I found some details on Newberry… see link below if interested in full report.
After reading all of that, still very interested in the Newberry as a trailing type that might work well for me.
In Oregon… it says this on Ripening (or Fruit harvest period).
5% ripe July 6, 50% ripe July14, 95% ripe July 26
And those dates would work Ok for my SWD period, but since Oregon is several hundred miles north of my location… I am sure all of those dates would be quite a bit earlier for me.
I bet that most of them would ripen in June for me, which would be ideal.
So… now I might just split that new blackberry bed in half… since these trailing varieties will need different trellis type… and plant half of it in Ponca, Caddo, and the other half Obisidian, Newberry.
I need 19 total plants… so 4-5 of each would work.
I am starting to see this as a blackberry patch that I am going to really love to visit.
Here’s a chart I made of mostly thornless blackberry varieties floricane info, their fruit size, first harvest time, and soluble solids percentage (sweetness). The dates (except Triple Crown) are for the Clarksville, AR research location.
I grew Obsidian for a few years. Extremely spiny, hard to train, somewhat fragile canes. Peaks mid-season. Good flavor.
OGW may be a little late with their ripening dates, especially for warm-spring areas like TN. Logans here have a very long season, but the bulk of them are done by 4July. The harvested Logans pictured above are nearing ripeness, but are not fully ripe, unless at your TN location they are already on the ground at that color level. If you don’t have a few berries on the ground, there will not be many fully ripe ones on the canes.
I have a online friend up in illinois… who said he had one for a few years (Logan) and it died. Here in TN mine so far no sign of any problems… extremely vigorous… 2 plants cover an 8 x 12 trellis and run off the ends A LOT… I prune off the excess. Anywhere the tips get in the dirt they root.
That online article above talked like they were prone to disease and not very productive… but so far mine has been just the opposite. Very productive…
Ps… I have my Logan planted in a location where it gets half day morning sun only (east side of my house)… and no direct sun after noon. It appears to love the location.
This thread highlights that plant breeders are going to have to adapt to SWD by breeding for earlier maturity. I suspect we will find that Ponca is the latest maturity blackberry that can reliably be grown without significant damage.
Where will the breeders get genetics for extremely early maturity? There is plenty of variation in the various bramble species. Interspecies crosses have very high potential as above with some maturing a month before most blackberries. I found a native blackberry a couple of years ago that blooms and matures 3 to 4 weeks ahead of any other natives in this area. It might be worth the effort of looking at some native stands to see if any of them are early enough to be worth using in a breeding program.
I have been picking wild blackberries in my county for near 50 years… and while most are very similar I do know of two locations where the berries are quite different. My nephew has a cow pasture on his side of the country (north of me) that has these thick clumps of wild berries that are more of a trailing berry and the berry is larger than average and the flavor has more of a blueberry taste to it… and less of that tart wild BlackBerry tartness. Jam made from those berries you would think has blueberry mixed in.
It has been a few years since I have harvested berries out there at his place… and I don’t remember if his berries ripen earlier or not… but l will check on that this year.
The norm wild blackberry here ripens first week in july… and depending on rain… can continue to fruit into August.
I know I saw SWD on my ilinni blackberries late July, early August last year.
But i had raspberry and figs and strawberries that fruited late july—dec 3rd (first hard frost)… never noticed SWD on them.
Those are in a different location… 250 ft away from my blackberry patch.
I have a early elberta peach that ripens mid June to first week in july… then a reliance that ripens first week in July for a couple 2 or 3 weeks… the later peaches on it may be Swd targets…
I have a new rising star peach that I think will be early like my early elberta… may get so.e fruit off it this year.
I have two European plums… rosy gauge, mt royal that should fruit this year… supposed to ripen late aug…early sept…
I wonder just how much trouble SWD is going to be for all this stuff.
The Western Washington Native Blackberry
Rubus Leucodermis, is excellent
But
It has male and female plants.
The fruits are not large
but great flavor.
Grows especially well
in log clearings.
Boizeau… OGW list Salmonberry… they do not grow over here in the south east… must be a west coast berry. The way they describe them… does not make me want to try them… they say berries vary in quality but are always liked by the birds. The words sweet or flavorful are not included… in the description. That made me X them off my list of things to try.
Do you find them to be a good quality flavorful sweet berry?
They are seldom great
The Orange ripe are better than the red ripe fruits “two subtypes in the wild”
They are very cool weather, wet soil and shade tolerant.
The fruiting canes apparently live for several years.
Once in a while I do find a good one.
Easy to root from 1 year old wood.
I have a superior one in my back yard.
Here is a pic of one of my wild blackberry harvests last year… I usually hunt them first and second weekend in July… and if we get a good rain in there… I may harvest once more after that.
Put up several pints of berries each year.
You can tell these are the smaller wild berries… a little tart, but wild blackberry flavor that I really like.
I literally have 1000’s of wild blackberry within a couple miles of my house.
When I get back from a wild blackberry harvest I wash them, then spread out on a table as shown above and I have a fan I let blow on them for a hour or so to dry them out well… Then I load them up into pint or half pint, 3/4 pint jars, vacuum seal and freeze.
the keep well for a year or more that way. I always try to eat them all up before the next years harvest.
i think we have 2-3 jars left now from last year. we eat berries every day… that large majority of the carbs I eat daily come from berries. (Keto).
I found on you tube a texasprepper that was growing Prime Ark Freedom in Pots above ground… and doing well at it.
He said he got a good crop in the spring, but his fall crop was looking pretty skimpy. He was getting some though, slowly trickling in… and looking like more berries were setting going into September, October.
Do any of you know how long during the season that this SWD Fruit Fly hangs around ?
I have been hearing late July, August… but are they still around causing problems into Sept, Oct, Nov ?
If these PAF ripen berries in Late May (spring crop)… and then again Sept, Oct, Nov ?
Would this SWD fly thing come and possibly go… when they are not cropping ?
SWD is known to infest many cultivated and wild fruits including apricot, blackberry, blueberry, buckthorn, cherry, cranberry, currant, dogwood, fig, kiwi, peach, plum, raspberry, and strawberry. Such a wide variety of host crops makes it difficult to remove all host fruit in the area. Additionally, SWD grows from egg to adult in as little as 10 days. The short development period means there can be as many as 13 generations in a single growing season here in the Midwest. For certain crops like fall-bearing raspberries, 100% of the fruit can become infested with larvae.
That last statement sure sounds like fall crops of blackberries or any soft fruits would not be safe.
But still we got a good crop of fall raspberries last year and noticed no problems with them. I did not see the SWD hanging out with the raspberries.
This evening I took another look at the Columbia Berries.
Columbia Sunrise, hardy to -10, zone 6 (per OGW)
Brix 14.27 (wow) - lots of good talk about flavor too.
5% ripe June 11, 50% ripe June 18, 95% ripe Jul 2 (again this would likely be much earlier for me).
Columbia Giant, hardy to -10, zone 6 (per OGW)
Brix 11.72 (not bad) it’s a HUGE berry.
5% ripe June 22, 50% ripe July 3, 95% ripe July 17
Columbia Star, hardy to +5, zone 7 (per OGW)
Brix 13.18 (nice)
5% ripe July 3, 50% July 12, 95% July 24
I also found Ripe dates for Marion - 5% June 23, 50% July 2, 95% July 12
I also looked up the Brix/SS for Ponca 10.4, Caddo 8.5, Osage 9.8
I don’t think Columbia Star is quite hardy enough for my location… but the other two would work and it sounds like the Columbia Sunrise, would be a extra early ripening berry for me.
Now thinking I might fill this new bed with 1/3 each Columbia Sunrise, Newberry, Ponca
Could include a couple of those Columbia Giants too… HUGE Berries, and higher Brix than Ponca.
