Blackberries, Raspberries and Hybrids

Oh yeah…

They’ve been here for about a month now I’d say, but I didn’t pay special attention so they may have been active earlier. For us they over winter as grubs so they pop up just as soon as the weather gets warm enough.

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Those look pretty different from the ones I’ve grown, and in a better way I’d say. Curious which species it might be.

@TNHunter, @a_Vivaldi and @krismoriah, I think that one of the pictures above is actually Smallanthus uvedalia, pictured below:

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@Audi_o_phile … good ID.

I guess what i thought was tithonia… was just a close lookalike that is native to TN here.

I was at my daughters new home place yesterday evening … and found more of that down there… and a huge patch of it across the creek.

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Thank you @TNHunter, but I cannot take credit for that being something that I identified all on my own. Sometimes my desire for knowledge gets the best of me and I resort to an image search function.

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@TNHunter @Audi_o_phile

I did a search and nobody has talked about this plant before…and is good intel for those of us into pollinators and perennials… so if either of you dont mind sharing in the pollinator thread…i think many of us would be interested in this. Seems like a nice thing to have if you grow fruit.

Common name- Bear’s Foot
Many pollinators are attracted to the flowers and use their nectar. Bees, wasps, and flies have been spotted using the plant. Birds eat the seeds. Bees overwinter in the hollow stems.

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I wish that I had more that I could contribute, but I don’t have any personal experience with the plant. YET. Now that I know what it is I plan to add some to my flower mix for pollinators.

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@krismoriah … here on my 30 acres… i have only found this one clump of that (mexican sunflower lookalike).

It produces lots of nice yellow flowers and i know that bees love it… they are always there enjoying it.

I dont see any offspring of this plant poping up in my fields… have only found this one clump. It looks like it has at least 30 flower stems arising from this one clump.

But now down at my daughters new home place… there is a huge patch of it on a hillside above a cow pasture. Looks like a few hundred clumps of this multi stemmed tall flower at least.

It obviously can spread around… but so far at my place has not.

They may have bushhogged it at some time… where my one plant is in the edge of the woods and just misses getting bushhogged.

It looks like something that you could dig up the clump when dormant and divide and replant easily.

I will look into collecting some seed as well and try growing some from seed.

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Anticipation-

First king berry ripes

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wow! those are loaded! what cultivar?

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got about a doz. blooms on my Colombian giant. Chester/ triple crowns just starting to bloom. im psyched to try any of them. thank you trailing blackberries. without them trailing i couldnt grow them here.

Summer raspberries getting going here outside Boston (6b). Jewel black, Double Gold, and Heritage red. Some of the Jewel are slightly underripe but to paraphrase the old saying, a berry in the hand is worth two in the bird.

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:joy: Man! those look really nice.

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Love double gold, beautiful berries

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Victory… looks to ripen same as Caddo… I have Caddo the next row over in same conditions and the fruit sets are small compared to these. I am several weeks behind most of the southern folks.

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I have been seeing lots of folks post these the past few weeks… a few years ago these got fairly bad reviews… words like bland and tasteless were used… now all of a sudden they are great. Thank you for the review.

I got a lead on these… they are called Nugget. Guy says he grows Anne, Double Gold and Fall Gold and these taste like a mix of peach/mandarin/apricot and black raspberry.

He can trace their history in PA for 70 years so i have no idea what they could be…most all modern yellows are recent releases and finds.

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Hello,
I posted couple weeks ago about my triple crown blackberry, which has not put out new canes yet this year.

@krismoriah recommended that I post here about this. Here’s a picture (TC in the middle; Ponca to the left; PAF to the right)

Although the original raised bed is only 1 ft wide, I know from prior years that the roots spread out into my yard (canes were growing in my yard). So I guess at this point I won’t be getting a TC crop next year. My TC berries are just starting to ripen and as I’m tasting them and seeing the SWD already invading, I’m starting to think maybe I don’t even like TC that much. I’d be better off with something that ripens early or late to avoid SWD and maybe something quite a bit different than Ponca and PAF.

So, I’m now asking you for a recommendation. If I were to replace TC with some other blackberry (or other hybrid) to round out my collection, what would you recommend?

Note: I already grow raspberries (Prelude, Royalty, Caroline, Anne) so am not interested in another raspberry (but would consider black raspberry).

An hybrid, Tayberry or a Loganberry (more acidic) they are early.

Loch Tay is an early blackberry but I don’t think it is available in US.

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I pulled 10 TC plants last fall… and probably this year i have had over 200 or so suckers pop up where i couldnt possibly get the all of the roots. So you saying that there is no primocanes means that something is pretty badly wrong… because of the insane vigor of TC… you should have suckers popping up let alone no primocanes… So after this harvest pull it out and lets see what the crown looks like… my guess is that it has crown gall or something that has damaged the crown.

Also to note this isnt said very often but when you pull a plant… replace it with the opposite. So if you pull a thornless you will be glad to plant a thorned one in its place. Otherwise you will always wonder if those little ones popping up are new primocanes or suckers. Its tough to get all the roots…sometimes impossible.

So with that being said i would vote for Prime Ark Horizon or Kiowa… im eating Kiowa now and they are a fine berry. Thorny though.

Prime Ark Horizon is the heaviest cropping plant that U of Ark has released… so it will outperform TC… im not sure of the ripening dates on them yet. But u should get an early and a late crop which may avoid SWD both times.

You could also wait for the new releases coming… Zodiac looks to be worth growing.

If you dont mind fooling with trailing cultivars Obsidian will be one of the earliest… TNHunter and I am trying it. It and Tayberry and Logan will do better with more room though…

BTW what is that mulch you are using? Is it storebought colored mulch or?

Thanks @sub and @krismoriah for the suggestions. Going thorned is a really great idea to keep track of things.

I’ve been doing some research on black raspberries today. I’ve avoided in the past because of the disease warnings but now I’m thinking differently after reading some of the advice from @krismoriah. Any recommendations for black raspberries?

I’ll be happy to take some pictures of the crown when I dig it up later this summer.

The mulch is homemade compost.

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