Photo courtesy Western Ag Research Center
Apples have been growing in the Bitterroot and other areas in Montana for over a century. Selecting the right cultivars, can be just as important as selecting the right fruit. Michael Billingsley has experimented with over 50 cider apple varieties, in his 10-acre Stevensville orchard, to determine what will make the best hard cider in Montana.
Finding fruits that are rugged enough for Montana ZACH MILLER WARC Associate Professor/Superintendent KATRINA MENDREY WARC Orchard Program Manager
With Montana’s rugged growing conditions, not all types of fruits will thrive, but there are many that fruit trees, vines, and bushes will. Adding to this challenge is that climates and soils vary widely from location to location. It’s a matter of matching your local climate and soil with types of plants that are well adapted to handle those conditions. “Montana’s climate can be pretty unforgiving, but if growers follow some simple rules for establishment and select the right fruit, for the right site there are some great options that are unique, healthy and delicious,” says Dr. Zach Miller, Superintendent at the MSU Western Agricultural Research Center in Corvallis where much of Montana’s fruit research is conducted. “It’s more than just planting winter-hardy plants,” Miller said. “The plant hardiness zone listed for a variety only lets
you know the cold it can withstand in the middle of the winter when the plant is fully dormant. But much of the cold injury that we see in Montana occurs in the fall and the spring. Like last fall when temperatures stayed mild for much of September and October then plummeted to below zero at the end of October. In the winter, we’ll get a few warm weeks that trick plants into thinking it’s spring. They start to bud out and temperatures will drop, damaging the plants. The ability to withstand this type of cold is not on the tags at the nursery.” Cold-hardy berries tend to avoid the fall and spring cold injury as they can withstand cold temperatures early in the growing season and ripen their fruit early, giving them plenty to time to get ready for the winter. “It’s a ‘what grows here’ approach to farming,” says Mark Rehder, owner of Geyser Farms outside Livingston, MT. “I grow currants because they’re short, stocky and can withstand the wind.” Rehder grows one acre of mostly black and some red cur-
