So I love wild black raspberries and wanted to grow some cultivars to get more and bigger berries. So I tried Allen and I was happy with the results. Not as tasty as wilds but close. The berries were a little bigger and certainly more numerous. After about 3 or 4 years they died out. So I found this wild black raspberry in Ontario thanks to a grower in Ontario and started growing it here. I’m a little north of location in Ontario that it was growing. It grows wild in southern Ontario. As it has big berries for a wild type. Also they are yellow not black. Pretty cool! I bought Jewel and Niwot too. I crossed these three plants various ways and grew out the seeds.
Soon Niwot and Jewel died out like Allen did! Only lasting about three years. The Ontario wild was doing well which made sense as this environment is the same as southern Ontario. Niwot is a primocane fruiting plant and the trait appears to be dominate as all the offspring are primocane fruiting. It’s been four years now and they are not dying out, just the opposite they’re spreading like weeds! I created a monster! The Niwot primocane berries were not very tasty. I would say even bad tasting. But these seedlings produced good to some that are excellent! And the berries are monsters. Look at this photo when compared to a quarter.
So this breeding experiment was a huge success. The plants are not dying out and I’m getting gallons and gallons of black raspberries each year.
Mother Nature I think was a little jealous of my breeding efforts and was about to show me up. As Mother Nature always bats last! Oh btw the yellow cap is now ten years old and is thriving. It seems to be virus free or completely asymptomatic. It has grown in the same container for ten years. Yes it’s not even in the ground! This appears to be why the blacks are not dying out.
Anyway last year a bramble started growing out of a container I had a black currant in. It formed primocane berries its first year and they are purple! It appears Mother Nature made its own cross with my primocane blacks and one of my reds. So a new purple primocane fruiting raspberry was created. First one I ever heard of?
Now I have read that many think purples are rather bland. I would not know? I never grew any. I suggest people play around breed, or even just grow out seeds. Amazing what can happen!
Oh the purple berries taste like boysenberries! Amazing excellent flavor!
I’m tip rooting the plant to make a backup. It is rather crowded in the container with the currant. Looking forward to growing this out where it has room to grow.
I think you captured lightning in a bottle there; large fruit, hardy, excellent tasting black as a primocane
what’s not to like? Do you have a name for your cultivar?
I would love to trial it if you could spare any; adding a 90’ raised bed for more blacks and was going to put in Bristol and Mac Black to stagger crops along with my Jewel
I have two different blacks. They are named. One I call Lynn’s Black and the other Sterling Black ( I live in Sterling Heights)
I have promised these to many but I will see what I can do. They spread near my blueberries and are shading them out so I’m removing these tip rooted crowns. I will contact you once they go dormant.
This plant is Lynn’s Black and is growing over my blueberries it has to go. You can see the ripe fruits at the end of the cane. On the left at 9 o’clock. Photo taken five minutes ago.
I am very partial to blacks - it would be great to have a better primocane in the fall (after a full floricane crop from Bristol, Jewel, and Mac Black)
Ohio’s Treasure, Niwot, and Explorer all have issues
Ohio’s Treasure is small and soft
Niwot issue is taste and is a little late for colder climates with early frost dates
Explorer needs a pollinator
so an earlier, bigger, better tasting, productive primocane black is very very cool
I was lucky enough to have long conversations with the breeder of Niwot. He helped teach me with techniques for getting the breeding done. He even sent me some of his crosses and also wild seeds from yellow caps red caps and brown caps.
Here is Sterling Black I was not around to head the primocane. You get less berries but they do fruit earlier. It’s almost done now although other canes are just starting to ripen
Primocane berries on Sterling Black are as good as summer bearing crop. I would rate these excellent.
Above is a tip rooted extra here is the original still doing well in a container. I didn’t have a chance to remove all the floricanes. But you can see the crazy amount of primocanes it has.
Hi, If your canes were thornless, you would have a near perfect Black Raspberry.
I have a thornless black raspberry but it is not Primocane fruiting. I am trying to breed primocane fruiting into it by crossing with a thornless primocane fruiting red raspberry. The primocane fruiting trait in Red raspberries is recessive, so I have to go through several generations to get what I want. I have seedling F1 hybrids at the moment, they will not fruit until next year, as they will all be floricane fruiting unless my thornless Black raspberry has a recessive gene for primocane fruiting.
I was surprised that I found the trait dominant that the Niwot cultivar had for primocane fruiting. I guess Niwot has not made it to Australia. This year a thornless black raspberry is on the market so I’m only a cross or two away from the perfect black raspberry.
The cross you mention would result in a purple.
You can get lucky and get recessive traits to show with a back cross.
Hi, I was very surprised that Primocane fruiting is dominant in Niwot. Niwot is not in Australia and probably will never be, so I have to work with what I have. I think the thornless black you are refering too, is a red raspberry, black raspberry hybrid backcrossed to Black once or twice. The thornless Black raspberry I have is pure Rubus occidentalis from a mutation. It is genetically thornless. I think thornless is recessive in Black raspberry as it is in Red raspberry.
A good purple is what I want. I may select a black from the F2 generation or a backcross but I think a big purple raspberry would be more appealing to the Australian public.
I am also very experienced in chromosome doubling, so I will double some purples and from what I have read, the fruit looks Black.
Nothing wrong with that! And you may be right about demand. Do you guys have any there now?
if so which ones?
The fruit may very in color. I bred some black raspberries and was happy with them. Both primocane fruiting but Mother Nature had to show me up and a seed grew in a pot with a black currant. It’s a purple and primocane fruiting. Pretty sure it’s the first primocane fruiting purple raspberry. It is purple, and the flavor has a great mix of tart and sweet it’s excellent in flavor. Other pics in this thread in earlier posts.
Hi, They look good. As far as I know, there are no Purple or Black raspberry cultivars in Australia. Very few people know about them, only fruit nerds like me. Am I right in thinking that a purple will always be bigger than a Black and therefore less seedy ?
Mine does not look like the others I have seen photos of.
We have at least three different cultivars maybe more? I never grew any. I’ll pay more attention to seeds this year. Think I might grow some out for that matter.
Hi, Yours look like they have plump, juicy drupes, better for fresh eating. I think most blacks are dryer and feel seedier and are used for processing. You should try and get ‘Glencoe’ it is a thornless, floricane purple, that has had good reviews.
I still think it could be a wyeberry x black raspberry cross. It looks like the drupes on wyeberries. Which if you don’t know is probably a seedling of boysenberry.
Also close by is Tayberry but drupes are smaller and uniform. I wish I knew the ploidy level as that could eliminate or confirm if possible. Tays are 6x as is New Berry. I thought about crossing those two. New Berry is my favorite blackberry. It has a very complex flavor with hints of raspberry. Not all berries have the raspberry finish in flavor. Or maybe just super ripe berries? At first I didn’t taste it at all but as plant matured I started getting more berries with a very distinctive raspberry finish. It tastes like a blackberry followed by hints of raspberry. Best berry ever for me. Looks like a good year my plant has many canes with no damage.
Hi, They look very similar to Glencoe to me
So, they are either 6x or 4x, either way you can cross them with plenty of other rubus cv’s. I am growing Marion, Boysen, Logan and Youngberries. I tried Tayberry and Silvan berry here in the subtropics and they were both sour and flavourless. I am going to use the fruit as reference only. I do not think I have the time to recover thornlessness from a cross at more than the 2x level.
Yeah I have a lot of projects to work on. I have a few other projects I have not really talked about much too.
Im going to order five of the New Zealand thornless black caps. I need that pollen! It will be a few years before I have results.
