You (both) had me at “best tasting” now I want some olallieberry 
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which is a hybrid… and released in 1935… im gonna start a new thread… meet me in there if u want.
I’m getting my first berries from ponca this year. I figured all the talk about better flavor was mostly hype. It is definitely not hype, at least not in my yard. I’ve grown Arapaho. Ouachita, triple drawn, and osage. Also have thorny Kiowa. Osage is decent for fresh eating but nothing to get excited about. The rest are just not sweet enough for fresh eating. Ponca beats osage by a very wide margin. It tastes very sweet. Much less acidic.
Kiowa dominates in tern of yield. The yield is frankly unreal off those vines. I can pick 2 lb of berries in just a few minutes. And it makes exquisite cobbler and jam. So I’ll always grow plenty of Kiowa, but I’m making a lot more room for ponca next year.
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We have 5 varieties of blackberries planted 16 feet apart, in what used to be our grape orchard. Today I performed some seasonal maintenance on all of them: clipping back errant canes, pulling up wayward tip roots.
All of them were growing as expected except the Ponca. A few of the canes have very early flowers and fruit sets!
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I’ve put in Ponca 3 times now and every time it has died in my location promptly after planting. I don’t have issues with any other blackberries other than at times they can be too vigorous. I’m wondering if they don’t like our alkaline soil.
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This thread is making me excited for my first Ponca fruits this year! I have Prime-ark Freedom, Prime-ark Traveler, Ouachita, and Ponca all producing their first fruits right now 
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@iowacity I’ve had the same problem with yellow raspberries. If you want to know for sure if the Ph is the issue, why don’t you try potting one up for a while? Maybe, since blackberries have shallow roots, you can grow it in a raised bed where you add lower Ph soil (assuming you want Ponca enough to bother).
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How exciting, please report back how they taste.
After three years, our ollalieberry plants Are forming flower buds… I hope we get to taste some of that and also the brand new Kiowa we got from Ison’s have flowers on them too, that are open or opening, so I guess they will be earlier than ollalieberry.
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I’ll try to remember, though I’m not the best at describing flavors. The wild blackberries are putting out a lot this year, too, after two years of spring drought stopping them.
Congratulations on your new berries coming in! I hope they taste delicious and continue to thrive.
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The Ponca have a different flavor profile from the Olallieberry. Now that the plant is maturing, I’d rate it excellent. The flavor is not as sweet as Olallieberry, but much richer.
The Olallieberry are also excellent. The downsides are vicious spines and susceptibility to fungal infection. For the latter I spray at bud-swell with Abound fungicide (Azoxystrobin). They are worth it.
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I am glad to hear that and thank you for the tip to prevent fungal disease.
I should also be cutting off any lateral shoots near the base, correct?
Bud swell is when you have flower buds that aren’t open?
Last season I had pre-ordered Kiowa and Ponca from Ison’s really early, but they had some sort of tragedy and I didn’t get any of the plants
Darrell @Fusion_power kindly sent me some of his Ponca plants and then this year, I re-ordered more with my credit at Ison’s And now have a full row of Ponca’s that we put netting on each side to protect them.
I am not sure if I will get flowers on Ponca this year, but the Kiowa’s have open flowers.
I also got the elderberries from Ison’s that I didn’t get last year and boy they are growing like crazy. I can’t believe how fast they are growing.
I am glad I got such nice plants this year from Ison’s. I was worried about it because last year was the first time I was expecting an order from them, but anyone could have a bad year so I’m glad I gave them a second chance.
I feel like berries are a good bet for us because we have wild berries all over the property.
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During dormancy, the canes are composed of lignified stems and buds (unopen). In the late Winter or Spring the lignified buds start swelling before they burst open. Maybe a little crack in a few buds reveals a thread-width of green. This is bud swell.
Yes, they will be a nuisance later on.
Also, those Ponca develop very tall canes. Allow for it in your netting.
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Richard, Ponca is known for having relatively short canes that top out about 5 to 6 feet tall. Caddo has very long canes that can reach 8 to 10 feet. However, topping the canes about 3 to 4 feet high promotes side branching for most blackberries and increases fruit set the following year.
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@Fusion_power
Thanks for the heads-up 
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My prior blackberries have been brambles, 3-4 foot high – with the exception of Black Satin at a former residence.
Here, Ponca is topping out at 7 foot. Caddo then might go higher.
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I’m looking to add Ponca and Prime Ark Freedom to my collection. Does anyone on here sell starts of these? I like to get things from forum members before sourcing online.
I had a lot of winterkill on my two Ponca stands, but a few canes did survive and are flowering now. They have the thickest canes compared to all my other thornless varieties and sucker more than any other except for Freedom.
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