Kokanee is supposed to be the child of Vintage
@PcChip has it on his profile that he is near Plano. When I mapped to those geographic areas you mentioned they were in the four to five hour driving time range.
Ahh, i haven’t lived or been around that area of Texas. I think I’ve spent about a year in Texas overall and everywhere I’ve gone so far the water has been bad compared to the pnw and what I’m used to up here.
I think he means how on the first year they’re like young and frail so they’re just pure trailing and run flat across the ground like boysenberries(as mine grew).
Second year the plants are a little sturdier, so they’re semi-erect, meaning their canes go up for a ways before arching back down to the ground(like my Triple Crown).
Then on their third+ year, the plants are established and very sturdy. Now they’re erect, so the canes just grow straight up like telephone poles it you let them. (I imagine untipped victory canes would be larger than this unknown blackberry variety of mine)
In krismoriah’s picture of established canes, he tipped them, that’s why they aren’t so tall. He also has that simple trellis to keep a little neater looking and supported for when they’re loaded with berries next year. No cane can stay upright without help when that loaded with berries.
Personally, I’m thus far uncertain to let my untipped erect canes grow unsupported without a trellis. So far I’ve found when they get tall even a little breeze can break them off at the crown. I also have to trellis them anyway for next year to keep their berries easy to reach and their weight from breaking off the cane.
I saw nobody really got back to what you said, so I figured I’d give it a go. Hope I helped explain it decently.
Thank you so much!
I just use the little tomato round circle cages for my raspberries and blackberries and they hold up pretty well when they fruit. Sometimes i have to put a pool noodle around the top but that’s okay.
Yeah, I’m not really looking for extra long/tall varieties like, my roughly 6 ft fall gold is so far my tallest berry plant. I’m only 5ft and not looking to create a thicket of running bushes just fencing type if that makes sense. Like when i put my potted berries in front of my house, it creates a hedge of sorts and i like it like that. My niwot is doing that running off thing and I’m not too happy with it. Second year no fruit… it’s from stark and over 10ft on one of the canes. I cut a few back and a few snapped off when i tried to move it out of the way but still no fruit… don’t have this issue with any other of my berries unless it’s mislabeled and is actually a floricane black but even that… no fruit on the Floricanes. Strange.
Also I’m on the fence of creating a u-pick, greenhouse berry farm too so it helps to have only erect varieties since they’re easier to deal with.
Been in talks with a land owner about setting up shop may start looking for a lawyer soon to draw up a contract
I didnt tip very much… per se. I did prune. With tipping earlier that gives lower and mid laterals which i dont want to prune out… with pruning later that gives me laterals up higher that i can easier maintain. The way that this plant fruits the fruiting laterals explode off of each node each spring and those need to be above the wire as they hang with fruit like clusters of grapes. Too many of those and they will hang to the ground or crowd my 9 foot spacing to make it impassible.
So even though in the beginning of spring i have them pruned with barely anything near the edge of the wire into the row… the explosion of fruiting laterals makes 9 foot spacing tight… or impassible.
well i finally caught the blackberry virus, I’m pretty sure it came in from that ebay order
it’s spreading to all blackberry plants in that area of my yard… i’m trying to decide if it’s too late to do anything and I just just let it go and see what happens, or if i should go crazy cutting out infected canes.
Has anyone ever had luck cutting infected canes to the ground, and have them re-grow healthy? Or is the crown infected too?
it looks like 4 of these 5 pictures:
Identifying the Vector of Blackberry Leaf Mottle Virus | Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium(Fig.
Most of the pics ive seen of folks asking what to spray or help etc is simply plants going dormant for the most part… Its really hard to identify let alone treat things during this phase of the life cycle i think.
The link you posted is from Spring 2024 and most issues are related to new growth etc… i would think that your plants would be headed towards dormancy myself…instead of new growth. Perhaps your climate etc is totally different than mine.
As far as cutting canes of course use alcohol etc to clean your pruners from plant to plant if you think you have issues.
Most issues that i see are related to folks growing in pots or with irrigation or too diligent of watering… Unless you see severe leaf curling there is really no reason to water them… and overwatering or too moist of medium causes issues upon itself.
@CAvocado looks like a similar climate as yours… perhaps he will chime in as to how his do and how he waters if at all etc… it goes against what most folks think or do… but i think he is on the right track for healthy plants.
it’s not even near going dormant, highs are still in the 90’s and lows are in the 60’s at night, every variety is growing like crazy now that the hot summer temps have finally passed
I’m pretty sure it’s virus-related, I’m getting a video now to show you what I mean, will post it shortly
I have to say that my Heritage Raspberries have grown on me. Their taste has improved with the weather and they seem to be more resistant to the SWD than my Fall Gold, perhaps it has to do with the firmness of the berries. I did plant out some vintage, but they are still establishing.
My Prime-ark freedoms I have just let grew wild. they went from a 1 inch plug to a vine that is nearing twenty feet in one season. Definitely need to be pinched to control the height.
The Babycakes blackberries had failed to set their fruit all season, I am not sure why. Their newest flush has all set correctly, but now they probably wont ripen before frost. A bit frustrated with this variety because I do not understand why it didn’t set fruit right. Lots of flowers, but they just dried up or only set fruit on a couple of the drupelets. Raspberries right next to them fruited in abundance.
Check the underside of the leaves for mass of aphids. That’s what’s caused some of my leaves to do that bunching up thing in the past.
If you need Prime ark freedom or traveler, i might be able to swing you some next year. I bought extras from stark but they’re small right now.
Can send you some raspberry starts as well once they start popping up.
A few of them looked like signs of malnutrition… probably too high of pH or something of that nature. (sulfur may be needed if you used neutral potting soil). Anything is just guessing if you dont know your pH…
As far as cutting things out- any cane that wont support fruit is a waste of energy and time next year… so i would cut out everything that wont support fruit when they go dormant anyways. Even if that means cutting some all the way to the ground.
That victory issue doesnt look like witches broom to me… that plant just wants to go… where you have it laying laterally it is setting up shop to explode with growth…and those tips would love to root.
Witches broom doesnt show up for me until floricanes…so maybe it is and i havent seen it on primocanes.
Walking around touching everything its kind of like roulette i guess… so hard to know where it began and where it will end if you have an issue.
I would start with a pH test on everything and go from there… cut everything out that wont support fruit… then spray with copper fungicide once they go dormant and before they break dormancy in the spring.
im no expert or a pathologist by any means… just stating how i would go about things first then go from there…
TNHunter has them figured out… i have one plant going myself and i like it also. Im a bit more partial to Caroline though. Caroline got some very deep dark blood red fruits a couple of weeks ago that were divine.
ive had the same issues with mine. flowers plenty but barely any fruit sets. thinking of pulling them. i think 4 years is plenty of time to see if it fixes itself.
Heritage and fall gold. Golds mostly had a worm or two, none of the heritage did. Ate them all anyways, just pick out what I can see lol