Anybody have experience with Jewell black raspberries and how their taste compares to Munger? I’ve got Munger going and enjoy it, but not sure how flavor might vary among the black raspberry varieties.
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I have Jewel but not Munger . Jewel is good . IMO not much difference in blacks on taste . We have wild blacks and flavor is about the same for Jewel IMO .Niwot is the exception . Not much flavor IMO .
Funny I think Niwot tastes better than Jewel The primocane fruit is terrible but the floricane fruit is amazing. I crossed Niwot with Jewel and also with a wild Ontario yellow-brown cap. Both have much better primocane berries. The Ontario produced the largest black raspberries I ever saw. I named it Lynn’s Black. If you look for the thread “ black raspberries in September” you can see photos of Lynn’s Black. This year was the second year I got primocane berries and they were outstanding. Better than last year.
I grew both Jewel and Munger here in my zone 8 Oregon orchard. I didn’t notice much difference in taste. IMO the biggest difference is in size. Jewel are a bit larger and seem a little less seedier. I had 3 plants of each but I took out the 3 Munger a few years ago and replaced them with a tayberry planting. I mostly make syrup and flavored brandy liquore with the Jewels.
I found some large wilds in Ontario and they really are big. When crossed with Niwot I got huge primocane berries. Unreal in size. Flavor is excellent too.
The Ontario is a yellow-brown cap. I used pollen from this plant.
In the first photo of the cross you can see the berries turn yellow to red to purple. Very different genetics in that Ontario wild!
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Really cool that you are developing new varieties from your own crosses!
Yes. still working on crosses, but took a year off. Life getting in the way!
I also have my own regular raspberry cultivars. Like “Irene” is a pink raspberry I developed.
This is really a failure as I was trying to develop an orange raspberry. I will try again. I thought I had it as Irene is orange, but when fully ripe turns pink.
I love all kinds of berries, and grow many of them.
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That’s a really interesting observation. I grow some everbearing red raspberries, and I’ve never noticed a difference between primocane and floricane fruit. Or if i have, I’ve attributed it to the weather.
I think i asked before, but are you propagating that?
I have not either. Size yes, primocane fruit being bigger. Same with black caps btw. I was helped in making crosses by Pete Tallman. He is the breeder who developed Niwot. He helped me with techniques and methods used to cross and grow rubus species seeds. He too thought the primocane berries were bad, and gave me seeds to a cross he made with Niwot that produced better primocane berries. Bristol, I think is what he used. Which is the same as Munger. He also gave me seeds from his collection of wild Rubus occidentalis seeds. Including black, red, brown and yellow caps. He was done, retired, didn’t want them. I have not grown these out, any of them. At the time I got them I needed to practice growing out seed, before I attempted to germinate these rare crosses and wild seeds. Pete said to freeze them to keep for years. I never got around to growing any out as I wanted to do my own crosses. I will one day.
Yes, but I can only do a couple each year. I have a very long list of people who want it.
I have no interest in making it commercial. It takes 20 years, I doubt I will be here that long. Life is too short to waste my time jumping through hoops.
I have other crosses too. Still in evaluation.I also have a couple goals. To create an everbearing yellow cap. Red would be cool too. Playing around with red and yellow (idaeus) types too.
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