Mystery Raspberry - possible identify?

I planted my first bed of raspberries last spring and split the bed up half Red (Heritage), and Gold (Fall Gold). They grew nicely all spring, summer, and in September all of them (except 1) started bearing fruit on the limb tips and continued fruiting until Dec 3 (first hard frost)… My wife and kids, and well every one just loved them. Very good eats.

But the one that did not tip fruit… I could tell by early summer that it was different… it sort of seriously out grew the others by a significant amount. When the others had not yet reached my 4 ft top trellis wire… it was a foot over it. I tip pruned it to slow it down some and it then started sending out the long (very long) letteral limbs that just kept on growing, They reached the ground by fall and were still growing. I kept pruning them off where they were reaching the ground… but over the winter many of those tip rooted with no help from me at all.

I obviously got some raspberry plants that were labeled correctly and true to type…

But then I got this one that is different.

The Herritage and Fall Gold have sort of a light brownish, somewhat scaly bark on the (now florocanes) and the Herritage sent up a BUNCH of new canes (from root spread)… some 2-3 feet away from the crown. The Fall Gold, best I can tell, did not do much of that…

But this one other raspberry ??? did not send up any root suckers… but did a lot of tip rooting.

Again all the Heritage and Fall Gold produced a nice crop on the top 1/3 of the canes last fall… and should give us a nice crop this summer on the floricans’

This one Mystery Raspberry ??? did not fruit on the limb tips last fall… so I assume it is some kind of (June Bearing) raspberry… rather than an (Everbearing) as I ordered.

I got one odd ball in the shipment that was mislabeled as a Heritage. - but obviously is NOT.

Wondering if any of you might be able to Identify what type of Raspberry this is from a couple of pics.
The one above shows the floricans just above the crown and where they are reaching my first trellis wire. As you can see they are somewhat Purple, with a bit of silvery sheen to them. That one up close on the left is actually one of those long limb laterals that after I tipped it, it sent out those very long laterals the went all the way down to the ground and most tip rooted.

This Mystery Raspberry grew much more aggressively than the other (Herritage and Fall Gold) plants did. Again - it did not send up root suckers, but did limb tip very successfully with no help from me at all.

MRB2

Here is another Pic showing at the end of my trellis, how it sent a bunch of laterals (after I tipped it at 4.5 ft tall) and these long purplish red laterals streamed down towards the ground and many tip rooted successfully.

I have a Logan berry (couple of those) and this thing has a similar growth habit to the Logan, but my Logan is not this same purplish red color…

I suppose in a few months I will see what kind of fruit this thing produces. Assume since it did not tip fruit last fall, that it is a (june bearing) variety of some kind.

Any good educated guesses on what type of raspberry this might be ?

Thanks

TNHunter

no suckers tells me its either a purple rasp. or black rasp. how are the thorns? if theyre hard like a blackberry its a black rasp. if more like the reds its a purple. i have royalty purple that puts out huge 8ft erect canes with big berries. im betting its that or brandywine which is another popular purple rasp. youll like them. they make great jams and pies and are very productive. if you can start a separate row with the tip rooted ones. the reds will crowd them out eventually if they stay together. sometimes receiving the wrong variety can be interesting. :wink:

1 Like

I got out this morning and got a up close pic of one of those long reddish purple lateral limbs…

As you can see they a coming out a little.

On these long laterals there are curved back, hooked like thorns, much like blackberries, but they are sort of sparsely located on these longer narrow lateral limbs. Back up the cane to some of the older cane (pre tip prune) the thorns are quite a bit thicker, and larger

I just purchased 3 Ohio Treasure Black Raspberry plants to start in a new location. I wanted a everbearing black raspberry, and the OTBR is everbearing…

I am quite new to raspberries and can see for sure that you can buy just a few, and easily make new plantings every year… with all of this tip rooting and root shooting going on. The Red Heritage (on the sunny side of the bed) sent up 10-15 nice long root shoots… and on the shady side another 8-10 nice ones, not as tall but still 1.5 to 2 ft tall.

I am going to dig up (possibly today) and pot several of those… to establish another bed, to spread those around some here… and going to give my daughter a few plants too, and possibly other family members or neighbors.

I can see that as a dupable food source, Red Heritage raspberry would be a good one, Plant 3… and the next spring, you will have 15-20 more to move to other locations if you want.

Thanks

TNHunter

1 Like

that looks more like a black rasp. purples have more smaller spines like reds. i have ohio treasure and they are good. thorny buggers though.

Steve… I can deal with the thorns… I hunt wild blackberries here 3-4 times every year… and ginseng too… and always come back all scratched up…

I have Ilinni berries that have thorns, but they are in a nice straight row, easy pickings and the berries are just way better than our wild berries, but have similar flavor. Bigger, sweeter… they turn shiny black, then dull black, and are ready then.

No thorns would be nice, but definitely not going to deter me from growing something that produces fruit that I like.

TNHunter

PS… today I dug up 8 of the Heritage root shoots (that came up way outside my desired bed location)… and got them potted in some compost and garden dirt.

I will get some of these (hopefully Black Rasp) that have tip rooted next, and plant them somewhere else… just to see how they turn out.

I have heard that Jewel is a very good black raspberry…

What ever these are I should know how good they are by June hopefully.

TNHunter

1 Like

where did you buy these berries from? what ever black raspberries they carry, it should be one of those unless a bird planted a voulenteer there which is always possible.

Yes looks like a black raspberry. In this photo are two black raspberries. The one on the left is a black raspberry cross I did, and the one on the right is a wild plant found in Ontario. It is a yellow/brown cap, notice the lack of dark pigment in the canes. This wild is the most disease resistant and vigorous black raspberry I grow. Since we are looking at canes, thought I would post this. I put stakes in the pot to wrap the canes if needed. Usually I use the stakes for growing primocanes, most are later headed to keep length down. Primocane fruiting types can be headed early to form laterals for more fruit. I grow them in pots and in ground too.

Steve… I checked my spreadsheet and I got the raspberries from Bob Wells Nursery… just checked their website and they have a few blacks listed…

Black Hawk, Bristol Black, Cumberland Black, Jewel

They have a Royalty Purple, and a couple of darker red berries too Baba Red, Brandywine Red.

There was no significant pics of the plants themselves that I could use to possibly identify which one.

TNHunter

Drew… your one on the left front there is a very close match on the color and shape of my canes and laterals.

TNHunter

Post a picture of the berries when they ripen. It will be interesting to see what you end up with.

I will do that… pics of berries…

I found a youtube of Stefan at Miracle Farms pruning a Jewel Black raspberry… It looked very similar to mine.

On my other raspberries (everbearing) the limb tips that produced berries last fall, those were dead and I pruned that off. Just cut them back to the first live bud.

I have not really pruned anything off this (possible black) yet… but based on how he pruned this Jewel… (pretty heavy)… I need to take some off mine.

TNHunter

2 Likes

Stark Bros. has this note posted regarding black raspberries. If it does turn out to be a black you may have to relocate it away from your other raspberries.

Note: Do not plant Red, Gold or Purple raspberries within 75-100 feet of Black raspberries. Black raspberries may be more susceptible to viral diseases carried by aphids to and from nearby raspberry plants.

unfortunitly most black raspberries have the same purplish canes. really hard to identify even when they fruit.

Leroy… I wondered about that… if there were any known problems with mixing reds, golds, blacks…

Sounds like Reds and Golds being together is OK… but you would be better off keeping the blacks separate.

I got my Mystery Black pruned up nicely… and checked out a few of those tip rooted parts…

Check this out. These are planted in a raised bed covered in deep hay mulch…

TR

When I eased the deep hay back to reveal where the tip had rooted… some nice green shoots were revealed. Cool.

So I guess I will let this Mystery Black fruit this year, and then take it out of this patch.

TNHunter

1 Like

My Jewel has far more thorns than the one asked about above.

This just seems to persist. No not really. Some reds can have viruses and be asymptomatic. If you put blacks with these, the blacks will get it and die. But if you bought your plants from a nursery they are virus free and you have no worries. I like putting them together because blacks are like the canary in a coal mine., If they suddenly die I know I have a virus problem in my reds.
Since nursery bought reds are virus free, the only way to get a virus is locally, so any blacks you have are screwed anyway. No matter how far away from the reds.

4 Likes

I would also add that nurseries suggest keeping them away because putting new raspberries near an old patch may result in the death of the new cultivars. Here is what Indian Berry company says
Yes, you can plant Red & Black Brambles together.
Historically they have been planted separately but not to keep the fruits from cross pollinating. The potential problem is from insects transmitting diseases. If you control the insects, you control the problem. However, separating them by at least 200 yards will protect you from most problems.

All Nourse said is this
" Do not plant near wild plants or plants whose origins are unknown."

1 Like

Thanks for the full scoop on risks of having blacks and reds together…

Back in Dec I prepped a bed at my daughters place for berries… she loves raspberries… think I will start her off with a couple red herritage… and a couple Ohio treasure black. Both are everbearing.

The heritage spread by root like crazy so each spring she can expand the bed plenty… although it will probably be me doing most of the work initally.

TNHunter

1 Like

RBprop

My first shot at propagating raspberries… sure looked easy…

The 8 in the back are Heritage Red… I planted 3 last year. If you are looking for one that will mass reproduce… this looks like a good one. I am no expert on raspberry taste but these tasted very good to me.

The two front left are (Mystery Black) that tip rooted… those tops were under my deep hay mulch.

The one on the front right is a Fall Gold…

I am going to give my daughter a Fall Gold, Heritage, and a Ohio Treasure black… to get her started this spring.

The rest of these, I will plant some, and give some away.

PS… I was hoping that my Rising Star Peach would bloom later than my Reliance, and Early Elberta… but dang if it did not beat both of them. It have 4-5 blooms open this evening… and the other two will be right behind it… they are getting close.

My Rising Star is in a location where it get a little more sun, more early morning sun than my others by about a hour… that may be why it is blooming first.

TNHunter

2 Likes