I thought PA 45’s were thornless but info online seems to say they have thorns. PAF’s were the first thornless primocanes.
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heppi new year, everyone!
affirmative—PA 45s have thorns.
my PAF floricanes are putting out new growth from the lower parts, and this new growth has buds. huzzah! since i’ve grown PAFs only from mid-2017, this is a new sight to my eyes. happy to have mature plants.
some of the older canes are yellow, which probably means they’re spent. I can cut these down, correct?
Last year’s florocane should be totally dead by now.
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My PAF seem to have had appropriate seasonal doemancy bred out of them. If it’s warm and sunny, they tend to grow regardless of the month. Then the frost kills new growth.
Fortunately the Spring growth is so fast, it makes up for winter kill. So far.
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cool. new growth is popping forth from floricanes, and there are buds everywhere. so that’s how this plant behaves.
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Alright Prime Ark growers. Do I need to put a root barrier around these things or can I stop them by digging up the tiny ones I see that are “out of bounds”?
I’m not sure how deep your root barrier would have to be… most of the ones I’ve dug up are no further down than 6 inches but I wouldn’t count them out for going under that… You can dig them up but the roots they come off of can stretch for 6-10 feet…maybe longer. I tried pulling a couple of roots out of the ground and they stretched across another raised bead I had near the main berries.
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Are they similar to mint? If you sever the root, will the remaining pieces continue to spread?
I’m not sure but I’d bet they could. My original plants came from small pieces of root that I purchased. Just pieces of root about 2 inches long. 
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Mine do the same thing. They seem to just grow right up until frost kills everything sensitive and then resume growing the minute spring begins. Mine are already pushing out a bunch of new growth even though it is really only early spring here. (just as a reference the first daffodils bloomed only last week and most still haven’t bloomed)
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@ozymandias, mine had a lot of buds this winter, killed in freezes this month. The tops of the canes look dead. My Triple Crown and Arapaho canes look more alive and did not break dormancy during the winter. Still, Im hopeful there will be buds, still dormant, that will awaken during the next month and show the vigor I’ve come to expect from PAF.
Like yours, my daffodils are mostly not blooming yet. A few are but most are just buds.
wow. one primocane appeared in february and has schproinged to about 16” in height.
the other primocanes aren’t far behind.
and there’s at least one floricane berry turning dark.
PAF’s a beast.
edit: went out this morning to measure the largest primocane instead of estimating its height. it’s 27” tall, not 16”. holy sheet.
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About all I can say about my PAF blackberries is that a couple of them are still alive, I planted 6 of them in the spring of 2016 and lost all 6 (one was dug up by an animal), I also planted a total of about 26 other thornless blackberries at the same time including Prime Ark Travel, Ouachita, and Osage, and lost about 3 or 4 of those total. The next year in the spring of 2017 I replanted 5 more PAF’s. 2 of those are still alive and only one of those is thriving. So for me at least PAF is not a winner, and I don’t know why, maybe it is the soil conditions, pH of 5.7 with very fine sandy loam soil, maybe it is the climate on the 8b/9a line in Louisiana, but whatever it is I think I am done replanting PAF. Now to plan on adding some of the new Arkansas release Caddo if I can get my hands on them for next spring.
I don’t think PAF is crazy about heat. Mine are in afternoon shade for the most part and do okay. One area of mine is not shaded and doesn’t do as well.
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Perhaps, but that first lot of 6 I planted were in a location with afternoon shade
they grow like nothing i ever planted up here but would winter kill to the snow line and our summers weren’t long enough to get a primocane crop. 2 summers i had them the primocanes got to 8-9ft!
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As I posted on another thread it looks like some of the big floricanes on my PAF are brown and crispy. Took a scratch of some of them, and they were brown underneath. Can’t say for sure how much of the canes are still viable, maybe will check them more thoroughly tomorrow.
We had one night at zero and a few other nights in single digits, along with strong winds, so that probably did them in.
Second year canes, from what I understand, usually fruit farther down the cane, and not on the tips, which have the most damage. So, we might still get some fruit off them, we’ll see. Maybe it’s just normal winter dieback of the tips? Again, I’ll take a closer look at them soon.
My other primocane BB, PA Traveler, looks to have fared better, and the others, Osage, Ouachita and Triple Crown look good overall.
I’ve yet to see any new blackberry primocanes coming up yet, but it may be still too early. But, I have seen some new raspberry canes sprouting up.
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In my experience the BB primocanes come up a few weeks later than the raspberry. They seem to need a higher soil temperature to get going.
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