A rhubarb-growing project in Portage la Prairie is testing winter-hardiness of the perennial plant.

Manitoba Agriculture provincial fruit crops specialist Anthony Mintenko says this will be the second summer he's grown rhubarb for research through the Prairie Fruit Growers Association's orchard at the Agriculture Canada centre in Portage.

"I was at a talk in Minnesota on rhubarb for commercial production, and they mentioned not all the varieties are as winter-hardy as you think," he says. "So I thought, if someone's going to try this on a commercial basis we should know that they're going to be long term and sustainable, cause you'd hate to put in like half an acre of rhubarb and then have half of it die out."

Mintenko's project includes five common varieties of rhubarb that would be available at a commercial nursery. After one winter, he says all the plants came through the freeze and thaw fairly well.

"But it was kind of a mild winter," he adds, "so I always like to have at least two years of winter testing to make the final evaluation."

Mintenko thinks there's definitely an opportunity for commercial rhubarb growers in Manitoba, though it would be limited.

"Like I don't think every single vendor (at a market garden) could have rhubarb, but there's definitely opportunity there right now," Mintenko says, adding there is also an interest among growers. "There's the odd market gardener who sells it at a farmers' market, and there's been some interest from some of the commercial growers of getting into it."

Mintenko says rhubarb is also a fairly easy food to grow, as it typically doesn't have disease or insect issues.