Not a complete list but a starter kit for some common ones…
North South planting vs East to West is also a possible help if sunscald is an issue.
Probably the wisest thing is to let the plants grow as naturally as possible with the greatest nutrition and hydration so that foliage naturally protects the fruit as best that it can… so less pruning in areas that are more prone to sunscald with lots of sunlight hours.
Let the foliage (solar panels) soak in the sunlight and send all that goodness to the crown for best results.
Never had sunburn on black raspberries. Sunburn happens to dewberries if exposed to the sun. Dewberry ancestry is in a lot of tame blackberries. Hence sunburn in tame blackberries.
during my daily walk through my backyard inspecting each of my plants, I saw the first blackberry flowerbuds! Last year the first by far was PAF, imagine my shock when the first one I see is Lawton! I could swear I remember reading somewhere that Lawton was a very late berry… but in my back yard it was the first somehow. On closer inspection, the Brison also have very tiny flower buds starting, but the Lawton started sooner as they are bigger.
(I suppose it’s possible that the PAF tried to start flower buds a few weeks ago and the 16 degree weather killed them off, but I never noticed any flower buds forming, so not sure)
these were both labeled Cherokee, but they look nothing alike right now
the one on the left has dense thorns and is barely breaking leaf buds right now, and the one on the right has fewer thorns and is fully leafed out
so realizing i might have a hard time with blackberries here on the border of z5b/a in iowa, also wanting to grow them in containers, would any of these varieties be plausible?
I would only do erect primocane variety canes if i were you.
When i was in zone 6b, i read a lot of people had issues with floricane berries because the cold kept killing them so they never got berries.
Plus it’s easier to deal with erect primocane varieties, especially in pots. I think i have a mislabeled niwot from stark bros and its trailing + floricane. It’s hard to deal with it in a pot with limited trellising due to the canes being over 15ft long and no fruit even… this is my 3rd year with it. If it doesn’t give me fruit again this year, I’m burning it lol. Even in 8b, it died to the ground for me and sent up new shoots that haven’t fruited so i don’t think it’s a niwot.
Most raspberries are erect cane plants so they’re easy to keep in a pot. All of mine are potted along with all my blackberries currently
Current prime ark primocane blackberries would only ripen some of a crop before frost in Z5 eastern US (very different weather from CO), the newest thunderhead release may be an exception because they start significantly earlier
Here are some that are cold hardy enough
Nelson’s - hardy to Z3b
Illini Hardy - hardy to Z4 but hard to find
Chester thorn free - hardy but berries are small
Darrow - hardy to Z4 but mostly for processing
And here are some maybes
Triple crown
Ouachita
Natchez is promising for Z5b, but you probably will get dieback some years, it’s probably the best tasting and most productive of the lot
Black satin
Twilight
Clark’s heirloom might be hardy enough too but it’ll have to be tested
You want full sun to make it flower sooner. Heat will stress it out and make it flower sooner as well. Water stress, heat stress, full sun, extra fertilizer. Lack of energy/food doesn’t help plants.
This was how i got passion fruit to ripen in Colorado Springs without a greenhouse and with only 120 growing days. On paper, they need 120 just for the fruit to ripen.
i was watching a couple UoA videos on their primocanes and they say that higher temps will suppress the flowering and is ideal in the 80s. wish there was a way to keep them cooler w/o losing the light.
also, why do they tip so high up(shoulder height)? wouldnt you want to be picking between chest and shoulder height? it looks like when they double tip they start the tipping around knee high. would tipping induce flowering by chance?
I dunno about tipping since i haven’t done it but yeah, i would tip shorter too cause I’m short fatty
Not sure how high a temp they’re looking at but it was 100+ for a week straight in Colorado the last few years i was there. And 90+ for a few weeks as well. There may be an optimal temperature range but I’m not sure what that is since i haven’t logged it in my head yet. Most things over 95 degrees start to not do anything though.
i wonder if you had them in containers, held up by tomato cages, wrapped in white house wrap would raise the temp on them earlier to get them flowering and then you could remove the house wrap for the season. though im not even sure the primocane varieties would make it through the winter
Take this for what its worth but Apache and PrimeArk are worth trying at least.
I talked to a retiring U-Pick operator in Utah Z5 which may or may not be the same or close to your growing zone. He grew Illini for years (i tried to get them from him…but he had so many health issues that it never happened). He said he tried Apache and PrimeArk Freedom and never looked back.
For an early crop one must tip the pcanes at around 2 foot then let the laterals go another 3-4 feet…those laterals when began at that early stage in tipping will form fruit much earlier than a pcane that is allowed to grow fully then tipped at the top wire.
(same theory as growing a little fruit tree really) Cut the trunk at knee level then go from there.
The key to Apache and some other iffy ones is to prune out the winter killed tips if there are any…which would be around 1-2 feet give or take… leaving plenty of fruiting canes. If one were to prune back before winter…then of course again 1-2 feet give or take would have to be removed leaving much less fruiting cane.
He did mention that Apache survived Z5 polar vortex years ago… not sure which year that was.
So if Apache will make it I think Navaho is also worth a try… good thing about those are they arent patented so if one works for you…you can go as crazy as you like with them.
Apache is a handy one to keep around… its very cold tolerant as well as very heat tolerant.
As far as growing in pots is concerned… a 5 gallon bucket or pot etc… is plenty enough to determine if something is worth growing and will fruit and live just fine for a couple of years… after 4 or so years there will be a decline due to being rootbound and after several more years will sacrifice fruit and canes to keep the crown alive. So plenty of time to figure things out and whatever you decide to keep can be grown in much larger containers.
Since nobody mentioned it you can for sure grow BabyCakes in pots… if all you want is a small amount without much worry.
Did you get that from me or BerriesUnlimited? That looks alot like a trailing one to me… the thorns dont look right for Lawton (which for me formed fruit in late September).
The one that Willis sells and the one that TyTy sold are both some kind of seedling. Except for Chickasaw and Cheyenne i cannot find true to name lost cultivars like Cherokee, Shawnee and Choctaw. I am fairly certain that the Ebay guy bought those ‘named’ ones from TyTy when they sold them and took advantage and propagated them. I dont think he ever grew them out and if he did i doubt that he knew what true to named ones even looked like. I believed him and i think he believes that what he sells is true to name… most folks that buy from TyTy do.
I do apologize for misleading you… i was excited myself and like i said i think that the Ebay guy is somewhat acting in good faith.
I grew them all out… to their full potential and they are ‘unique’. With flaws. They sucker like nothing i have ever seen… and are beyond productive. Probably over 1000… maybe 2000 fruits per plant is easily gotten. Maybe more in time. Flower set is intense.
I will probably never be able to fully get rid of them. The roots grow out around 20 feet from the mother and send up suckers whenever it pleases. I have done everything in my power to rid myself of them but they are the gift that keeps giving i fear.
If a person had a farm or ranch and made fedges of fruiting things to forage for themselves and nature etc… these would be amazing.
They do have a place i think… just not in any kind of setting where one would want to cultivate them.
I do have one last hope that this one i am growing is Choctaw or Shawnee. I got it from a guy in Oklahoma that his dad bought them in the 90s… they arent Kiowa and arent Chicasaw… but are crazy thorny and sweet… i gotta try to figure it out this year.
Anyways… do some homework on James Moore releases… i think you will see that Apache is worth growing and probably forgetting all of those other lost cultivars… Im over it myself… i do like thorned ones but i have enough others to keep me satisfied.
Since you talked about Lawton…
supposedly Australia has something that they are calling Lawtonberry… i know that Australia usually runs with things that we no longer grow so hard to know if this is just Lawton or some kind of something different.
I did get it from BU
The lady is crazy about berries (in the best way possible - she sent me two walls of text about varieties when I emailed her) so I’d be surprised if hers are mislabeled but anything is possible. Do you have another source for Lawton?
I don’t blame you at all, knowing me I would have bought them either way
that does make me concerned about his “rosborough” that I put in-ground 1.5 years ago though, it has never made a single flower and has sent suckers many feet away already that I’ve dug up multiple times… I think I may pull it and put it into a container as I don’t want something that thorny that spreads that aggressively in-ground in my back yard.
I do have legit rosborough from Womack Nursery though and they are leafing out perfectly, I’m excited to see what those are like
