Favorite Blackberry?

Ponca is sending up new canes up to 8 feet from my plants. Caddo does not do this. Ponca is also more cold susceptible than Caddo. I have a few Caddo plants that are producing berries.

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@Fusion_power … when does Caddo ripen for you ? Starting /ending approx dates ?

Thanks

Going on memory, the extremely early wild blackberry ripens in mid-May, Caddo about the first week of June, and Ponca about the 10th of June. Both Ponca and Caddo mature fruit over roughly a month gradually tapering down to just a few berries by the end. Don’t count on this as accurate information. I expect blackberries to have a range of maturity that depends on spring weather.

Yikes. I have Caddo at the house and Ponca at the community garden, but it sounds like I should have done that in reverse. It doesn’t matter if things spread at the house, but I expect I’ll have a cranky neighbor at the gardens when my Ponca starts putting up primocanes in the middle of her tomatoes!

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@Fusion_power looks like you are 40-50 miles south of me… i might be a week later.

I may have to give Caddo a try.

Illini and Ouachitaw both started ripening right around june 15 here… Sounds like Caddo may be similar… perhaps even a bit earlier.

Ouachitaw did not last here… canes just died out.

Does Caddo seem to be keeping health and viggor for you ? Any winter damage this past winter. ?

Thanks.

Caddo canes are very long averaging 9 to 10 feet. They should be summer pruned to encourage branching and reduce overall length. As previously discussed, Caddo took a lot of cold damage in the December cold snap. Two plants are producing fruit this year with about 15 or 20 that are growing from the ground up.

I reviewed this youtube vid from the univ of ark dude… and he said caddo ripens 5 days earlier than ouachitaw… that would put them around 6/10 for me.

He also bragged on the health of caddo… saying that fcanes remain green after fruiting.

Too bad they are not about 10 degrees more cold hardy. Sounds like they are about as cold hardy as my logans… and Ouachita.

Below 5-10 degrees and you have dieback.

Meet Obsidian.

Nice looking pcanes coming up now.

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.

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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.

@Fusion_power … another Caddo question.

How long have you had your caddo blackberries ?

Sounds like they took a pertty bad winter hit last winter… but hopefully we dont have winters like that so often.

I have had my logans several years with no winter damage at all… but last winter sure took out all canes trellised unprotected.

Wondering if your caddo made it thru previous winters with no or little damage ?

My back porch low last winter was 3F… could have been colder out in my orchard.

Seems like the winter before last my low was more like 12F. I had no damage on cane fruit canes winter before last.

It sounds like caddo and logans may be pretty close on cold hardiness.

Thanks

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.

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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.

You’ll need some miracle berry to make that happen.

See thread: Eating Miracle Berry or Miraculin

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My ponca did this last year

"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.

If Ponca was hardy to 1F, why did my plants all die to the ground at 0F? Same question for Caddo of which only 2 plants made it.

You just answered your own question :crazy_face: that 1 degree must have been what did it.

Why is there no mention of the spreading habit of the primocanes? Obviously its an issue.

My Ponca was my most winter damaged other than my PA Freedom which always gets zapped. My Caddo had almost zero winter damage.

My ponca had the short internodes as described which i thought was some kind of disease… but as he says its a trait to Ponca.

He is only a Dr. though… you cant expect him to know everything.

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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.

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Sweet Giant is now available at Gurneys (Gardensalive)

(Z5-9 or who knows)

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.

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@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.