Joan J Raspberry review

General Fruit Growing
#1

I randomly pick the only thornless raspberry name Joan J from Nourse Farms when order my Ponca blackberries. I have never seen a raspberry work this hard. I removed all my Home Depot raspberries a few years ago because low yield and thorn. Joan J is very heavy yield on its floricane and is looking good on its primocane. The plant is completely thornless and sturdy. They are pushing 6’ tall now. The floricane begun to ripen Late May in VA 7a. The primocane is beginning to ripen now (late June) and is still making flowers. I did a bit of research now and it looks good from other sources too. What do you guys think of this variety? Are there any other one that’s heavier yield, thornless and taste better?

Growing Berries in Central Oregon Project Update - Raspberries - YouTube

A Comparison of 10 Fall Bearing Raspberry Cultivars for Northern Utah (usu.edu)

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#2

How do you have them planted? As discussed in a different thread, the varieties I have are ground-level and we had so much rain that the floricanes died from root rot. I noticed as a result, however, that the primocane berries are much larger than usual so my routine next year will be to cut the raspberries down to the ground (if they are primocane fruit-bearing).

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#3

i have all mine planted on mounds. we’ve had alot of rain also and they werent affected. i also added compost and perlite to help aerate the soil.

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#4

Joan J Red Raspberry, A thornless high yielding Early fall bearing primocane ripens 10 to 14 days before the Heritage Raspberry. Berries are large and firm with very good flavor, Great shipper Raspberry, and best of all it’s thornless. Yields have been very high on this variety, makes an early June crop if left through the Winter.
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Found that on the pense site.

I have a bunch of Herritage reds…they produce a large spring crop (May 20 to June 20)… and then start PCane fruiting Sept thru Nov.

Pense says JJ ripens 10 to 14 days b4 HR… but I think they are talking about the Pcane fall crop there.

I don’t really want my fall crop to be earlier… my SWD normally disappear by mid Aug… and then my HRs start ripening. Perfect timing.

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#5

Fortunately, my property is on the top of the hill. So I don’t have any drainage issues. I just plant them normally. My primocane is about 6’ tall now. I read that it’s going to be like this from year 3 onwards.

#6

I like the taste of my HR … they are not super sweet but have very good Raspberry flavor. To me they are just sweet enough especially when the heat is on… like the past few weeks.

Anyone have both HR and JJ ?

A taste comparison ?

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#7

joan j are sweeter but still a strong raspberry taste. bigger firmer berries. very productive.

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#8

@Sunny_Orchard and @steveb4 …

With the thornless red Joan J… do you have much trouble with birds getting your berries ?

I have no noticable issues with birds on my HR but they do have thorns.

Birds here do get lots of my thornless Ouachita blackberries… where they do not bother my thorned illini blackberries.

It sounds like a nice red… lots of positives… sweeter flavor size productive…

But if you have to protect from birds… that would be a negative for me.

Thanks…

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#9

I will have to protect against bird. They are eating both my thornless blackberries and thornless raspberries. I still get a lot to eat from the abundance of raspberries. Not so good with my blackberries yet. As not many have ripen.

#10

birds dont touch my cane fruit here. thornless or not. knock on wood!

#11

The only Raspberry I’ve tried is Caroline and it was the bomb to me for size/weight. I’m going to put in a row of a Red raspberry and hadn’t considered anything else until I see some of you are growing others that look on Nourse Farm’s website to be dense/heavy like Caroline. Joan J for example. Anybody know if being in NW IL if Caroline is a good SWD choice or not?

#12

its later fruiting than joan j so should avoid SWD issues. if you want a longer harvest and try a bunch of cultivars, Indiana berry allows you to by a single plant of each.

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#13

Thanks, Steve.

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#14

youre welcome!

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