I’m gonna correct a mistake I made earlier, claiming that Joan J, Polana and Caroline were all ripening. I’m pretty sure now that it was just Joan J and Polana. Polana borders Caroline and had intermixed with it. So I was seeing Polana that had invaded the Caroline bed.
4 Likes
Unfortunately my Caroline has been dealing with spur blight which has resulted in a decent amount of foliage loss but it should ultimately recover. Still no flowering yet but there is more new growth.
Shoot, I do not have those varieties. I do have: Freedom, Traveler, Horizon, Ouchita, kiowa, Triple, Big Daddy, Thunderhead, immaculate, and a special one I grew from many seeds and paired down to the strongest plant. It produces very firm medium size berries with a taste that will make you close your eyes. Grows fully erect and has some thorns but nothing scary. The seeds came from a famous cultivar that has become a household name in the berry game, results are not far off from true mother plant imo. Firm offers a longer shelf life.
Between this plant I grew from seed and PAF, these are honestly my favorite berries
1 Like
Any leads on what variety this may be? What I know:
- it’s thornless
- I was told it’s a marion or Boyson (I’ve mixed myself up about which). Above it was suggested it does not look like marion
- the canes pictured are more than 10ft from where I believe the original planting is (it’s now sandwiched between a shed and a fence so it’s hard to get back there and check)
- When the berries are ripe enough to very easily come off, they are rich and almost winey, unlike the Himalayan berries that grow wild around here
- Berries started getting ripe around the Fourth of July and there are still green and red berries ripening (in the inland east bay California)
- As far as I know, the plant does not get any additional water or nutrition and probably hasn’t in what I’d guess is its 10+ year life), meaning it hasn’t had meaningful water since April/may. When the temps got into the 90s/100 late July/early August a large portion of the unripe berries turned brown and dried up and many turned into blackberry raisins
Previously pictured
And once the heat hit it
2 Likes
Probably thornless boysen. I’m surprised even if it is thornless boysen that the whole plant hasn’t basically reverted to thorny by this point given it’s age and growing conditions. Is this a neighbor’s plant growing over onto your side?
1 Like
It’s on our side, I think originally our side and front fence corner and the shed was put in after planting so it’s caning its way over the front fence (but access is guarded by 7-8ft tall roses) and along the shed and over the side fence.
This afternoon I got the ladder and yanked several of the canes back on to our side since the neighbor never eats them and his tacky & aphid-infested oleander is raining honeydew on my Cara Cara.
I can’t be sure of the age, but guessing based on how long ago our landlords moved out and started renting the place
1 Like
The leaves on the upper canes stretching over everything look like boysen or similar PNW varieties. If it is thorny boysen it’s doing quite well for itself. Usually they’re less vigorous, but this plant is 10 years old. Any reason to not give it water in summer? It’d certainly appreciate that during the fruiting season.
2 Likes
The main two reasons for the lack of water are
- It’s a real pain to get back there
- I can’t be trusted to water anything not on a timer (ie anything I have to water)
They might be able to steal some water from the landscaping nearby, but it’s clearly not enough.
And speaking of thornlessness, how dominant/recessive of a trait is that? If I have canes coming up a few feet away that are also thornless can I assume they’re the same plant and not offspring? What about 20ft away? I’ve been experimenting with digging some up and trying to root them
Edit: thanks for the ID help, should have started with that
1 Like
From the vigour of the canes and the density of the fruit, to me it looks a lot like Doyle’s Thornless.
3 Likes
You could probably give it just 1-2 gallons a week in the summer and it’d be fine. As far as thornlessness of boysenberry goes, it’s quite weak actually. Last I heard is that it was a periclinal chimera meaning only the outer layers were thornless and it has a strong tendency to revert. I’ve seen it in person on a small thornless plant I had growing that put up thorned canes, although they weren’t as thorny as my normal boysen plants. That’s what makes me wonder what you might actually have because by now it’d have some thorns somewhere in there.
3 Likes
My olallies seemed to have been growing very slowly since transplanting into the ground and were stealing nutrients from old leaves longer than they should. One plant seems to be establishing itself a bit more than the other one, but both are growing slower than they should. I figured I either had a root rot issue or some kind of compacted soil problem so I basically pulled one of them out to examine the roots/planting hole for signs of excess moisture. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) there didn’t appear to be any signs of significant root rot, foul smell, or excessive moisture once I dug it out and in fact the plant was sending out a ton of roots into the native soil with no issues. I’m a little bit bummed because I basically ripped this plant out of the ground only to find no obvious issues and now forcing it to go through another round of shock as it reestablishes. On the bright side, I switched from tree rings to a 2x8 20x16” raised box (total PITA digging-wise) as the box is a better setup and provides about twice the amount of raised soil vs the scalloped tree rings. I also got to mix in a bit more native soil.
3 Likes
Had some primocane raspberry today. Supposed to be fall gold but this is from home depot… quite pink. Any idea if this looks right? Thinking it might be double gold. really nice apricot flavor either way, enjoy them.
9 Likes
they look like double gold. i had some awhile back but they died of root rot. same color / flavor profile.
1 Like
Jewel Black having a grand ole time in this 20” I put it in. I tipped it at 3 ft and it exploded with laterals and I even tipped some of those too. I might have to prune it back even more because it’s a very vigorous plant.
You can also see Baby Cakes peeking out on the right. If you’ll excuse the blueberries for sneaking in, this is my “dwarf grove” where I found some 14” deroma rolled rims and planted Baby Cakes (16”), Polaris (14”), and Top Hat (14”):
3 Likes
Below is a photo of the Double Gold I picked earlier this summer with berries which are consistently pink-ish in color. Yours look more like Fall Gold.
5 Likes
either way im happy with it, but we’ll keep an eye on things as it grows and see if it truely is fall gold 
4 Likes
Your berries look much like my ‘Fall Gold’ when picked at peak ripeness.
3 Likes
Flower buds forming on recently planted Boysens received from Rudy’s back in June. These must be fruiting laterals that formed off the original cane they used to tip-root which was a floricane by the time it got cut. Based on their own videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w24z-iT_mrY) she mentions cutting the tip-rooted plants free in Feb-Mar after overwintering:
Be interesting to see if these actually fruit in October.
2 Likes
It looks alot like Wild Treasure to me.. in many ways. I grew it several years ago and wasnt worth fooling with for me. Canes are somewhat thin and difficult to trellis without breaking. However in the ‘wild’ scenario you have it appears to have what it needs for support to thrive… at the expense of lack of pruning and nutrition.
I only got to taste a few and they were very very good.. however the small size was to me a downfall.. Siskiyou and Marion or the Columbia Star are much more worth growing for flavor and size etc.
For the hobbyist though..that wonders about Waldo.. this is probably as close as you will get to being able to grow Waldo. Which is a parent of Marion and most of the other high quality berries named above.
Hard to tell exactly what it is but it ticks alot of boxes to be Wild Treasure i think.
Going forward- Wild Treasure also has dewberry in its lineage.. although wild.. there is a good Dewberry to grow..most pictures or plants being sold arent the true to name Austin Dewberry..as its sold in Tractor Supply and various nurseries. I did grow it over the past few years and it is very worth growing i think for those that have the hobby. Its a very large berry the size of Boysen and has a very unique red/purple berry. A great addition to jams and fresh eating.. its not top tier compared to more complex hybrids however but it is interesting.
This is where i obtained mine.
Very similar to Boysen/Wyeberry but less productive and a different more tart and sweet berry.. YMMV.
7 Likes
