Native North American Elder
Many people want to feel the bark of elder cuttings in their hands each spring, and some are seriously considering commercial scale production beyond family and friends. This page is a brief introduction. Current demand exceeds supply, so we need more growers. Our 2025 goal is 2,250 acres of cultivated native elderberry - that’s 10,000,000+lb. harvested and sold! MEC has members and a network of about 100 growers from coast-to-coast. Our cooperative works to make a modest, yet significant local economic and environmental difference in many locations.
More than sustainable, elderberry enhances the environment when planted as part of a horticultural installation designed to accomplish a set of soil, water, pollinator and wildlife management objectives. - Chris Patton, President, MEC
The berries are with us!
The flowers shine upon us!
And the leaves shall come before them.
Feel the bark…
Demand for Elderberry Spikes During the Pandemic
Demand for US grown native elder berries and flowers - both the black (Sambucus canadensis) east of the Rockies and the blue (Sambucus cerulea) west of them, far exceeds current supply. Over 95% of the elder ingredients found in American made products are sourced from outside our continent. The opportunity is real, as are the technical challenges, but the technical challenges are being addressed, will be solved, and the market will not evaporate until then.
Reflective of broad consumer interest in boosting immunity and also rising interest in functional food, beverage and supplement products derived from inherently beneficial sources, demand for products containing elderberry has risen sharply during the pandemic…
Already fairly common in cold remedy products, elderberry's migration into a wider range of consumable categories and preventative health routines underpins its recent performance. The popularity of botanical and plant-based products like elderberry stems from folk medicine traditions and consumer curiosity about plant-based ingredients themselves.
Within wellness culture, consumers have intrinsic beliefs in the connection between plants and health, a connection as old as humanity itself, since (until recently) most of our medicines came directly from plants. These beliefs extend back into ancient history, including evidence that Neanderthals used medicinal plants to alleviate pain, ease fevers and heal wounds.
Elderberry’s rise has been propelled by a current of demand formed at the convergence of several trends pre-dating COVID-19 — namely, interest in immunity benefits, food as medicine, inherently functional beverages and formats beyond pills.
Native North American Elderberry presents its form in many ways. This is true for both the bushy reddish-black Sambucus canadensis found naturally in the wild east of the Rocky Mountains and the blue elderberry trees of Sambucus cerulea (also referred to as S. mexicana) found west of the Rockies along the Pacific coast. The species of this genus seem to change their phenotypical expression readily to adapt well to the local environmental conditions. Scientifically, elder is referred to as an ochlospecies, "A species which exhibits a complex pattern of variation among its members but is not separable into distinct subspecific groups."
While you can gather both canadensis and cerulea berries from the wild and eat or process them, you are taking a chance on the quality and ease of picking. S. canadensis is fairly notorious for having bunches or cymes that do not ripen evenly or providing smallish berries. Research has also shown that wild elder also vary significantly in their nutritional potential independent of soil health and fertility.
For the above summarized reasons, commercial elder berry and flower growers focus on proven cultivars mostly propagated with hardwood cuttings. A documented cultivar possesses identifying characteristics. The popular commercial cultivars reliably deliver plant, berry and flower characteristics more favorable to profitable farming. Midwest Elderberry Cooperative shares this information online and advocates for further academic research and commercial trials varying both cultivar and local growing conditions.
Commercial scale cultivation of native elderberry presents a sustainable ray of environmental and social hope. As a catalyst crop for improved environmental practice and economic profits to farmers and rural communities. Perennial native elderberry supports over 60 native pollinators, holds soils in place, sequesters carbon and sucks up nitrogen. The tremendous potential health benefits of both fragrant flowers and sweet-neutral berries, as well as their popularity, provide profit opportunity to rural communities through its cultivation, decentralized handling and processing.
As an organization, MEC puts its members' interests first. MEC’s cooperative structure accommodates a wide range of grower farm strategies. Some are small producers who only sell directly to their local markets. Others may focus on large scale elder flower and/or berry operations and share in the cooperative wide profits and losses hedging their financial risks over our collective economic success.
Elderberry & Environment: Forever Green Initiative
With about 100 Minnesota acres of native elderberry in early commercial stage production and planning, Midwest Elderberry Cooperative is a participant in the University of Minnesota’s Forever Green Initiative. “The Forever Green Initiative is a University of Minnesota and USDA Agriculture Research Service (ARS) program to develop new crops and high-efficiency cropping systems.” Its research partners include university and government agency partners in several midwestern states: Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois, for example.
Most of our current crops are ‘summer-annuals’ that are grown during the summer. By selectively adding winter-annual and perennial crops to our agricultural landscapes to create new crop production systems, we can enhance the prosperity of Minnesota agriculture, support rural communities, and provide major benefits to all Minnesotans. A strong base of evidence indicates that these new production systems will enhance yields of our summer-annual crops, enable production of new commodities, enhance our soils and wildlife, and improve our water resources. All of these benefits are possible because perennial and winter-annual crops are active during a large portion of each year, including many periods in fall, winter and spring when summer crops are absent.
Most of our current crops are ‘summer-annuals’ that are grown during the summer. By selectively adding winter-annual and perennial crops to our agricultural landscapes to create new crop production systems, we can enhance the prosperity of Minnesota agriculture, support rural communities, and provide major benefits to all Minnesotans. A strong base of evidence indicates that these new production systems will enhance yields of our summer-annual crops, enable production of new commodities, enhance our soils and wildlife, and improve our water resources. All of these benefits are possible because perennial and winter-annual crops are active during a large portion of each year, including many periods in fall, winter and spring when summer crops are absent.
These new production systems, combining summer-annual, winter-annual and perennial crops, use our precious resources of land, water and nutrients more efficiently than our current systems. For this reason, we call these systems high-efficiency agriculture. These high-efficiency systems are arguably the most promising vehicle by which we can rapidly improve the productivity of Minnesota agriculture, and its ability to withstand climate variability such as the drought of 2012. To realize the great potential of these systems, two kinds of research and development are critically needed: genetic improvement of plant materials, and development of new economic opportunities based on these systems. The University of Minnesota has significant strengths and ongoing efforts in both areas, providing the foundation for this initiative.
Visualization of their goal: Picture the Mississippi River System as being a many fingered hand of water flows extending north from the Gulf of Mexico, then imagine putting a thick hairy green glove of perennial crops and marshy buffers. This glove provides an environmental transition zone for the movement of life from soil life to birds flying above. Like the human body’s interstitium, it can be unhealthy or healthy in what it delivers to the body or landmass - contaminated with sickening pollutants or regenerative, providing the substances of life required by humans, animals, plants and microbes. Finally, extend the green glove by planting year-round cover crops between the rows of the primary cash crops, and then provide perennial alternatives for small grains that do not require annual plowing.
Elder: the Little Berry that Could
Minnesota, for example, has almost 16 million acres of corn and soybeans. University researchers estimate that a 100,000 acres of farmland needs to be repurposed as buffer zones along waterways with both biomass and berry options. In 2017 Minnesota had little under 800 acres of commercially grown berry crops. Minnesota consumer demand could support ten times that number of acres, which would still remain minuscule compared to corn and soybeans, yet provide huge environmental and nutritional benefits.
Enter the native Elderberry, Sambucus canadensis. Hardy and already adapted to North America east of the Rockies, elder flowers and berries provide abundant environmental benefits with their extensive root systems, rapid growth, fragrant flowers and nutrient dense berries. University of Missouri researchers counted 67 native pollinators on elder - both at its stem nectaries and on its flowers. The economic potential for US grown elder is huge. Best estimates cite over 30,000 acres of elder cultivated in Europe and many more are harvested out of the wild.
Missouri leads the USA in elderberry production with over 350 acres grown commercially. It is their number one berry crop economically. How did it get that way? Through collaboration between University of Missouri researchers and extension beginning about the year 2000 and the early elderberry growers, especially Terry Durham of Eridu Farms. Propagation began in 2004, and the first commercial pots of elder were planted in 2005.
Terry knew that farmers would not grow what they could not sell, so he founded the River Hills Harvest brand of elder berry (and now flower) products in 2006. His commercial enterprise supported by university research motivated farmers to grow elderberry and inspired others to develop their own commercial enterprises using elder berries and flowers.
The success of River Hills Harvest supports hundreds of acres of native (Sambucus canadensis), better tasting, elderberry. To support thousands of acres, Midwest Elderberry Cooperative is developing ingredient products that provide elder berry and flower flavor alternatives to many kinds of food, beverage and herbal products. The demand is there, and not only as a substitute for the imported 95% of elderberry sold in America today. Consumers and companies want locally grown, truly nutrient dense berries and flowers from our native perennial with positively so much good environmental and human health potential. MEC’s Project 22-50 is our plan to get there.
To learn about the philosophy and reasoning behind our cooperative, please watch the hour & 6 minute narrated presentation linked below:
MEC: A Coop Answer to Current & Historical Socio-Economic and Environmental Challenges, Christopher J. Patton MA, MBA