June 13 and the Floricane crop of Joan J is coming to an end. It was a huge crop for almost 4 weeks. The primocanes are flowering and producing crop already. It is seems to be ever bearing for me. Primocane fruits are twice as big. I noticed the primocanes production are not uniform. Each cane reached about 5 to 6 feet separately then flower. At this rate I wonder where the fall fruits will be. Maybe from the small runners that are still coming up. They were sending out lots of runners. Enough to make 2x 60 feet rows from 5 plants planted in march 2021.
Always thought some smelly fruits was from stink bug bites. I was wrong. Found some tiny bugs on a very small percentage of fruit that smelled like stink bugs if accidentally eaten with the druplet. Killed some separately and verified their stink bomb. Good thing they are usually on over ripe druplets. Also since the druplets are airtight they have almost no small insects running around. Unlike blackberries.
My heritage reds produced a nice crop this springā¦ we have not bought any berries from the store for a month or more now. Had plenty of raspberries and blueberries for fresh eating and put up some jam too.
They started ripening about 1.5 to 2 weeks earlier this year than previous yearsā¦ and finished earlier too.
I picked the last couple dozen berries from one of my beds yesterday and cleaned out the spent fcanes.
I have a bunch of nice HR floricanes left in the patch which will produce a nice fall crop too.
Thatās me in the video haha. It was 3rd take so I have already eaten most of the beautiful druplets. I have never taken growing berries seriously. This year changed my mind. They are so easy, productive and tasty. I am so hooked now. Raspberry are very invasive so I think I will just stick with this variety. I donāt think I will be able to separate them once the root merge together. Look at these beauties.
We are about to get our floricane crop of Joan J and Himbo Top in the next 2 weeks
In the fall (Sept), the top third of new growth (primocane) will produce raspberries
Prune the top third away over the winter (it should be easy to see where the flowers and fruit established) and by June the following year, the bottom 2/3rds will have their June primocane crop (and they are loaded); once the June crop is picked, remove these plants (they will not produce any more fruit) to allow space and sun for the fall primocane shoots growing
with a little pruning you can get 2 crops and they are great; kids love the 2 crops and are invested in picking them
@rubus_chief ā¦ my heritage reds double crop nicely here in TN.
On pcanesā¦ we get fruit mid August until November ā¦ a few years back had a late first hard frost and i picked my last rasberries and figs on Dec 3. My fall crop is steady but lighter than the spring cropā¦ but continues for 3 months or so.
On fcanesā¦ mine start ripening the spring crop here mid mayā¦ and they go for about a monthā¦ big crop very abundentā¦ time to make jam and freeze berries.
Fall gold double crops well here tooā¦ but they are much less vigorous than the reds. My population of fall golds has dwindled down to one cane leftā¦ my HRs have multiplied like crazy. Started with 3 plantsā¦ and have 4 nice beds of them now.
If you live in a nice climate take a look at Cascade Delight. Its becoming a favorite for U-pick in the PNW. Not very popular in the Eastern US as its not in many Eastern nurseriesā¦but little by little its becoming more popular due to its disease resistance and ability to thrive in wetter soils.
If you only want thornlessā¦Joan J is one of the best for thornlessness. Canby is smaller berries and bland to me. English Thornless is another that seems alot to me like Joan Jā¦ mostly grown by Edible Landscaping since the 1990s.
Crimson Treasure has similar fruiting times as Heritage however berries are 6.4G vs Heritage 3.0G
Heritage was improved by Caroline and improved again in the Crimson Series which includes Crimson Giant and Crimson Night by Cornell U.
Is Joan J the only thornless? Is the Crimson serious also thornless, almost thornless or have thorns that doesnāt hurt you? I had a Homedepot Thorny Raspberry before. No one bother to pick them and the berries were smaller like the fcane of Joan J.
Cascade Delight sounds good too. How bad are the thorns? Iāll read up on it to see if itās a good Joan J season extension. If I remember right there was a slight drop in production for Joan J in the middle of summer. Joan J also fruit until frost last year.
For you and others that may read this in the futureā¦ usually most known cane fruits that are USDA or private releases have patents at some point in their lifeā¦which will include details about the canes, how it fruitsā¦etc. Point being that it has to be described fully to show that it is ādifferentā than something else to reward a patentā¦
So lets take Crimson Treasure for instanceā¦ Type Crimson Treasure Patent into a search engineā¦ then u will get results.
if you dont like to read much you can always toggle up to the upper right hand side of your browser and pull down to āFind in Pageā and search the term āspineā. Which is usually used in descriptions by scholars.
The canes of the new raspberry plant Crimson Treasure are light yellow-green colored (Y-G 144B) with short, sparse, grayed-purple (G-P 185A) colored spines on the mature sections.
Is Joan J the only thornless- No. English Thornless, Canby, Mammoth Red, Raspberry Shortcake and Itsaul (very hard to find).
Cascade Delight thorns- the mildest thorns of the thorny varietiesā¦has very few and small thorns comparable to Polka.
Totally agree on the yellows: we have Anne (very sweet) Fall Gold, and Double Gold and they are nowhere near as productive as the reds, maybe 25% as productive.
For reds we have: Himbo Top (biggest berry and most productive), Joan J, Prelude and Encore. (Prelude and Encore as their names suggest follow each other and ripen sequentially; both came from Cornell)
For backs - we have Jewel (which is probably my favorite tasting); they are much more productive than the yellows but less than reds and only have a summer fluoricane crop
there are āsparseā spines for āthe central thirdā (which becomes the floricane crop) and none at the top (primocane crop) and if any spines are present, they are āvery shortā and ādo not interfere negatively with plucking of the berriesā
āvery shortā is more like miniscule and very hard to see even on a close up picture
essentially for me and my kids, that is spineless and we consider them as such. They have never been a problem
look how tiny the thorns are on Himbo Top; I mean, they are a joke
North TX 7b/8a with amended black clay soil. Still canāt find any red raspberries which do well here. Tried Joan J, Heritage, Himbo Top. Fall Gold died soon after planting. Double Gold (pink) and Glencoe (purple) are thriving and produce very flavorful fruit in our temps.
