we cant really count on snow cover around here anymore. freeze / thaw, rinse and repeat seems to be how it goes most years here anymore. its kind of the flip side of gaining a month of extra growing season in the last 30 years. there are lots of new things to grow here as a result, but also new challenges. that freeze/thaw stuff is hard on plants
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it usually stays here from Nov. on and just continues to build and its rare to see ground before the 1st week of May. we have actually been getting more snow in the last 10 or so years as well as more rain in the other seasons.
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Celestial, Thunderhead, Zodiac, Finnberry etc are all on the list for propagation to go out to nurseries likely this coming spring.
First videos i have seen of the new varieties.
Thunderhead
Finnberry
Here are some more varieties like Amanda, Blakely, Danna, Kelly, Mary Carmen which will likely not be available to us I dont think.
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Amethyst Purple Raspberry is and will be available so far at Hartmann’s and also HoneyberryUSA.
Proven to be Z1 hardy at Fairbanks AK.
Does very well at my location 6B/7A and is extremely vigorous. Spaced at 5 feet it still wants more room. Does not sucker for me.
6 plants will keep you busy and provide many gallons of fruit.
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Since it does not sucker does it tip root like a black raspberry?
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Mine tip rooted from low laterals easily… the canes if left alone would all likely tip root at 15 to 20 feet. I also rooted about 25 from cane cuttings. I will likely destroy most all of my clones… i cant justify competing with $4 plants.
New canes come from the crown like a blackberry.
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For those that are interested, the next few weeks is a good time to start rooting hardwood cuttings of blackberries.
We observed an interesting phe-
nomenon of the blackberries growth habit that deviates
from the traditional perennial plant/biennial cane sys-
tem. We observed a morphological reversion of the flor-
icane cuttings to juvenile plants after the plants rooted
and flowered. As anticipated, the majority of cuttings
that rooted subsequently produced flowers. However,
after flowering was completed the canes did not die as
expected. The plants continued to live and produce new
vigorous shoots. We observed lateral shoots developing
from vegetative buds along canes, as well as new shoots
originating from the base of the plants. In concept,
propagating by hardwood cuttings has enabled a black-
berry plant to complete efflorescence, and then revert to
the vegetative growth period. These observations sug-
gest that propagating blackberries from hardwood cut-
tings may be of significant value and that more research
of blackberry hardwood propagation is warranted.
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Can anyone explain this in layman’s terms?
I lost one of my two crowns last year so I’ve got an open spot on my trellis system…can I take some material from the dormant healthy vines and root them inside so they’re ready for spring transplanting?
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The floricane berries on the Joan J. I have grown were mostly bland. I am not surprised that other primocanes share that trait. Even my PAF had sub-par quality floricane berries. I would suggest keeping a few floricanes for the early fruit, but grow most of your fruit on the primocanes. The primocanes will usually fruit a bit earlier if the floricanes are removed.
I have not ordered Ohio’s Treasure yet, but it is on my list. I left the ones I bought last year when I moved from WA to OH. I have Tayberry, Joan J., and Triple Crown on order. I will add thornless loganberry, because it has the Rubus ursinus flavor I like. Not sure if I will do PAF or Ponca. I like everything about PAF, but the large seeds.
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question for you experts - I’m up to 30 varieties of Blackberries and Raspberries here in Plano Texas area, and my initial goal was to not protect them at all during the winter time and basically do survival of the fittest, to see what survives in my area. However our forecast shows an upcoming low temp of 5 degrees (!) which I believe is quite colder than our normal winter temps, should I be worried and start planning how to protect them? or should they be fine?
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Blackberries have biennial canes- the first yr they grow vegetatively, the second they flower and fruit, then they die (the canes that is). What @krismoriah ’s post was talking about was that rooting 2nd yr canes seems to cause them to revert to vegetative growth rather than die. That way, they start their cycle anew, and the spent canes become a crop of sorts. You need to prune them out anyway, so if you can root them and make nursery stock out of them, you have another avenue for production
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Ah ok thanks for the help.
So you’d take cuttings of your second year canes and root them in soil to be transplanted back to the patch in the spring?
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Im no expert…
5F will likely cause winter damage on some (mostly blackberries)… You will know which and to what extent this spring. U of Ark and the USDA also have winter damage on some weather events… so its not uncommon.
Can you protect them? Sure… you can wrap them all in burlap, or encase in straw or hay… or spray with wilt-stop. Maybe even tarp them all.
Most folks are prune happy on primocanes and like the tidyness and by winter they have pruned down to 4 or 5 feet canes…which with winter tip damage could have alot of loss below the top wire.
In the previous link i posted about taking cuttings now of dormant primocanes those canes would be much longer and pruned from now until bud break. So with longer canes the tip damage would likely still be much higher than the top wire as an end result.
I have a friend in upper NY that zone pushes alot of cultivars and does his pruning in Feb/March. His theory is pretty sound in that the long canes are ok to sacrifice the tips with winter damage in order to protect the lower canes for a good fruiting season. Which is also an ok time to take cuttings for rooting while you are at it.
Some cultivars mostly hybrids and some blackberries with extensive breeding will likely die to the ground during extreme temps especially in their first and second years. Sometimes on their third and following years will not have the same result due to establishment. Often folks give up too early and give some cultivars a bad reputation for not being winter hardy.
Alot of us are experiencing high winds right now… and some will find that wind also causes injury…especially to canes that are tied to wire… the back and forth sawing motions will cause injury that will be evident in the spring. I learned this the hard way myself.
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Mmmm, I may have misread the nitty gritty. Kris is saying to root primocanes in winter. All you really need to know to decode any of this is that 1. canes live 2 yrs 2. primocanes are new 1st yr canes 3. floricanes are 2nd yr canes- the ones that produce flowers and fruit in most Rubus.
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Not sure if this warrants a new thread, but I had a couple of questions for the Rubus hybrids. My main concern is that after going down the hybrid Rubus rabbit-hole, I can’t seem to find reliable or consistent hardiness reports. Are there any hybrids that would be worth a shot growing in zone 6?
At a first glance, Olallie berry and Newberry are interesting, but lacking info for the northeast US. For anyone growing those, How’s the flavor? How much dieback do you get in your climate if any at all? I’m growing in zone 6 NY and am messing with a few of the thornless varieties this year like Chester and Loch Ness. I also threw Tayberry into my order for this spring since it seemed interesting.
Also, is it worth getting a primocane-fruiting blackberry If I already have other varieties that work? It seems like they would just end up dying to the ground most winters and fruiting too close to the first frost.
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many tout loganberry as being very good. i got 1 from a member here but it died, was going to protect it under the snow to see if it would make it here. i got 2 Colombia stars i put in last spring. both are covered with heavy fleece blankets and 2ft of snow right now. as mild as its been they should make it just fine.
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Olallie is proven in NY so is thorny Boysen. However one persons Z6 could have frost pockets or a fluctuation in temps that could winter kill some years and some years not.
Chester isnt really worth fooling with unless you are selling them by the pound to someone who has only tasted store bought. Highly productive but not very good tasting berries that are ripe in peak SWD if that is a concern.
It took me awhile to figure out primocane fruiting blackberries… i did what most folks do and marveled at how tall and strong the primocanes got and how well they seemed to do… then got alot of winter kill and berries forming 9 feet in the air.
I know a guy in Utah that has a u-pick and he only grows prime arks… pinching them at 2 feet is the key… then you will have a nice crop in the fall then again in the spring. I did it wrong for years myself.
Im the only one growing newberry as far as i know… there may be some oddball out there like me but i had to buy 300 plants to get mine… not sure if they will come available again anywhere. They are supposedly an improved boysen that Chad Finn created but he let some folks trial them and they ran with them. They all them Ruby Boysens in Cali. Its a very very impressive plant…as far as vigor. I have some 5F temps on these canes… if they live then we will know.
Loch ness is another fail at at least for me… It probably ripens right in Scotland etc… but here it ripens in peak SWD for me and isnt as good at TC by a margin.
Tayberry is a pick and eat fresh or freeze quickly or make jam quickly kind of berry. No shelf life and you need to pick them in the morning or evening or you will have red hands. I love them… It got some bad reviews on some forums but i think they irrigate or had crops in wet seasons… which is an issue for all cane fruits. There is plenty of hydration in the canes and crown and roots once established.
If you like to take pictures beside quarters or beside of rulers then add a bunch of water. You will have very large berries that dont taste very good.
As steve says…logan is a good hybrid. The thornless version isnt very hardy and can get zapped in Z7 some years. The thorny one… is more hardy.
I am growing Phenomenal berry which is Luther Burbanks answer to the Loganberry… its hardy here and has survived single digits… however i think i am the only one east of California that even has it or has ever heard of it.
So with that said…try a few or more if space allows… some years you will get fruit…some years they might get zapped.
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Please do let me know if the newberry ends up working for you! After doing a little searching, it seems like they might not be available anywhere (with my weak google fu skills).
If I already have tayberry growing, do you think that adding Phenomenal would be overkill? They both seem to lean more on the raspberry side. Either way, how do you like Phenomenal compared to the standard logan?
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I got some thornless blackberries years ago from a neighbor. Im an unabashed cheapskate, and my neighbor spoke highly of them, so I nabbed a few. Im 90% sire theyre Chester. Big berries, quite round. Theyre tart unless you let em hang just the right amount, then they sweeten up. Theyre not bad, but not the tastiest. I bought ‘Apache’ a few years ago and thats similar in fruit size and productivity but I think its tastier. Its even more rangey. Im glad I only bought one plant as its a substantial patch now. Both of em get SWD pretty bad some years. Maybe someday the natural predators will kick in, etc. We get fruit flies in the house every growing season and it occurred to me last year they’re probably SWD rather than garden variety sorts. What a pain.
Primocane blackberries seem like theyd be a good way to avoid SWD. I have a couple plants of ‘Prime Ark Freedom’ kind of festering in a neglected corner. I haven’t seen them fruit yet. Maybe this year.
Im pretty laid back with my Rubus, could probably stand to do a lot more. Now that I have a tractor and power harrow and other projects are out of the way Id like to setup some nice permanent trellises and do a more proper job at it. Thanks for the tips on the primocane pinching, @krismoriah. If I can keep from coming up with 1000 other projects this coming season I hope to get some of my Rubus lined out and properly trellised with plenty of elbow room. Most of my Rubus has been either in rows that are too crowded or Ive tried planting them in polycultures, sometimes just to have them in the ground until I figured out what to do and where.
Id love to see some pictures of your Rubus beds sometime @krismoriah
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Some facts loosely from my reading is that back in the day Logan was THE go to berry…it was in everything from sodas to canned to pies and fresh eating… it was very popular. Phenomenal came in much later…like 25 years later and by the time it was ready to go Boysen had taken over everything. It was dubbed ‘Burbank’s Logan’ thats about as much as i know about it. Boysen is pretty much superior to Logan or Phenomenal as far as sweetness and fresh eating… not sure about pies or cooking as i dont do any of that.
I have only tasted thornless Logan and my thorny logans should bare this year. I have only read reviews of the thorny logans… they are not for sale anywhere and not many people even talk about them as far as i can tell.
Im getting canes of Sunberry in a month or so to try to root… its another hybrid of rasp and blackberry… unobtainable and nobody talks about it.
Also getting Youngberry canes…which leads me to the answer for you…
Just grow Ollalie. Its got Logan and Youngberry in its breeding.
Only a nut like me grows all of these oddballs and there are many many more to choose from.
Tay is worth growing as a dessert berry… Boysen will be all that you ask for in flavor… and Ollalie should work well for you also. Newberry on paper would be the one to go for if you want something different…its a redder version of Boysen and has more of the raspberry kick and flavor… i should know more this year.
Logans got killed to the ground in TN if i remember right… so getting thornless ones in your zone would probably be a hefty gamble. I will likely lose my canes this winter as well.
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