Dec 14, 2021

North American Raspberry & Blackberry Conference in-person and virtual

The North American Raspberry & Blackberry Association (NARBA) annual conference on  Feb. 21-24, 2022, will be a hybrid conference for both virtual registrants and for in-person attendees at the conference location in Gaithersburg, Maryland, about 45 minutes from Washington, D.C.

Most in-person sessions will be live-streamed for virtual participants, and recorded sessions will be available for on-demand viewing by all registrants for an extended period.

Special features for novice growers include a seven session “Getting Started in Raspberries & Blackberries” virtual short course, which starts Jan.  31, and an in-person workshop on the “Fundamentals of Caneberry Production” on Monday, Feb. 21.

A full-day tour is planned for Tuesday, Feb. 22. Stops include Butler’s Orchard and Larriland Farm, two well-established and successful direct market farms, raising caneberries and other crops, and Doc Waters Cidery, operated by the Butler family. A post-conference “Tastemaker Trail” tour, visiting a brewery, winery, and farm-to-table restaurant is also being planned. For virtual registrants, more than a dozen virtual presentations are scheduled concurrent with the conference tour.

Wednesday, Feb. 23 and Thursday, Feb. 24 feature a trade show and educational sessions on a wide range of topics. These include caneberry breeding, pest and disease control, high tunnel and long-cane production, grower innovations, food safety and farm management, and more. Growers are featured in presentations by long-time growers Richard and Susan Lynn, Sandhill Berries (Mt. Pleasant, PA) and high-tunnel blackberry grower Neil Pastore (Hammonton, NJ).

As the conference is so close to Washington, D.C., presentations and discussions of agricultural and labor policy and legislation and how they affect berry growers are also being featured.

Three graduate student travel scholarships to the conference are available through the North American Bramble Growers Research Foundation, and the conference invites poster submissions. Details may be found on the conference website.

For detailed information and registration, visit www.raspberryblackberry.com/2022-north-american-raspberry-blackberry-conference/ or email [email protected].  An early-bird registration discount is in effect through January 20.  Registration is also discounted for NARBA members, including those who join with their registration. Both the tour and in-person workshop have limited registration, on a first-come basis.

The host hotel is the  DoubleTree by Hilton Washington DC North/Gaithersburg, with a special conference rate of $99/night. For reservations Call 301-977-8900 and mention “NARBA Conference”  or make reservations at the dedicated reservations page.

The North American Raspberry & Blackberry Association is a membership association of growers large and small, researchers, suppliers, and others in the caneberry industry.

The association held its 2021 conference virtually, but typically moves the conference around the country, most recently meeting in Ventura, California (2018), Savannah, Georgia (2019) and St. Louis, Missouri (2020).

For more information about the Association or to become a member, visit www.raspberryblackberry.com.