ahh… i was going to say they look the same. maybe a subspecies.
1 Like
They dont really travel much, once they find a home they kinda stay there unless there isnt enough habitat then they travel. The larvae live in the cane, then emerge from the cane as adults they feed on primocane foliage then lay eggs on the primocanes. Those eggs hatch and the larvae bore into the cane.
The advice of the Sevin and pesticides on the FB groups are mostly wrong. The adults emerge usually in June and have their eggs laid by late June… so that is when the bees are pollinating and the floricanes are lush with foliage and flowers… Primocanes are soft and lush and sometimes hidden in the midst of floricanes… and that is their new home.
So a person would have to spray or apply only the primocanes during that window… or by chance find them emerging from the D shaped hole in the floricane.
Best just to BOLO during june and pinch all of the bugs that look like lightning bugs and keep aware of feeding on primocane foliage.
Do a good culling in very late fall or early spring. Of course then you have to burn or destroy or send away the infested canes.
If you compost or make habitats with the spent canes the cycle will continue.
So in summary- a person would have to miss the primocane swells and bulges in the Fall, then miss them again in the Spring…then allow the adults to emerge in June from floricanes to further the reinfestation. Lots of time to stop them.
I just received some plants last week from Ebay…bare root. One of the plants had swells and sure enough i paid for redneck cane borer larvae.
So even the shipper missed them… i think.
2 Likes
@krismoriah … when i had a smaller trellis… full of fcanes… while my fcanes were fruiting… i eventually figured out that i could just cut off those new early pcanes… they start early and grow like crazy…
But my trellis was full of fcanes fruiting… and i really had no where to put the new pcanes…
But tried this and it worked well… i can just cut those new pcanes off… and a week or two later more are out and shooting up.
I can actually cutoff the new pcanes untill my fcanes are finished fruiting… then take the fcanes out (normally early to mid july) and then let new pcanes growup and fill my trellis.
If i went back to doing that each year… keeping my pcanes pruned off until july… perhaps that would mess up the red neck borer lifecycle.
Hmmm…
2 Likes
@TNHunter
Question about the thornless Logans…i have them in two locations…
I planted both this year… so by the looks of things i should probably cut most everything to the ground this fall… these canes dont look strong enough to support a crop. I have also read that if these skinny canes do fruit that they will be small. So no real sense in trying to wait for small fruits i dont think.
I also have Obsidian in two locations… i bought from 2 separate nurseries. All of the plants look like broccoli and the canes are brittle…but they are growing well. I kind of think they will get alot of winter damage…their health looks terrible. So i am going to just wait and see. My canes are way past the top wire but i can hear them crack when i move them… No idea if they will grow out of this.
Illini Hardy- mine have passed the top wires and are thorny as heck. Nasty nasty thorns. Looks like i will know next year if these have double rosette or not. I did alot of cuttings and have them trying to root now in case that they are the only known to exist plants left on Earth. These were the hardest to find of just about every one i have. Its like they are extinct. These do not root from root cuttings, and where they are erect almost impossible to tip root… so cuttings are just about the only way that i can see to propagate them… and even that is tough sometimes.
I am on year 2 of my thorny logans… going into year 3. The crop this year was small berries because the canes were skinny. (i think the same as the thornless logans?) Next years canes look a little better but not as thick as i would like. So perhaps it takes a few years to get canes big enough to produce the large berries?
I have a dozen or so of the Amethyst cuttings trying to root now if they root i will send u some if u want… and i have plenty of the Victory plants if you still want to try them.
I am still trying to understand Prime Ark Horizon… they fruit on the tips for primocanes… but my primocanes are almost 12 feet tall and setting flowers on some canes… and others are fruiting on 10 foot canes. Im guessing that a person needs to tip the primocanes at about 4 feet in order to have fruit at eye level…but that makes no sense either…if you tip them how do they fruit on the tips? I have about 8 canes that if they fruit i will need to get a ladder… or maybe they bend down with weight. Either way its strange. The fruit is very good and sweet… much better than my Poncas which are aggravating me. My poncas all look like little christmas trees. Very pretty plants and the leaves are super dark green. But so strange in the way that mine set fruit.
Caddo to me was very boring… big berry but nothing special.
I think i am going to pull Von and Loch Ness and Big Daddy… no real sense in growing any of them. Waste of space for me.
Newberry is one of the most prolific growers of the west coast varieties that i have seen. I planted tiny plugs that i trimmed in June and they are already past the top wire and thick canes… the canes are loaded with laterals as well. Thorns are nasty and heavy gloves are needed. I have plenty of these left and i need to post them on Ebay or something… i had to buy 100… so im sitting on 70 plants like a mother hen.
Kotata and Siskiyou are both growing well. Both of these were super hard to find… Kotata has THE nastiest thorns of all the west coast varieties. Siskiyou has normal thorns. Neither has made the top wire yet… thats ok i plan on tip rooting them anyways.
I really dont enjoy trellising the west coast varieties… its alot of work…and aggravating.
Final note… The Victory plants are for sure different than any other thornless semi erect or erect varieties that i have grown and i think i have grown them all except for Hull and Doyle. Last year i thought that they were semi erect but they were just babies…this year they are mature and they are erect. I have many of the canes that are the size of a baseball bat handle. I have never seen any cane that strong and thick. They grow like Kudzu. Once mature they are a chore and almost aggravating to keep in check. The new plants that i planted this spring look like a grenade went off. Its as if they are aliens. These are the ‘babies’…and i have whacked and whacked and whacked them with pruners probably 50 times…
3 Likes
@krismoriah … here at my place… a new planted thornless logan crown will send up multiple pcanes the first year… even the ones I have successfully tip rooted and transplanted will send up multiple pcanes that first year.
If you let them push 3 or 4 of those you might get some skinny pcanes… and low quality first fruits… but if you limit them to one or two they will be fine and will produce a decent crop on first fcanes.
I tip rooted a logan a couple years ago and transplanted it early spring. It sent up 3 or 4 pcanes… but i cut all off except the best looking one.
That one pcane grew to near 20 ft long that first season. It had good size and i am sure it would have made some nice berries… unfortunately our low of 3F killed it this past winter.
It sent up more pcanes this year… i limited to one again and it is around 9 ft now… still growing.
3 Likes
@krismoriah … if you recall… i have 2 Obsidian crowns planted in this bed… and let each crown push 2 pcanes.
This is what they look like here at the end of August. I have just sort of looped and threaded them thru that cattle panel trellis.
You can look at them hard and leaves will start falling off. If you bend them a little they start cracking and popping.
I dont have a good feeling about them yet. If they do survive the winter and bloom and make some nice fruit next year… i will like them better.
3 Likes
I had the same experience, from Willis. Big, ugly, nasty infected swollen stem, right at the ground line.
That was before I knew better than to buy form Willis…
3 Likes
What’s with those leaves? o_0
1 Like
@a_Vivaldi … yes… those leaves are just crazy.
They have been like that all year… and others here said theirs look like that too.
West coast blackberries just have crazy leaves or something is not right about these… virus ? extremely unhappy with my southeast heat and humidity ? IDK.
If I was not planning to sell this place… i might have yanked those already.
1 Like
Well… after removing all the borer infected cane… just a few days ago… my Logan… has already responded pushing new growth. It ain’t giving up without a fight.
In 2 month’s i would not doubt 20 ft of cane happens.
4 canes… 5 ft each. We will see.
8 Likes
Someone is selling Red Raspberry thornless ‘heirloom’ plants on Ebay.
Location ‘Montana’.
in the description
- heirloom have been on the place for over 50 years
- ever bear. they bear heavy in June and continue through august
The only thornless red rasp that i can find that fits that narrative is Canby.
Canby was introduced in 1953. So it fits that timeline.
If so that is good information that it survived for 50 years in Montana…
I grew Canby and did not like it at all… very bland and soft for me.
4 Likes
Could horticultural oil work? smothering the eggs? or keeping them from getting to the base of the primocane leaves? (only thinking this because it apparently it works on pear mites - which I am about to try and vanquish!)
1 Like
I’ve got 3 potted blackberries in, and wondering best time to plant them. our frosts start early October; should I heel em up till spring or put them in now you think?
I got a prime ark and two Apache
1 Like
@resonanteye … i purchased 2 obsidian blackberry last fall from One Green World… they arrived on Oct 17 and I planted them right off…
We had a frost hard enough to take out my okra early November… it did not bother the obsidisn.
They grew some last fall… not a huge amount… but expect they mostly established root system. This seaaon they have grown well.
That is what they looked like when they arrived last october.
Just a few post up this thread… is a pic of what they look like today.
Good luck to you.
4 Likes
I’ll go on and put them in! I get nervous fall planting. think I just needed to hear someone had done it
3 Likes
@krismoriah I’ve been wondering about some of the descriptions that you have offered on the really thorny cultivars. In this area we have lots of wild blackberries that like to reclaim ground that was recently cleared, and their thorns like to detach from the cane and get stuck in my gloves or my skin and I have to try to grab them and remove them. Is that your experience with the thorny varieties that you grow, or are they more like roses in that the thorns remain on the stem and just leave your arms looking like you fought a feral cat?
3 Likes
I use good gloves as we talked about in the gloves thread. With my favorite gloves i can confidently do anything i want with any bramble… zero chance of getting a thorn. I have been meaning to try out the kevlar arm protectors from harbor freight… i rarely get scratched but i have a couple of new cultivars that i can see them getting me eventually.
Your statement about the thorns stuck in your gloves means that you have the wrong gloves. Get you some comfy A6 rated gloves and you can grab onto any thorn or briar on Earth.
Get you some ANSI A6 sleeves and you wont get a thorn on your arms. These are $15.
5 Likes
7 Likes
got a old set of welders gloves that works good. those nelsons are armed like Ft. Knox! I’ve got scars on my legs from when i got too close mowing.
2 Likes
Yes, I’ve looked in several local stores (many of them welding supply shops) for all of those excellent glove suggestions that you offered. I haven’t yet found them available at mom and pop shops, so I might resort to purchasing them online.
I myself don’t mind the scratches that I get when we are working trees and have to deal with the wild brambles, and what I select to plant at my property will be primarily for my own benefit, but I would like my friends and neighbors to pick and enjoy some of the bounty. I reckon the thorns won’t puncture those cut-resistant sleeves.
1 Like