Has anybody crossed a Marionberry(6x) with a Raspberry, Red or Black(2x), to give a tetraploid,(4x) that can be crossed with thornless tetraploid blackberries ?
I am going to attempt this, this season here in Australia and would like to know if it has been sucessfully done and what the hybrid was like. I am going to use the Marionberry as the female and male parent, to see which gives better seed set.
Well, I have done the hybrid and the fruit has set, need to wait for the fruit to ripen, extract the seeds, then sow them and see what I get.
Very cool! Which raspberry did you use?
I’m going to be trying similar crosses myself, but between some different raspberries (European and mysore) and tayberry. If those work out, I’ve considered trying to then cross with something like Prime Ark Freedom, but I’d have to check if that’s legal, not sure what kind of patents they’ve got on those blackberries. Failing that, there are plenty of older tetraploids that are for sure off patent.
You are free to use a patented parent in a cross. 
Dang, that’s nice, and surprisingly unrestricted. Even for self pollination or plants with nucellar seed?
Interesting, don’t know about that. If selfed it you could be apopmictic so not identical but those citrus types are identical, correct?
Yeah, self pollinated would still be new plants, whereas with citruses the seeds are generally clones of the mother plant.
Marionberry was used with several hybrids amongst many others to create Newberry… i would think that a simpler cross would give an inferior fruit to Newberry?
Well, Newberry is trailing, which isn’t my preference. And it favors it’s blackberry parentage, while I’m mostly after raspberry like and hybrid like berries. I’m also not sure Newberry would do well here, though admittedly I’ve never tried growing any of the PNW cultivars.
Hi, I used my own bred thornless red raspberry. I have also crossed Mysore with the same red raspberry and have the first fruit.
In Australia we do not have access to any Arkansas cultivars, so I will make do with Chester Thornless and some seedling 4x blackberries.
