Be Kind to our

Huckleberries

The Idaho Panhandle National Forest is reminding huckleberry pickers that commercial picking of huckleberries is not permitted. Additionally, huckleberry pickers are encouraged to pick only what they can consume so that others may enjoy the fun of picking and the delicious taste of our state fruit.

Minimum fines for commercial picking start at $250, and can increase based on the severity of the offense. For recreational huckleberry gathering there are no permits required, nor are there volume or weight limits.

Pickers are strongly encouraged to hand pick their berries. This ensures that only ripe berries are harvested and the bushes will remain healthy and productive for many years to come. Any methods that damage or destroy the bushes are illegal and may result in a fine for damaging natural resources.

Panhandle National Forest land. A $250 permit for commercial picking is required on Idaho Department of Lands property.

Hence, there’s been a push for decades for horticulturists and botanists to try to cultivate the plant for the backyard grower. Despite their determined efforts, however, the huckleberry—like the natural-born rebel it is—has seemed to foil them, time and again.

One of the brave souls who embarked on this journey in 1987 is Dr. Dan Barney: affectionately known as Dr. Huckleberry, Barney still holds the title as the nation’s leading huckleberry expert.

Barney spent 22 years trying to cultivate the huckleberry while a professor of horticulture at the University of Idaho and superintendent of the Sandpoint Research and Extension Center.

“We’re working with a problem child,” said Barney in a Spokesman Review article in 1997.

“Here’s a plant that grows where the temperature reaches 50 below, but it freezes at lower elevations without snow cover.”

Barney valiantly aimed to produce huckleberry/blueberry hybrids that tasted like huckleberries, but thrived under cultivation like blueberries. Unfortunately, this lofty goal never came to (ahem) fruition.

Starting at the UI about the same time as Dr. Barney left to continue his work in Alaska, Stephen Cook, department head and professor of College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, started a couple of projects involving the huckleberry.

“The huckleberry is one of their big money-makers. Being able to possibly cultivate and then sell them is a big deal,” said Cook.

Cook’s two projects look at the impact of soil amendments, and the viability of greenhouse starts.

“They didn’t do real well; it’s hard to get the huckleberry to do well outside the forest. I think there’s a microbial component we’re missing—that it’s not just acidic soil but that there’s a connection with the trees—that there’s something actually in the soil in these conifer forests that benefit the huckleberry.”

Despite the proven difficulties of growing huckleberries outside their natural habitat, there are always those who want to shake the dice and give it a try.

Kathy Hutton, nursery manager at Plants of the Wild in Tekoa, Washington, said they’ve been selling out of their 1,500–3,000 wild mountain huckleberry seedlings every year for 35 years now.

“There’ve been a lot of people who have succeeded in getting their plants to grow and maybe a little berry production but not a whole lot. However, everyone wants to give it a go.”

Huckleberries grow in areas that are also bear habitat and in the Panhandle there are both black and grizzly bears