harvest and process, and I wouldn’t bother if they were just food that had to be made into jam to be edible. But they are also very good at boosting the immune system and thereby preventing most colds and flus, which makes them a valuable medicinal that my children will actually eat. (They won’t eat echinecea, no matter how much honey I mix it with! I’ve tried.)

If black elderberries were only medicinal, I wouldn’t consider them worth the effort. If they were only an edible fruit that was only worth eating as sugar-laden jam, I wouldn’t consider them worth the effort, either. But the fact that they’re both, as well as being so conveniently located next door to my house, pushes them over to being worth the effort for me.

Now, blue elderberries may be another matter.

I keep hearing that blue elderberries taste significantly better. In fact, I’ve now read in a foraging book and heard from a person in my neighborhood who went foraging up a local mountain that the wild blue elderberries in the Rocky Mountains area are edible right off the bush and taste pretty good even without adding sugar. They’re even edible raw. So they must be very low in whatever poison makes black elderberries taste insanely bitter.

I haven’t found a local blue elderberry bush to forage myself yet. But I’m keeping an eye out. I very much want to find one.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

@UnicornEmily

I believe tannins taste bitter. Apples with tannins taste bitter.

very interesting, I never knew apples had tannins (I thought the sourness was sorbic acid). Are the tannins the astringent mouth puckering taste in some wild crabapples? That goes away with frost when fruits are bletted by frost.

@UnicornEmily

Those things are BITTER. They take an absolutely insane quantity of sugar in order to taste good. However, once you dump that truckload of sugar in, the flavor is very nice, and pleasantly distinctive.

Yikes, if it takes a lot of sugar than it’s not a good tasting berry (No wonder it’s more popular as a medicine). Now it makes sense why I wasn’t really interested in researching Elderberries (If that’s the best they can do). Slavic Kalina (Viburnum opulus) are also extremely Bitter, Nasty & taste like feet (It’s the worst edible fruit I’ve ever tried). I’m Russian & I don’t my get ancestors, why do they like such garbage & if Elder Berry taste just as Nasty I’m out. Out of the whole Vibrunum family, the only good tasting fruit I found were Nannyberries (Vibrunum lentago), that’s a fruit worth breeding. Maybe some passionate Kalina Breeders can remove the bitterness of Viburnum opulus (Sam Thayer says the american counterpart taste like Cranberries, so there’s hope). Also You also can’t eat Elderberries raw right?

@UnicornEmily

Black elderberries are a nuisance to harvest and process, and I wouldn’t bother if they were just food that had to be made into jam to be edible.

How do you process elderberry? Use the freeze trick & Smack against a bucket to release the berries?

@UnicornEmily

wild blue elderberries in the Rocky Mountains area are edible right off the bush and taste pretty good even without adding sugar. They’re even edible raw. So they must be very low in whatever poison makes black elderberries taste insanely bitter.

Wow! That’s incredible, so perhaps there is hope for elderberry to taste good after all!

If you find one, share some seeds!

[MichaelFomhar]

@UnicornEmily

I’ve only tried black elderberries, because my neighbor has a bush. Those things are BITTER. They take an absolutely insane quantity of sugar in order to taste good. However, once you dump that truckload of sugar in, the flavor is very nice, and pleasantly distinctive.

Now I’m wondering if the elderberry I’ve been harvesting is a feral cultivar , maybe its worth saving seeds from as it is pleasant with only a very slight bit of bitter. I know I can taste the tanins as I tried an ornamental june berry and oh my goodness that was bitter.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

@MichaelFomhar

Now I’m wondering if the elderberry I’ve been harvesting is a feral cultivar

Could be, I haven’t looked into the cultivar scene with Elderberries (I didn’t even know Elderberries had cultivars).

@MichaelFomhar

I know I can taste the tanins as I tried an ornamental june berry and oh my goodness that was bitter.

I don’t know of a single Juneberry (Amelanchier spp.) that’s bitter, that simply doesn’t exist & would require Intergeneric Hybridization to bring in. Or how unripe are you picking Juneberry? There are lots of Ornamental Pome fruits, Maybe you picked Aronia berries? How certain are you it was Juneberry?

[MichaelFomhar]

@VeggieSavage

That’s Awesome! I also do a lot of Wild edible foraging, mostly suburbs & occasional forrest. How much wild foraging do you do? What kinds of things do you forage? I’ve never found a wild gooseberry but the 1.5x spoon tomato is excelent size. My local black nightshades are much smaller.

We know the timing and season for a lot of wild edibles in our area, we live near a lot of state parks and wildlife refuges so there’s a lot of diversity. We fill our freezer with as much as we can. We forage for whats most abundant so that there’s plenty for others and wildlife, like yellow oyster mushrooms, pheasant back mushrooms, giant puffball. As well as black raspberries, wild strawberries, gooseberry, Prunus Americana(best flesh there is, super bitter skin though), black walnuts, certain acorns, hickory nuts, rose hips, elderberry, garlic mustard, nettle, dandelion root, wild carrot, cattail shoots, indian potatoes/arrow root, watercress, broadleaf plantain, woodland lettuce, mint, wild basil, riverbank grape for fruit and leaves, lambsquarter, spicebush, wild ginger, several species of wild and feral brassica, breenbrier berry, sunchokes, burdock root, smooth sumac, ramps/wild leek, wild garlic. Theres definitely more but I can’t remember anymore off the top of my head.

@VeggieSavage

Bet! Did you save any seeds of the wild edible plants you foraged for?

I’ve saved seeds from American plumb(Prunus Americana), mayapple, rose hip. If I’ve saved any others im forgetting them.

[MichaelFomhar]

@VeggieSavage

I don’t know of a single Juneberry (Amelanchier spp.) that’s bitter, that simply doesn’t exist & would require Intergeneric Hybridization to bring in. Or how unripe are you picking Juneberry? There are lots of Ornamental Pome fruits, Maybe you picked Aronia berries? How certain are you it was Juneberry?

Not over certain, I was in an edible garden at an arboretum and it was labeled such. I tried it, spit it out, and never looked back lol. I chalked it up to being an ornamental rather than actually edible cultivar as I know they’re popular as an ornamental in this area.

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

Were the elderberries you ate black-colored or blue-colored? If they were black and pleasant-tasting without added sugar, those seeds are definitely worth saving.

When did you harvest those elderberries? My neighbor’s bush is generally harvestable from early October through early November. After that point, the fruits tend to shrivel up into dried husks and get moldy. The birds will still eat them at that point, but I sure won’t.

[MichaelFomhar]

@UnicornEmily

Were the elderberries you ate black-colored or blue-colored?

They were certainly black. I actually think I might still have half a quart in the freezer so its not too late for me to save seed.

@UnicornEmily

When did you harvest those elderberries?

And they’re usually harvestable mid to late September, around the same time field corn in this area starts to dry down.