anyone have suggestions for raspberry and black raspberry varieties for Austin Texas? a friend of mine is lamenting they cant grow raspberries but i thought htere were a few low chill ones floating around. i got tons of chill up here in ny so not really sure.
Cascade Delight is worth a try. Bababerry, Polka, Tulameen, Fall Red, Autumn Bliss and Britten are tough also.
Black Rasps- might try Blackhawk… or Mysore
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Not sure if they have much parentage in common, but Cascade Harvest has done very, very poorly for me in zone 8 eastern NC.
This one does the best for me. Heritage is a runner up but a pretty distant one.
Tayberry is worth a shot, not sure about its chill hours but it can take some heat and be ok.
Austin might still be too cold for Mysore. I’m trying this year to track its hardiness more closely. So far, it was unfazed by 30 F but took a little damage after an hour or so at 25 F. Flower buds are still fine which is impressive. I know at some point this winter it will die to the ground, just not sure if that’ll be after lower twenties or upper teens.
Also, the fruit are pretty small and seedy, might be disappointing for someone used to temperate raspberries.
My 2¢. I’m still pretty new at cane berries all things considered.
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Gimme a few years and I’ll hopefully have some new red and purple varieties for the South. ; )
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Fall Red was my winner for heat and drought torture as well as flavor. Caroline next best… Heritage survived but dull and bland compared to Fall Red. Cascade Harvest has a failure to thrive here Delight doesnt…but is cold tender at 0F for me. So the few berries that i do get are awesome but not enough to say its worth growing here.
Phenomenal for sure as well as Logan, Boysen and those parentages of the old california red rasps love the heat more than the cold. Tayberry is more tender then those with UK parentages but doable with some shade… as the berries become soft and mushy in high heat. My 1cent observations.
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I have been growing fruit for 50 years, and have several varieties. I am not sure where you live. I live in Washington State on the Olympic Peninsula. I have had the good, bad, and the ugly. I have been here for 34 years after moving from Minnesota. The blackberry varieties I now grow are SWEET REPEAT from Stark, the first one planted when moving here. They produce a sweet fruit; not as bountiful, but they are still growing them. I planted 20 DOYLES BLACKBERRIES, and they have grown into 40. I believe this is the result of birds eating them and making a deposit! They have been very productive. I grew these in Minnesota, laid them down for the winter, covered them with straw, and fenced them in with mouse-proof wire. I had eight there. I planted 35 PRIME ARK FREEDOM two years ago; they produce early spring, and they are still growing slowly as we have not had a hard frost here yet, kind of late this year. I like this variety he best so far. I also have TRIPLE CROWN, A few Native American names, and my biggest disappointment was in the CASCADE GIANT THORNLESS. I ended up digging up the six I had planted. The PRIME ARK FREEDOM I purchased through Home Depot, they shipped it free from a Southern State, very healthy, great quality. I ordered them in groups of eight, I believe. They had a very good price in March or April.
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Sweet Repeat from Stark Bros. is Niwot black rasp… so not sure if thats what you meant.
Not heard of this one… do you mean Columbia Giant?
Good reports though and look forward to more of your reports.
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I have some primocane flower buds on my Hexaploid Blackberry x Raspberry F1 Hybrid, a worlds first I think. I did a pollination x a raspberry with 25% Black raspberry in it. Not sure if the fruit will be red or purple.
On a disappointing note, the Mysore x red raspberry backcrosses to red raspberry gave only a few very weak sick seedlings. I culled them today. It looks like combining Red raspberry and Mysore raspberry and getting a vigorous self fertile cross may not be possible. I still have some seeds from a cross with purple raspberries germinating. Will have to wait and see if anything comes of them.
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Greetings from Europe! I mainly grow blackberries, the varieties available in Europe, but I’m studying from the literature the history of variety breeding and selection in the USA: does anyone still grow the Lucretia variety? I would love to see it
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Thanks for the info! It doesn’t gum up your grinder eh? I’ve got an old magic bullet I could use…What kinda drying agent do you use?
No if dried correctly it powders. I use those dry packets found in various products. I used to mix commercial garlic powder but I have not bought any in five years.
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Newbie here! Any suggestions for your favorite varieties to grow in the southeast? I’m in GA zone 8a working on a garden / home orchard at a new home. Last year I put in Heritage raspberries and Navaho blackberries. This year I realized the value of diversifying and ordered some more blackberry varieties (Von, Ponca, Darrow, and PAF). I think I can fit another 6-8 plants and wondering if there are some good hybrids to try for something new?I’ve been ordering from Isons and they offer boysenberry, loganberry, Marion berry, and tayberry. But not finding specific info on how well they would handle humidity and disease pressure. So… any suggestions for this area? I don’t care about thorns or trailing/erect, just flavor and disease resistance. And it would be nice to have a range of flavors and ripening time. Thanks for all the great info on this thread!
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Tayberry is sweet and low acid, can be hard to pick though as the berries are soft but don’t detach easily, Loganberry is very tart unless very ripe. They do ok for me, better than most raspberries but not as well as eastern blackberries. Marionberry might struggle here, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
Bababerry has been my best performing raspberry. It’s hard to get ahold of though. Do not buy the one sold by Ty Ty nursery, they’re lying about that listing and will ship you feral wineberry plants that are small and sour.
PAF will give you different ripening times depending on how you treat it. If you have one bed that has florocanes and one that you mow each winter, you’ll probably get PAF to fruit three or so different times in the spring and fall. If you don’t mind tart berries, Kiowa has a very long harvest window. The berries are also absolutely massive and the plants are monsters that get huge and produce a ton.
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Thank you! I will try loganberry and Kiowa then. Do you know of a reliable source for bababerry? Thanks for your help!
I got mine from Scenic Hill Nursery. Looking through my orders, it was Willis that sent me fake Bababerry, so buyer beware Willis Nursery.
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SWD will likely be an issue so if it were me i would avoid later ripening ones.
Ponca and Caddo are probably the best choices. PAF is also early ripening but proper tipping and pruning is needed for a decent yield of floricanes while managing primocanes at the same time to fruit in the fall can be confusing to some… but worth growing if you are able to manage both. My climate is poor for the primocane fruiting due to late ripening so not worth growing for me.
Prelude is also probably a wise choice on red rasps.
Your other choices like Von and Darrow will be good for testing of the SWD…and you will know if you need to omit them or not.
If you want to do trailing then Columbia Star and Columbia Sunrise are worth growing.
As far as the hybrids Newberry.
Loganberry and Boysenberry are lesser quality by a fair margin and thornless Boysenberry even lesser.
Tayberry isnt really worth growing unless you pick them in the evening or morning and the weather cooperates… and you plan on using them for jam shortly after picking. It is a dessert berry that is more like a red rasp but very soft and mushy when not picked at its prime. No where near as good as Newberry.
Other points to ponder are cane borers which are an issue and have caused alot of woe for myself and i think Zendog and others like TNHunter… so proper management and alot of pruning needed in the south and southeast…which some borers causing more damage than others.
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I’m going to try and figure out what the SWD windows actually are down here. If they take a break once things really warm up in the summer, then it’s possible some later varieties might be better than mid season ones. Not sure, especially since there’s a lot of variation year to year as far as how hot June and July actually get.
PAF would be so great down here if I could keep the deer off of it consistently.
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personally, also I just eat them with SWD 
aparently if you just eat them the day you pick them you cant r eally notice the little eggs and larvae. At least Ive never noticed mine. So depends how many plants you grow. now that ive adderd 5 more plants maybe this will change.
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Anyone else DC metro area interested in Fall Red raspberry Kris raves about? Fedco sells in 5 pack and I only wanr 2. Reach out If you want to split it (you take 1-3) with me.
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There isnt much info on them online… my first berries on the floricanes show up in early june… then the primocanes fruit in early August here. I know that folks a zone up from me are a few weeks earlier so those dates will change for them i think…and colder climates will probably be behind a week or so.
As far as the Fall Red/August Red naming… i am not totally sure but i made an educated guess that the Fall Red that Stark Bros. used to sell is also August Red that RH Shumway sells. If not then blame me… as the descriptions seem nearly identical.
Mine are from Shumway (which sells excellent plants).
Also to note there is a new to me variety of raspberry sold by Hartmanns. Georgia Red… which was bred by Harry Swartz who also bred Caroline/Josephine and lots of the other raspberries with ladies names. It too seems to favor early ripening…and it is thornless.
Patent and plant info-
Plant for sale-
Personally i am just about finished going down the Red Raspberry rabbit hole… there is just too many of them and there is only so many variations of a simple taste that is worth chasing.
Early fruiting is great for me… the taste of the Fall Red is about as classic red raspberry that i want. I have it in the same row as Heritage which i also ‘liked’ but tasting them side by side its a no brainer. Fall Red has much more flavor… which I had tasted before with Cascade Delight… Most all of my other rasps suffered immensely during the heat and drought of the past two summers and i lost alot of them (which is fine). Fall Red was a trooper…which is why i am sharing that information.
I do not irrigate so that of course is/was a factor in losing most of the rasps… but i dont plan on irrigating which is why I said it was fine that the weaknesses in the others showed.
Having said that… Georgia interests me as i am a fan of Swartz other breeding successes…barring Whyberry. I might give it a try.
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