When i got them last fall… they had about a foot of growth… that i just left there and they grew some more after fall planting. Looked very healthy so i just left it.
It over wintered and showed no sign of winter damage this spring.
Once the primocanes started coming up good this spring… … i removed those older fcane parts.
These are nice and thorny… no worry with birds or squirrels with these. That is my preference.
These are supposed to be some of the earliest ripening trailing west coast blackberries. Hope they do as well as logans here… but perhaps are a bit more cold hardy.
June 10th should be about right. I recall eating a few early berries between the 1st and 7th and a good flush of berries from then to nearly the end of the month. Caddo tends to bloom over about 3 weeks which is one reason they overlapped with the very early wild plants. The wild plants still had a few late flowers during the first 3 or 4 days Caddo bloomed. The early wild plants bloom about 2 to 3 weeks before Caddo.
As I posted previously, I had 0 degrees F here. The plants are in their fourth growing season after planting them early 2020. I was hoping for a full crop from all plants. There was no damage at all in previous winters. I’m certain they can handle down to 10 or 12 degrees with no issues. They can’t handle 0 degrees very well. But as I stated, 2 plants are making fruit. I don’t see a reason they should be different. The plants are all side by side. Don’t bother buying Caddo. I have about 50 plants here that can be dug up and moved. I started with 3 Caddo plants set out in a temporary location. When I dug them up to move to the permanent row, the roots sprouted about 40 or 50 more canes. It’s a jungle. I’d love to thin them out.
I got down to 7 degrees here in the December cold snap and there was zero damage on either Caddo or Ponca. Sounds like a few more degrees lower and I may have had issues.
"Ponca has an interesting growth habit that offers plant management advantages, Clark said. The primocanes of most blackberry varieties tend to grow taller than the floricanes, he said, and require “tipping” prior to or during harvest. The primocanes require tipping to control growth and create the hedgerow of canes.
The primocanes on Ponca have shortened internodes – the length of stem between the nodes where the leaves grow out. As a result, Clark said, the primocanes tend to not grow taller than the floricanes until after harvest. It allows growers to delay tipping the canes until after harvest is completed."
I have seen some pictures of Ponca that dont look like mine…which lead me to believe that some folks may have gotten the wrong plant… but you cant say something like that…folks have to figure that out for themselves.
He also mentions that Ponca is hardy to 1F and that Ponca can produce a secondary bud 2-3 weeks after the first budding if there is cold weather damage.
I have noticed that my PAF floricanes tend to die back to the ground in Spring if I do not prune away the primocane parts that have already fruited. It could be coincidence, so I will have to keep monitoring.
Its obviously a U of Ark product… but other than that there is zero info anywhere on it. Could be better than the others… could be worse.
I think it will also be sold at Berries Unlimited under the name of Lydia’s Sweet Giant at some point. Its listed on NARBA.
Anyways… i ordered one today along with 2 Ka-Bluey blueberries that i have been wanting anyways. Gurneys is offering free shipping on orders of $75 offer code 0577884 Not sure if other codes or offers are available… i get emails all the time but never pay attention to them.
I ordered one because all of my other PA series throw off suckers pretty easily… and if its a dud no sense in buying several for me.
Still a fair price with free shipping all things considered.
@blueberrythrill I believe you grow Ponca. I noted above and a few others confirmed that we are seeing Ponca sending up primocanes away from the main crown, sometimes several feet. It seems like this variety will be more spreading than Caddo, etc. Do you see this in your Ponca?
My son owns the farm now so I don’t spend as much time with the fruit as I used to.
I did not see a lot of new plants popping up away from the original plant last year will check the Ponca rows again and report back.
I have noticed that Eclipse and Galaxy that I have planted at my new location are sending out a lot of new plants 4 or 5 feet away from the original plant, much more than the Arkansas varieties.
I swapped out my trellis a few weeks back and have a cattle panel in place now.
I have 4 logan pcanes which i took to the left side of that panel and now i am running them up the first 4 upright tracks on the leftside.
As they reach the top… will turn them to the right and send them along the top four horizontal tracks. That panel is 12 ft long so they will be 18 ft long or so when they reach the right side. I will just let them run off the end there and tip root.
That will leave the bottom 4 horizontal tracks for next years primocanes to run… while these are fruiting.
Well, I know there are voles around, but a few plots away from mine at the community garden someone else has blackberries and they are staying in their zone.
So maybe voles can make it worse, but it does seem like Ponca has a tendency to “stray”. When I went to water today, I noticed 3 Ponca primocanes popping up several feet into my neighbor’s plot, so I stepped in and yanked them out quickly. Hopefully, it doesn’t become an issue, but I had gone with blackberries there instead of raspberries just because I thought they’d be more contained.
I wonder how deep I’d need to have some type of root barrier to keep mine from getting into her plot?
@hambone … i mulch my blackberries, raspberries, logans, and do very little watering of them or any fruit trees…
Occasionally yes… but i have no irrigation system in place. I can water some stuff with 150 ft of hose, or by hand with a 2 gal water tank.
My hose does reach my flat garden (veggie garden) i will water tomatoes and watermelons and greens… okra seems to thrive on hot and dry.
Most of the time when i plant something new in the spring… it gets watered at planting and that is it. I mulch most everything good with wood chips or pine bark mulch. That helps.
The lack of Zone consistency is crazy. I just bought a Natchez from a respectable nursery (plant grown by WNI in OH). It is labeled as zone 4, Berries Unlimited list zone 5 and Starks Bros zone 6. I’m newer to growing berries, is there a drastic difference in stock or is it a measurement issue?
Also added Lawton and pulled out ponca and triple crown.
How old are your poncas? Mine were sold as one year old dormant plants. They are only on their second year in ground here but have completely stayed put. Concerns me a little if they are going to get that agressive in spreading.
that 1 degree must have been what did it.
