it been awhile i have to recall my memory but it was the size and the overall complex flavor. probably more sweeter. ill have a better comparison hopefully this summer.
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Who else gets chiggers picking wild blackberries? I figure if I mulch my entire berry garden that might cut down on chiggers in the blackberries. Hoping others have found that works.
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If you want a plant to send up suckers take a shovel and go about a foot or so from the crown and bury the shovel to sever the root… it will send up a new cane… (is your mulch really really thick)? if its over a foot deep it will sometimes suppress suckers.
Another method if you want is to go out and prospect about a foot or so from the crown. Dig down thru your mulch by hand until you find a pencil sized root and cut it about 6-8 inches long. You can pot this or put a bunch in a tray and cover them with potting soil or mulch and they will send up new plants. On an adult plant you can dig up the whole plant and probably get 50-100 plants on root cuttings. Maybe more.
As far as wanting Illini Hardy- there are better options if you want to deal with thorns.
Prime Ark 45 gives you primocane fruiting…but its late. So if you are in a very cold climate it may not be worth growing. Cold hardiness is mostly unproven. Z5 likely.
Darrow has secondary fruiting laterals… so it will give you berries for a longer time. Also very cold hardy down to -20s.
Kiowa has large berries but moderate yield…however on a long 6 week period.
I like Darrow. Its Hardy, Good Berries, Good Production…generally a good overall plant that just wants to work. I used to grow it… i will again.
As for thornless- Chester and Loch Ness are probably the most hardy. I dont grow Loch Ness but i may next year. Chester is a plant that you can pass down to your grandkids… its just tough and keeps going. Middle of the road berry, not the best not the worst. Its good for storage. Berries stay firm for a good long while. So great for farmers markets and u-pick etc. Loch Ness seems to be an improved Chester… it looks really good on paper.
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I found a patch of odd blackberries last year that had me puzzled. A mostly thornless behemoth of a patch that i think was a seedling of a bird that ate someones thornless berry and it hybridized itself.
In about 2 hours i got over 50 ticks and unknown amounts of chiggers. What a PITA. I found ticks on me for several days after…they were in my clothes, my vehicle… nightmare.
The native americans used alligator grease to keep them off…
Since i dont have alligator grease… DEET was developed by the military… for good reason.
I have switched to IR3535 which seems to work just as good. Coleman SkinSmart… has done what ive asked of it.
How to control chiggers? Control their hydration. They thrive in long grasses and long green plants (blackberries). So mowing is just about the only thing that pushes them.
The only honest option is natural predators. Spiders, lizards etc.
However chiggars are good for the Earth. Chiggars are baby mites that feed on vertebrates that grow up to be mites that go into the soil and feed on invertebrates.
When i was growing up my mom always kept skin so soft around… i once got chiggars on my male parts…so i have an intimate hatred towards the things. I think the skin so soft myth is pretty busted…which is likely why i always had ticks or chiggars… but maybe it just wore off too fast.
Mom also put nail polish on every one of my chigger bites… which i think has also been busted.
So to answer your question- the blackberry plant alone is enough to keep the mites going… all they need is hydration until something with a spine and blood comes by. Its their cycle of life…
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So chiggers can find and colonize blackberry bushes even when they’re 100% mulched. Interesting. Does that mean they probably arrive on the plant from the nursery?
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im no expert…but if i was a chigger i would want to set up shop where things like birds and mice would want to show up… which is their preferred food source.
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@krismoriah … thanks for the tips on propagating illini… perhaps if I collect some roots and let those develop shoots… they would be rosette (doubleblossom) free ?
Not sure…but that seems like it might work.
@hambone… ginseng hunter here… and long time blackberry collector too… the two main concerns when collecting either in TN… is chiggar but also ticks (seed ticks).
I first dress appropriately… and then spray appropriately … to stay chiggar and seed tick free.
Starting at the feet… long pair of tube socks… on and pulled up high… then your pants on… fold the loose pant leg ends around to wrap them tight against your legs… then 2nd pair of tube socks on… pull up high covering your folded around pants legs.
This creates a barrier that keeps seed ticks from easily getting access to your leggs… where they can easily crawl up and get into all kinds of areas… believe me… you dont want them…
Then wear tall rubber boots… that come up just below the knee.
Wear a tshirt…and tuck that into your pants… again… so they cant just crawl in and easily get to skin… but they will instead usually continue to crawl up on the exterior of your clothes…
Your clothes… pre treated with permanon… kills seed ticks dead. Use something like Repel product 40% deet to spray well the area… tops of your boots… pant legs… around your waistline… perhaps lightly on the upper body areas.
I have been on all day ginseng hunts several times… covering 15 miles or more of thick TN woodland areas… and dress and spray like that… and come out tick and chiggar free.
Our local Walmart normally has both of those sprays…
Repel… permethrin – for per treating clothing and gear.
Repel MAX 40% deet.
That combo will do the trick. When on very long hunts… I keep a small pump spray bottle in my fanny pack… to refresh the deet occasionally. The permethrin is supposed to last and be effective on pretreated clothing for days.
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You would have to do a couple of steps that you may or may not want to do.
Remove all floricanes. Spray all primocanes heavily with fungicide. Tip root all primocanes then quarantine all tip roots away from other plants.
Cut all left over primocanes to the ground.
If you want to end the cycle you have to remove the wild blackberries that are carrying the spores. Also you will have to remove the host which is your biennial canes.
You could possibly avoid the wait in steps if you fully dig up one plant when the ground is soft enough to work…and get a big full rootball. Trim roots heavily and get all the pencil sized ones and spray with immunox etc fungicide. Quarantine the root cuttings and grow them out separately.
I think regardless on the Rosette you either need to live with it or eradicate it… thats the choice you will have to make.
The wild ones and your infected ones will continue the cycle as long as they are able.
Rosette is a fungus that thrives on the biennial canes.
Since you are a Tennessee guy take a peek at this nursery in your state… Since you are OK with thorned varieties they sell Chickasaw for pretty cheap. Maybe think of going that route if you want to eradicate your Illini’s
Here is a good description of Chickasaw
Canes of Chickasaw are thorny and erect, but a thorns density is less than that of Kiowa. Chickasaw can be grown in a hedgerow without trellis support, with primocanes tipped at 1.1 m to control primocane length and encourage lateral branching. This is early-ripening variety. Blackberry Chickasaw starts bloom at the end of April. In south regions it can starts bloom earlier - at the middle of April. First berries ripen at the beginning of June, in south regions - at the end of May. Average length of fruiting period for Chickasaw is 40 days. Yield is high, about 12 t/ha. Chickasaw maintained very good fruit weight over the harvest season, average berry weight is 10 g. Chickasaw blackberry has excellent flower and fruit fertility and full drupelet set. Berries of Chickasaw are long, cylindrical, and slightly flattened in shape and very attractive with a glossy, black finish. Primary fruit diameter is 2.5 cm and berry length averages 4 cm. Chickasaw is superior in storage. Winter resistant is good, up to minus 23 C.
Ive never grown it but the hedgerow without support sounds really nice for a little wild forage patch that i want to grow. Berries look to be big as well. I think i will pick up a few and give them a shot. June bearing sounds nice too.
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@krismoriah … details from UOArk say that Chickasaw ripens same date as Ouachitaw…
I have Ouachitaw and get first ripe berries June 15… and my ilinni start ripening then too… got my first ripe berries off both this year June 15.
The ouachitaw are done in a month… ilinni produce a little longer.
Our wild berries ripen here first week in july… and the SWD show up then too…
I have to bag my ilinni and ouachitaw to get good berries for most of their production period.
I am moving to earlier ripening varieties ASAP… I need blackberries that ripen (start and finish by July 1 really.
Prime Ark varieties… Obsidian are being considered.
I have to avoid blackberries that ripen in July August… after that… (after wild blackberries are finished) the SWD pressure here goes way down.
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Good m.o. Do chiggers leave your hands alone or do you spray them with DEET? I’d like to be able to pick berries without insect repellant on my hands.
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This reminds me that I found a wild blackberry that blooms 3 to 4 weeks early and ripens 3 to 4 weeks earlier than any others. I hope to cross it with Ponca this spring and save some seed. We will see if it blooms long enough to get a cross made with a later blooming variety.
Why you ask? Well, if you could have ripe blackberries a month earlier wouldn’t you like that?
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oh…ok. ill pass then. ive never heard of blackberries that don’t send out shoots. my Nelsons sure do. even though they’re in a raised bed i still get shoots that come out sometimes 5-10ft away.
Natchez- First week of June
Arapaho- First week of June
Ouachita- Second week of June
SWD- Grape juice traps. Hang pop bottles or used oil containers with holes drilled in them and put concord grape juice in them. They would rather go to the grape juice than the berries. Also encourage hummingbirds… they eat bazillions of them when they are feeding their young.
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Our blackberries are all Certified Virus Free starts. Chester is a very good reliable variety as you mentioned.
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Washing your hands in hot soapy water after exposure to chiggers keeps them from being much of an issue. We have chiggers BAD here!
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Some of you may like this video on our blackberry trial and pruning : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md1RBCSBGfs&t=280s
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@steveb4 … below is a pic of my Illini row from last march.
I have had them near 20 years… each year each crown sends up 3 or 4 primocanes… very near the crown… they are very upright… tidy canes.
Not once have I ever found a root shoot or a primocane coming up anywhere near the edge of my pine bark mulch.
Now my new bed of ouachita do that… root shoots coming up outside the bed… into the mowed grass… but not these older illini.
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@hambone … I am sure a chiggar could bite you on the hands… seed tick sure could… but I would say that would be very rare.
They do prefer more tinder areas and when you do get a load of them… most will be in tinder skin parts. Seem to be especially attracted to warmer areas soft skin… ankles… up the back of the legs… anywhere near the crotch area… buttocks 
All around your waistline… arm pits, etc…
When I say “seed ticks”… well I worry much more about them than chiggars…
This is what they look like… tiny things… in mass… you can walk by a low bush, brush your leg against it and literally hundreds deposit on your pants leg… and they start heading for your crotch, ankles, arm pits, belly…
A chiggar may itch you for a week or so… but a seed tick, can continue for 2-3 weeks with itching, redness, drive you crazy.
That is what it looks like after you have had a good mess of seed ticks… Been there and done that several times. Not fun at all.
To remove them from your clothes … you can scrape them off your pants legs with a long blade knife (if that is all you happen to have)… but if you have a roll of duck tape handy… you can make a wad of it and press it on them … they will stick to it and remove from your clothes, skin, etc…
Pre-treating our pants, shirt, with that Permanone product is ideal. They may still get on you, but they will just be sitting there, dead… not advancing towards your tinder parts.
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I read the patent on your canes this morning. Illini Hardy is a cross of Chester and NY95
One of the traits is that it doesnt sucker beyond 4-9 inches of the crown.
As far as obtaining plants in the US… gurneys and oikos may have them in stock again or may not. They are available at a few places in Canada.
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