Yes, when fully ripe. It also has a notable tart flavor component from the raspberry side of the family. It’s quite tasty, both fresh and cooked.
I have often wondered about my memory of the Logan berry from childhood as a thorny variety.
I have not been able to locate a thorny variety recently and have been growing the thornless for about 10 years…
I suspect that the characteristics of thorny vs. thornless Logans are similar to the thorny vs. thornless Boysens, the thornless variety being much less vigorous and smaller-fruited.
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While it’s late I take it back and will respond here a little ATM. There is more than one path to thornless. Some more lasting than others due to source. In vitro modifide thornless Logan is one of the dominate sources of thornless blackberries and most important of all…despite boysenberry huge seeds and stupidly soft fruit, fresh they are among the best of all thornless or not.
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Hi, those chaps in this video said the thorny ones taste better.
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Those look very similar to mine… don’t see a big size difference… my (thornless) logans are good sized berries.
And very productive… make gobs and gobs of berries… month and a half or more… mine start ripening May 25 (early) and produce like crazy all thru June and into July a bit.
Mine are NOT Intensley sweet (as he said about the thorny ones) in that vid. They do have a very intense tart flavor.
But if you do wait until they turn deep purple and are just b4 going bad… very good. They do sweeten up nicely in that very end stage.
Where did you all get the thorny logans… I don’t mind thorns at all… and if they are sweeter … my wife would sure like them better.
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Ok i think i found an answer to the thorny vs thornless.
To get a thorny Logan you do root cuttings or possibly tip rooting of a thornless. It seems that the mutation of thornless is mostly possible by tissue culture. So the vendors selling thornless are selling tissue culture plants and the ones that have thorny are propagating themselves. (Isons).
Not sure on the tip rooting comment due to the article being a little above my head. But for sure if you do root cuttings of your thornless you will get a thorny one. From the way i read it.
Still unclear if the mutation changes the flavor of the berry.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Heredity/HallThornless1986/HallThornless1986.html
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Yes he said that they are seedlings…seeded by the birds. Which according to the article i posted makes them thorny. Unclear if they can be considered heirlooms. If they grow true to seed… Would be an easy way to make a nice thicket if so.
I got my thorny Logan’s from Ison’s even though on their website they state thornless. I’ve ordered Logan’s from them twice and both times they’ve come with thorns. I originally got the Logan’s bc of your recommendation. I’m excited to get to taste them this year.
Inherited mine with the property; don’t know where they came from originally.
I have two that I tip rooted and moved to a new bed just to spread them around a little.
No thorns at all…
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They probably won’t be true from seeds since loganberry is an hybrid.
I’ve seen this pattern with other plants and species. A chimera changes a major external trait, but if the underlying tissue grows, the ancestral trait re-appears. This is typical of species that reproduce by tubers and roots. Loganberry grown from roots produces prickles. Tip rooted plants retain the modified tissue which in this case makes them thornless. The closest analogy I can think of is Bush Puerto Rico sweet potato which has a common mutation to lighter colored roots. This is the trait from the underlying tissue showing up. Growers have to constantly pick the darkest colored sweet potatoes to retain the variety specific levels of caroteinoids. I’ve also seen a similar mutation in grapefruit where chimeral tissue made the fruit a different color. On occasion graftwood produces the ancestral trait with clear to slightly yellow fruit.
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agreed. In the case of the seedlings by birds in the video those could be better or worse than their parents…
But we wouldnt have Loganberry if not for a seedling.
“Logan then gathered and planted the seed from his cross-bred plants. His 50 seedlings produced plants similar to the blackberry parent ‘Aughinbaugh’, but larger and more vigorous. One was the loganberry; the others included the ‘Mammoth’ blackberry”
Last year I saw by the roadside a frankenstein of a blackberry. The canes must have been two inches thick… and easily 30 feet long. I missed the fruiting stage so i have no idea if the berries were small or big. The thicket was so dense and intense that i could not make it to the crown. I was covered in ticks, had chiggars and heard rustlings of snakes and who knows what. All within 6 feet of nearing the behemoth.
The state road cleared it all last fall… with batwing mowers. So maybe just maybe i will get a chance to go in there and dig this year. Could be a new variety. And likely to have been spread by a bird.
I also got cuttings of a very nice Elderberry that was in that mess. Big cymes and large berries. Also had to have been a chance seedling.
Seedling mutations are all around… some good…some bad. I think thats why they just call them chance seedlings.
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I’ve noticed that if you eat the berries fresh, no, you can’t tell they have any larvae in them. If you pick a big bowl and let them sit in their juices with some sugar (like if you are preparing to bake a pie), all the little larvae will float to the top of the juice. Same with freezing- I think they try to escape the cold and you’ll see them on the outside of the berries then.
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Better eat them fresh then. Wouldn’t want to waste that protein. 
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The more mature SWD larvae may escape the berry during a freezing process, but refrigeration allows larvae of all sizes time to escape and become visible on fruit or container surfaces.
So… @LarryGene … do you refrigerate them like over night then rinse and eat or use them for jam. ?
How much refrigerator time would you say they need for most to come out ?
I have refused to grow brambles after SWD invaded and turned my heritage raspberry crop to raspberry vinaigrette… With the long ripening window how or with what do you keep SWD from ruining everything? Spraying every 5 days?
TN: I have not done a time study, but have noticed that after multiple (>=2hrs) hours, a number of larvae, probably proportional to the degree of infestation, will appear on fruit or container surfaces, and that more time (overnight) does not increase the number of visible larvae. Even tiny ones appear, ones that would not normally leave the fruit yet. Once the larvae, like all insects, reach a certain cold body temperature, they become inactive. I also do not know what percentage of the chilled larvae leave the fruit, but once the visible ones are removed, the fruit is better tolerated by people.
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Anyone know any thorny very hardy varieties that would grow in Vermont Z4A
A friend of mine dug up 100 crowns in a very large English Rose Garden. Says that they have been there likely 50-75 years or more. Very hardy, erect… berries are quite large and canes are over an inch thick.
I am going to get 10 crowns and see how they play out.
Whatever they are must be very hardy to thrive all those years… i suspect there were some very very cold time periods in there.