Has anyone tried growing the early varieties Freedom, Traveler (as a floricane) and then bushhogging after harvest? That would be mid-late June in my area. Is it possible to grow without a trellis? This potentially could cut yields down but save money in trellising and labor for pruning. Any thoughts?
Not a blackberry expert here but I do have PAF. My floricanes are loaded right now but I also have primocanes coming up. If you take everything down it will delay the primocanes harvest but I’m not sure it would eradicate it. I had berries producing into November last year. PAF is a very aggressive grower and the canes get very tall. I was busy tipping them all summer. If you didn’t trellis you would have to keep them very low (time and labor) or you’ll lose floricanes when the heavy canes with fruit break in the spring.
Katy
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I have PA 45, and it supports itself very well until it puts out canes past about 5-6 ft. If you care more about the early crop, you could grow that one without a trellis, imho. You’d have to cut off top canes that would be a lot of the later crop, however. But I could see many of them in a row like a casual hedge, and more bushes would give a nice amount of later berries, too.
That’s 45, though. I don’t know how varied these are shape-wise.