Just in from the Kiwiberry research and breeding program at UNH, I'm sharing three important updates:
Hiring a Vineyard Manager The incredible Will Hastings, instrumental to the UNH kiwiberry research and breeding program since its inception, will soon be moving on to greener vineyards. He will be greatly missed, and we wish him all the best in his new ventures. But the show must go on, so please help us by spreading the word to any excellent folks who would be excited to help take the program into its next chapter. It’s a fully benefited, ¾ time job; and all the details can be found here: https://jobs.usnh.edu/postings/39234. Our hope is to find someone ASAP for the upcoming season (and beyond!).
Guide Updates We just completed a long-overdue update of the Nor’East Kiwiberries website, so please check it out. You’ll notice a new entry in the Table of Contents called “Guide and program updates” which will take you to a blog-like page that documents the updates made, now and in the future.
Grower Map Since we began our program in 2013, we have anecdotal evidence that interest in kiwiberries has grown in the region; but we don’t have an accurate sense of its scale or distribution. To help guide our research, and also to help connect buyers to producers who often contact us, we want to develop and curate a real-time map of commercial kiwiberry growers in the northeast, to be added to the online guide. If you have commercial vines in the ground (i.e. you currently sell or intend to sell fruit, at whatever scale), please email me (iago.hale@unh.edu). We’d love to get you on the map, not to mention on our radar so we can better support you.
