There are some older cultivars and maybe some new thornless varieties that will revert to spines and prickles with root cuttings. Nothing to do with planting in proximity though…at least to my knowledge.
So its possible with vole damage or root damage to have a sucker that is spined… but its rare… and maybe those cultivars arent in the market any more. I dont think any varieties in the trade nowadays have reversion.
Its more likely at some point to have a seedling from a bird or animal dropping that will be a mutation of its parent…which could result in a spined variety even though the seed was from a spineless cultivar.
I have a seedling from a thornless boysenberry going now that is ultra thorny… i have no idea what kind of berries it will have… i just know that its not growing like a trailing boysenberry and doesnt even have the small spines of a thorned boysen…its a mutation. Could be terrible…could be awesome… thats just how nature works.
If you want to nerd out…this is a good article explaining the process and science of breeding thornlessness and in some cases there may be a chance of reverting.
Most everything that has happened with thornlessness is due to a sport of Loganberry found in 1933 ‘American Thornless Loganberry’… if not for that… hard to know if we would have thornless cane fruits today…alot of breeding has resulted from that seedling.
Didnt Burbank breed the original thornless blackberry back in the early 20th century?
Someone on the forum explained some time back that such thornless cultivars are chimeras, with the roots being genetically one (thorny) individual, the stem tissue another (thornless). I’ve never had such an issue digging suckers from my thornless blackberries
hobilus, read the article krismoriah linked. It is very well explained. krismoriah posted a couple of inaccuracies, technically thornless Evergreen was the source of most modern thornless varieties.
I finally figured out how to propagate Illini…even though i think i am going to remove it. The lowest laterals easily tip root (need to be removed at end of season anyways). Dug plants will send up a few new plants as well. However no matter what i did the root cuttings would not take… the only variable that i did not factor was length of root… perhaps that is the key. I think you and i are the only ones that see value in this plant… the thorns sure are nasty but nice berries.
Just plant a couple blackberries in a pasture or field. Don’t mow or prune. In a few years you will have a whole field full of canes and wonder what possessed you to plant them.
@krismoriah … I am going to leave my 6 remaining illini blackberry crowns with our current home.
I have established a couple of crowns of Kiowa in my new orchard at the new home site. I should get to try a good amount of kiowa fruit this year… they grew some very stout and very thorny canes this year.
My deer respect them… and leave them alone.
I planted 4 caddo and 1 columbia giant near the Kiowa… and they did not survive the deer browse. Thornless varieties are worthless here without protection from deer.
Our plan is to sell our current home and old orchard… to our daughter and SIL. Our new home and orchard site is just up the road from our current home.
Grand daughter living in walking distance from us… is going to be ideal.
A guarantee of good neighbor’s too.
I dont mind having less blackberries at our new place… I have 5 mulberries established there already and may add 2 more this spring.
They are easy to grow and lower maintenance than blackberries.
I think i am going to go with Cheyenne here as far as tame thorned ones go. I like Kiowa for the most part but Cheyenne has a tinge of red rasp flavor… and its a darned good plant. Its truly worthy of a spot if someone wants to step outside of the box of the thornless varieties. The nicest plants were from Shumway which they should be available again soon. Otherwise in some Meijer and other chain stores the Degroot plants are available (but teetering near death in the bags in boxes). Urban Farmer also sells plants but i have not ordered from them before.
I have put Ebony King out to pasture and let it just be a wild find for me… I will probably do the same with Illini unless someone wants to carry the torch onward. Its not going to be me.
Cheyenne would be a good one to propagate… regardless. But i doubt many folk want to grow thorned ones again.
Early fruiting, very large berries, cold hardy and heat tolerant… magic to me here.
I just dug up some roots from my Apache plant and placed them about 2” deep in the same row. I’m hoping to get 6 to take so I can fill out the row of Natchez and Apache.
