I read the ASHS article and found no big surprises. I have Caddo in the ground but have not tasted it yet. I have grown the other three on your list in a 7B climate probably not too different from the climate where they originated. They all taste similar to me. In my opinion. the ripeness of the berry is just as important as the variety for taste, but I do see big differences in the size of the fruit between varieties. I have also noticed that the published Brix of each variety seems to vary a lot depending on where its grown and the people doing the test. In the ASHS article I noticed that Caddo had a lower sugar level and more acid than some of the earlier introductions. I would expect that to translate into a less desirable flavor rather than the more desirable flavor that the plant breeders indicate.
We plan to plant some Ponca this fall. Some folks say its the best variety out of University of Arkansas berry so far but that is what they said about Osage and later about Caddo.
Of those, I have Osage and Ouachita, along with Freedom, Traveler and Triple Crown. All of them planted two years ago.
Last year was our first crop from all of them, although it was very small. This year our canes had better winter survival than last year so we should get a bigger crop.
Anyway, for taste, Iād say TC was best, maybe because it didnāt taste like the others and a little bit sweeter. In second was Osage, it distinguished itself compared to the other three UA varieties. The others didnāt give me a lot to sample, but taste wise they rank from best to less favorite is Traveler, Ouachita and Freedom.
I really wanted to try Caddo, but waited to long to order anything, so it will have to wait until next year I guess. Hopefully Ponca will be available then.
I am interested to hear your take on Columbia Sunrise and Giant. C. Sunrise is supposed to start loosing floricane buds around 15F vs C. Star has a pretty amazing tolerance to around 5F! That is just amazing to me- by pulling the canes down and insulating you could grow it outdoors in tons of places other trailing ones would fail. I think Iāll try C. Star here, hoping it is more full flavored than it was for Drew. I see Raintree still has Columbia Giant this year, though I think ill hold since I have a shoulder injury and I wonāt be able to move large planters. In the release article for Columbia Giant, they rated winter injury being somewhat worse than black diamond. Not to derail the thornless aspect, but I can also vouch for the glorys of the Tayberry- my wife hoards a couple gallons in the freezer from the family farm in WA. I think that one may still be on patent, but Newberry is NOT patented so anyone wanting to propagate can do so without feeling guilty.
Most of this thread is on the eastern breeders, but I wanted to mention that Chadd Finn in Oregon has released a couple of their east/west thornless hybrids: Galaxy (ORUS 2711-1), and Eclipse (ORUS 2816-4). I have both of them and they are as good as any of the eastern ones (e.g. Osage and Triple Crown). They are not super easy to find though. Still none of these are in the Marion league for flavor. Maybe one of these yearsā¦
Yes, Iād love to hear from anyone that has a chance to sample any this summer, or see one of those articles that feature a blinded taste scoring with their other berries.
I have never seen a blind taste test on blackberries, but I would love to if anyone can point to one.
From what I understand the stuff that grows well in the PNW, but not in the SE has a more pleasing flavor. I donāt see a big difference in the taste of any of the Arkansas blackberries although they seem to promote the flavor of each new introduction as better than their older varieties.
We have heard comments about blackberries from our PYO customers.for a long time and the variety mentioned most often as their favorite is āNavahoā which is a very old Arkansas variety, perhaps their first thornless variety. I like the flavor too, but after about 12 years the orange rust in terrible in the Navaho so they are going to be replaced with Von which is a variety from NCSU that ripens about the same time. I like the taste of Triple Crown, but it gets ripe late here about the time that SWD flourish.
I canāt grow apples in my area but most blackberries do well and rabbiteye blueberries grow like weeds once they get started.
The primary change over the years is sweeter fruit. There has also been some selection for flavonoids, aromatic compounds that affect smell more than taste.
Iām growing a wild blackberry that I noticed a few years ago that ripens fruit 3 to 4 weeks earlier than any other wild plant. It was in full bloom by March 20th this year. Other blackberries in the area hit full bloom a full month later. Time will tell if it has breeding potential.
In one of my posts above I link to pdf documents on Columbia Giant. The authors lay out some taste test results in those documents. Probably in other Oregon cultivar documents too.
I never really heard that from them. I thought in the interview about Ponca they mention their best as Osage and Caddo. Caddo has bigger berries so an improvement on Osage.
Taste about the same. What I got from the interview. And comments here put Osage as best, so it seemed fairly accurate what they were saying. Also said that Ponca is their best yet. The breeder seemed excited about it. Kind of soon after only one year to throw Caddo under the bus in the sense of knocking it off the best flavor soap box so soon. If Caddo tastes like Osage then it is their best. Or apparently was!
I do completely agree with you that they are all in the same league. They are very close to each other in flavor. By contrast the Oregon program releases I have tasted do seem to vary. Newberry is nothing like Columbia Star although closely related.
I grew Navaho and agree itās good. That should have been mentioned in that article but was not. To tell the truth I could not tell it from Triple Crown. Which is like the Red Haven of thornless blackberries. used to compare all others. So itās a good thing!
Most of the brix measurements I have seen do not seem to indicate that the SS levels are increasing with each variety. In fact, a comprehensive study over multiple years published in a journal article from the ASHS showed brix and flavor levels fairly constant. Most years, the highest sugar level and lowest acid level was Navaho which is released in 1988
I have no knowledge of experience with any of the PNW berries but I have listened to thousands of my PYO customers comment on backberries starting with Dirkson and Black Satan which were sour and softin the early 80ās. Later, Shawnee with thorns and Navaho with no thorns in the late 80ās and more reciently Natchez, Navaho, Ouchata and Osage. Their comments and preference for Navaho seem to back up the scholarly data published in the Journal of American Journal Horticultural Science.
Brix isnāt everything. Loch Ness tastes like balls of sugar. So much so itās boring. I culled mine out (along with Navaho too, for other reasons, grassy flavor when not fully ripe, and SWD ripening time). I though am very picky about blackberry flavor, so Iām certainly not typical. If recent additions donāt work out Iām going back to old school eastern blackberries.
Which reminds me that there are 4 kinds of tomato tasters.
Old fashioned āacidā tomato flavor similar to Rutgers
Sweet as sugar as in Momotaro and SunGold
Tart like a lemon as in Green Zebra and Jaune Flammee
Balanced with some sugar and some tart and some acid as in Crnkovic Yugoslavian
Iām in the balanced group though I enjoy tart and acid just as much.
There is one tomato flavor that I have not yet found anyone likes. It is a very pronounced ādirty socksā smelling sour flavor found in Smoky Mountain Red.
Interesting trivia, some people are super tasters with much higher taste bud density on their tongue which gives them better than normal ability to taste flavor nuances. There are also super sniffers who have enhanced sense of smell. It is intriguing that both super tasters and super sniffers tend to prefer balanced flavor tomatoes. I tend to have better than normal sense of smell with perhaps slightly increased sense of taste. I know of one other person who is definitely a super taster and can tease out flavor nuances I can barely detect.
Brix tests only go so far. They measure soluble solids which is not precisely the same as sugar content. Also, all sugars are not created equal. Most plants produce sucrose, the same as table sugar, which is relatively low in sweetness to taste buds. Glucose and Fructose are much higher in relative sweetness. Fruits may have high brix based on sucrose but taste less sweet by far than a similar fruit of a different variety that has higher glucose. Still, brix is the best overall measure we have.
Iām going to append this here just in case someone is interested.
Here are some pictures from 2020/04/20 that show relative development of the early blooming plants. The normal blackberries were in full bloom the day I took the pictures. Early blooming plants have fruit that is about 40% enlarged. The normal plants are less than 30 feet from the early blooming clump. There are a few other plants within a 50 ft radius that are also early blooming.
I dug up a large root from the early blooming clump and moved it to my home. It is growing new canes that should bloom next year.
This is a normal blooming plant in full bloom 2020/04/20
Good post, we all have different tastes. I cannot rely on other peopleās opinions. Like with pluots two that are often dogged are my favorites. One Flavor Queen is said to be all sugar, no taste. Well we canāt get the high brix like in California, or under controlled greenhouse conditions. So maybe itās less sugar? I taste a tropical like flavor between papaya and coconut. Superb! Very subtle, and could be completely hidden with more sugar. Much how sugar can kill flavor in jams (at least for me!).
We all agree that the ābest tastingā blackberries are more than just the Brix and acid level of the fruit but those seem to be the only numbers normally available in the published data for the Arkansas varieties Iām familiar with
Iām not confident that the newest Arkansas varieties are āsweeterā than many of the the earlier releases at least in terms of measured brix. I have not tasted Caddo yet, but I was not overwhelmed by the taste of Osage. The sweetest blackberry I have ever tasted was a huge Natchez that had been hanging on the vine a good while.
I stand by my comments that each new Arkansas blackberry variety seems to be promoted as having a higher āflavor levelā than prior varieties. Perhaps they do, but I have not seen it on my farm.
The Arkansas blackberries have changed (perhaps revolutionized) blackberry growing in many positive ways, so I donāt intend to be too critical about what looks like over-promotion to me. It does remind me of the Geneva rootstocks from Cornell. Some of the newer introductions are better than the old introductions and some are not. The only way to know for sure to test them in your location.
While Iām on the subject. Does anyone know the protocol for getting plant material to grow out? Like as in an application to U of A or other horticultural arenas that specialize in trialing ānewā varieties?
The sweetest berry I tasted was tayberry. More a lack of acid than more sugar. My plants have to be hardy enough too. In general I donāt care for the thornless types. Iām willing to give Ponca a try, but if itās a dud, I wonāt try again. I really only need a good processing berry and hoping Columbia Giant will work for me.I will have to protect it, so not sure how well it will work long term. I need to try it and see if I can get it to work. I have found the Arkansas plants, most of them hardy enough to work here. But the ripening times was a problem,and for me the quality of the berry. Seems the only ones I like struggle to grow here.
