I know of few of you are breeding brambles . I am interested in trying . I would really like to try blackberries for the north . As I recall thornless types have a different chromosome count than the Eastern thorny types . So i will try for the hardier thorny type with fewer thorns and large berries . I have a selection from the wild and a Kiowa . Thinking of crossing the two . I have access to zone 3b wild type also . Need to get a start of these for breeding . Need to be there when they are ripe to find the best ones . I have a few seedling open pollinated brambles that should fruit this year . So I am ready for the next step . I am aware of virus / disease risk . Still want to try . Any tips on growing from seed would be helpful .
I breed brambles but I know hardly anything. I still need to work out all the details. I’m trialing various stratification and scarification techniques this year. Nothing really to report right now. i use battery acid to scarify. On thornless types, actually 3 different chromosomes can produce thornless brambles.
I was going to use wild types but went for Darrow as a cold hardy blackberry. i want to work with that one to bring in better taste. The problem with wild types is fruit size. Nelson is another very cold hard type. Others too. I’m not really doing any crosses except for experimentation on germination techniques. I’m using raspberries right now. Blackberries need more scarification than raspberries. First though I want to see what will work with raspberries.
I have been wondering about the wild dewberries in my area . I had a wild patch years ago that did well when taken care of . Wondering if these would cross with the thornless blackberries for a hardier trailing blackberry . The wild dewberries were huge when cultivated . Perhaps a cross of eastern blackberry and dewberry . Wondering about chromosome numbers . .
Well it could be anything. Having genus-species you may be able to find ploidy level. Eastern blackberries have various ploidy levels too. Marion is 6x, Boysen is 7x. etc. Dewberries can have male and female plants too. Many, many species of dewberries are out there too. Most are small fruited, sounds like a good one if big. We have a big wild black raspberry around here, which is rare too. We have the small ones too!
I tried posting in the longer rubus breeding thread but it seems someone else has to post something every once in a while in order for me to do that.
Anyways, stuff I’m working with:
A two year old pacific blackberry plant.
I just let it grow freely in a hanging basket and now that we’re going below freezing it’ll go in a root cellar to spend the winter. I have not tried wintering it outside, and won’t until I have succesfully seeded it. Next year I hope it’s going to flower for the first time and I’m going to pollinate some local raspberries with it, and vice versa. I also have a fast and hardy eastern blackberry that should cross just fine with the trailing blackberry. It’s all about timing, we’ll see how it goes.
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