Haskap (Honeyberry): Botany, History and How to Grow It (Part 1)

This is the first part of a three-part series on haskap. Here you will get to know the plant itself, its names, its history and the basics of growing it. In part 2 I cover varieties and pollination (including my own collection), and in part 3 harvesting, preserves and health value. I gathered the information from Latin, Russian, Japanese and Canadian sources, and where it is uncertain, I say so plainly.

What kind of plant is it?

Haskap is a shrub in the honeysuckle family (Caprifoliaceae), genus Lonicera. The species whose forms we grow is Lonicera caerulea L. (blue honeysuckle, sold by nurseries as honeyberry or edible honeysuckle). The Polish name “jagoda kamczacka” (Kamchatka berry) most often refers to the botanical variety Lonicera caerulea var. kamtschatica, which comes from Kamchatka and north-eastern Asia.

Language	Name
Polish	jagoda kamczacka, suchodrzew jadalny
English	haskap, honeyberry, blue honeysuckle
Russian	жимолость съедобная, жимолость синяя
Japanese	ハスカップ (hasukappu), クロミノウグイスカグラ (kuro-mi-no-uguisukagura)

The shrub grows to 1.5–2 m (in the wild in Japan it is often around 1 m). It has oval, grey-green leaves, pale yellow, funnel-shaped flowers that grow in pairs, and elongated dark blue berries with a waxy bloom. A curiosity: in Japanese varieties the ovaries of two neighbouring flowers fuse at the base, which is why a pair of flowers produces a single fruit. The chromosome number is 2n = 18.

A haskap bush with ripening berries on the author’s plot.

Taxonomy: one species, many botanical varieties

How to divide Lonicera caerulea into subspecies and varieties is still disputed. One classification (cited, among others, by Wikipedia) recognises nine botanical varieties found across the Northern Hemisphere:

Variety	Range
L. caerulea var. caerulea	Europe (bitter, inedible fruit)
var. altaica	northern Asia (Altai)
var. pallasii	northern Asia, north-eastern Europe
var. kamtschatica	north-eastern Asia (Kamchatka)
var. edulis (syn. L. edulis)	East Asia
var. emphyllocalyx (haskap)	East Asia, Hokkaido
var. dependens	Central Asia
var. cauriana	western North America
var. villosa	eastern North America

For gardeners, two lines matter: the Russian line (from the varieties kamtschatica, altaica and edulis), represented in Poland by cultivars such as Nimfa, Morena and Volshebnitsa, and the Japanese line (emphyllocalyx), which gave us cultivars such as Colin and Lori. They differ in flowering time and fruit structure, which I write about in part 2.

Where it comes from and how it was domesticated

Hokkaido and the Ainu

The name haskap comes from the Ainu word has-kap, meaning the fruit of this plant. It grew wild over almost all of Hokkaido, most densely on the Yufutsu plain near Tomakomai. In the 1930s people began making sweets from the berries (the first products in 1933, and in 1936 a yōkan was presented to the Emperor). The first registered Japanese cultivar was Yufutsu (1992). Atsumamirai, Yushige (2009) and Mie (2012) followed later. In 2018 Japan harvested about 107 tonnes of fruit from around 109 ha. Industrial development in Tomakomai from the 1970s destroyed many wild stands, and some of the plants were moved to plantations at that time. Since 2021, 7 July has been “Haskap Day” in Japan.

Siberia and Russia

In Russia haskap was gathered as a wild fruit, and deliberate breeding began in the 20th century. In 1970 the Central Siberian Botanical Garden in Novosibirsk set up a collection gathered from populations in the Altai, and material also came from the Lisavenko Institute (Barnaul), its station in Bakchar and the Vavilov Institute in St Petersburg. Breeders were looking for varieties with berries that do not drop, have no bitterness, are large (up to 2 g) and heavy-cropping, on bushes suited to mechanical harvesting. Since 2016 commercial plantations have been established in the Tomsk and Novosibirsk regions (around 300 ha in total).

Canada and Oregon

In North America the plant long remained little known. In the 1990s Dr Maxine Thompson of Oregon and Jim Gilbert promoted tasty Japanese and Russian varieties. In 1998 the University of Saskatchewan (Dr Bob Bors) planted the first four cultivars, and by 2008 it had assembled, among other things, 35 Russian cultivars, more than 70 Japanese selections and about 8,000 seedlings from controlled crosses. Borealis and Tundra were released in 2007. The now popular Boreal Beauty, Beast and Blizzard also come from this programme.

Poland

In Poland, well-known cultivars were raised from Russian seedlings, for example Wojtek and Zojka, selected by Zofia and Hieronim Łukaszewski. Nurseries also sell Russian, Canadian and American cultivars.

The elixir-of-longevity myth

The often-repeated story that haskap was the Ainu “elixir of long life” was, according to Japanese sources, invented in the 1950s by the confectionery company Sansei to promote its cakes, and the company itself admitted it was marketing. The Ainu did eat the berries, but they did not regard them as medicinal or sacred.

Why grow it?

1. Remarkable cold hardiness

The bushes tolerate frosts below −45°C (in Saskatchewan they survived −47°C without damage), and open flowers withstand frosts of about −7°C. In a Central European climate the plant is practically indestructible.

2. The earliest fruit of the season

Russian and Polish cultivars ripen from late May and through June, Japanese ones a little later. These are the first fresh fruit of the season. According to Canadian sources, Russian cultivars can be ready two weeks before strawberries, and Japanese ones at roughly the same time.

3. Rich in plant compounds

The berries contain anthocyanins, polyphenols, vitamin C, potassium, magnesium and iron. I describe the science in part 3, together with the caveat that the evidence comes mainly from laboratory and animal studies.

4. Easy to grow

• it has no special soil requirements,
• it does not need complicated pruning,
• it rarely gets sick,
• in a home garden it usually does fine without spraying.

5. Longevity

The bushes can bear fruit for around 30 years in the same spot. Canadian ornamental bushes are more than 30 years old and still healthy, and Japanese plantations have plants of a similar age.

Growing requirements

Feature	Requirement
Position	sunny or lightly shaded, sheltered from wind
Soil	fertile, humus-rich, free-draining, moderately moist; avoid standing water
pH	ideally 5.5–6.5; the plant tolerates a wide range (in Canada it is grown even on clay with a pH of 7.9)
Spacing	about 1.3 m or more between individual bushes, 0.75–1 m in a hedge; at least 2.5 m between rows
Planting time	spring (March–April) or autumn (October)
Cold hardiness	below −45°C

The bush has a shallow root system, so it dislikes drought, but it also cannot stand waterlogging in late June, at harvest time. Avoid poor, sandy sites unless you add compost.

The golden rule: pollinators!

Haskap is self-incompatible: it will not pollinate itself. To get a crop you need to plant at least two different, unrelated cultivars that flower at the same time. The Canadian recommendation for larger plantings is one pollinator for every 8 or so bushes of the main cultivar. I describe this in detail, with a table of cultivars, in part 2.

⚠️ Note: planting two bushes of the same cultivar is not enough. You need two different cultivars.

Haskap in flower in early spring. Photo by the author.

When and how to plant

Spring planting (March–April)

• The best time, before growth starts.
• The plant has a whole season to root in.

Autumn planting (October)

• Also a good time.
• The bushes have time to root before winter.

How to plant, step by step:

1. Dig a hole about 40–50 cm deep and wide.
2. Mix the soil with compost or well-rotted manure.
3. Set the plant at the depth it grew in its pot (Canadian guidance says you can plant it a few centimetres deeper, which protects it from frost heave).
4. Backfill, firm the soil and water generously.
5. Mulch with bark or straw to protect against drought.

Watering, feeding and weeds

• Water. For the first three years water deeply but infrequently, so the roots grow downwards. In late June, while the berries ripen, do not let the soil dry out.
• Feeding. Feed only in spring and early summer. Late feeding encourages growth that will not harden off before winter. Japanese growers rely mainly on well-rotted manure.
• Weeds. Keep young bushes free of weeds and grass. Mulch helps a lot. Canadian breeders advise against glyphosate in fruit plantings because the bushes are sensitive to it.

Pruning and care

Age of the bush	Task
1–5 years	sanitary pruning only (removing broken and diseased shoots)
6–7 years	cut out the oldest, thickest shoots at ground level
Every year	remove shoots growing into the centre of the bush (thinning)

A well-kept bush should have 8–12 young, strong shoots; remove the rest. Prune in late winter or very early spring, before growth starts (in Japan the recommendation is early April). Do not remove more than 25% of the bush in a single year. Haskap does not send up suckers, but if the top of the bush is killed by frost it will regrow from the crown, and the new growth will be the same cultivar, because the bush grows on its own roots. Without pruning the berries gradually get smaller and the bush becomes congested.

Propagation

The most common methods are tissue-culture plants and softwood or hardwood cuttings. Cultivars are not propagated from seed, because seedlings do not reproduce the traits of the parent plant (each one is different). That is why seedlings of Wojtek are not the same as Wojtek. This method is suitable for breeding your own cultivars, but it takes patience and several years of observation.

Diseases and pests

Haskap is exceptionally resistant, but not completely. According to Canadian and Japanese guides:

• Birds are the most serious problem. Netting with a mesh of about ½ inch protects the crop (see part 3).
• Powdery mildew usually appears in July and August, after the harvest. Susceptibility depends on the cultivar. It is favoured by dense, damp sites, so thinning the bush is the remedy. Wojtek is sometimes affected.
• Leaf sunscald (browning) can be seen in hot summers on windy, very sunny sites, with no pathogen detected.
• Aphids, scale insects, leaf rollers, leaf miners. These are rare. Aphids can be washed off with soapy water. Japanese sources list more than 40 pest species, the most dangerous being beetle larvae that damage the roots.
• Wildlife. Deer and rabbits may nibble the bushes, but on many plantations they do no damage.

The most common growing mistakes

1. Planting only one cultivar – no fruit, because there is no pollinator.
2. Planting two bushes of the same cultivar – that does not work either!
3. Pruning too early and too hard – sanitary pruning only for the first few years.
4. Overdoing the nitrogen – too much nitrogen means plenty of leaves but little fruit.
5. Planting in shade – in shade the berries are smaller and less sweet.
6. No bird netting – the berries can vanish within a few days.

Summary

Haskap is a plant that deserves a place in every garden, especially if you like fresh fruit as early as May.

Pros:
✅ very early fruiting
✅ exceptional cold hardiness
✅ easy to grow, usually without spraying
✅ long-lived (about 30 years)
✅ tasty berries rich in phenolic compounds

Cons:
❌ needs at least two different cultivars (pollinators)
❌ berries ripen unevenly
❌ birds can destroy the crop
❌ hand-picking can be laborious

Sources

• Wikipedia: Lonicera caerulea; ハスカップ (Japanese)
• B. Bors, University of Saskatchewan: Growing Haskap in Canada; How far south can haskap be grown
• OMAFRA (Ontario): Haskap
• Central Siberian Botanical Garden: Blue honeysuckle introduction and breeding
• e-katalogroslin.pl: cultivar profiles for Wojtek and Zojka (in Polish)

This article was originally written in Polish and has been translated into English.

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This article comes from my blog Laboratorium Natury (“Nature Lab”), where I write about my garden plot in Poland and a more self-sufficient life. It was originally written in Polish and translated into English. Full version with photos: https://jaworznia.pl/en/2026/10/28/haskap-honeyberry-botany-history-growing-part-1/