Rubus Breeding

Drew, How did your pink Irene do this year? And your yellow? You may have said elsewhere but I couldn’t find it.

Several years ago when SWD hit hard I started picking every ripe, or close to ripe! berry every day. Good ones in a basket, mushes into a bucket of water that was dumped on the compost pile a few days later. This resulted in a proliferation of raspberry “weeds” all over! Maybe there’d be a way to translate that for more controlled germination. I’ve let a few grow, should fruit next year. Sue

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I read both have 6 pairs. My info was from a research paper. Not sure I could find it again?
I remember they were the only two that were a match of the plants I had. I had no intention of breeding them together, but since they have the same amount of pairs, why not? If you have different info point me at it! Two pairs seems highly unlikely to me as Marion is a very complex hybrid. As is tayberry being an extremely unique raspberry-blackberry cross. It tastes kinda like strawberries. Low acid too, very different from other raspberry-blackberry hybrids like New Berry which has over 30 cultivars in it’s lineage.
The marionberry was developed at Oregon State University in 1945 by crossing a Chehalem blackberry (a berry with native blackberry, Loganberry, and raspberry in its background) with an Olallieberry (itself a blackberry cross) and named after Marion County in Oregon. They were first brought to market in 1956.

It did OK, but has flaws. Berries are not that big, and the fall crop is super late. I doubt it meets many marketing standards. All the same it was fun. I now have a couple other yellows now, and a wonderful black raspberry cross. The first yellow Andrea, has big berries but has a sprawling habit. Very strange So waiting for a few more seasons to decide.
On your seedlings, it can’t hurt to grow them out. I have done this too, but so far have not kept any. One looked great, huge red berries that were very firm. Prolific too, but the berries were extremely acidic, that saying a lot as I love tart fruit. So I culled it. Others never grew very well.Pick the best growers. You know you want that characteristic.

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Having neglected my project for too long, I feel it’s high time I jumped back into the fray. I placed an order on GRIN’s database with vague inklings of different possibilities… It’s been a few days, and a wave of inspiration hit me like a freight train! So many ideas bouncing around, I can barely keep up. I really should be putting this on paper, but I’ll let this forum post count for it.

I ordered seed from Rubus hawaiiensis and cuttings of R. pentalobus… I’m not sure what to do with either of them yet. I gotta check the documents again to remember R.p.'s ploidy level, but R.h. should be diploid. More closely related to the thimbleberry if I remember correctly, but R.h. can cross readily enough with the domestic raspberry. The reports don’t sound too promising, given that it’s bitter tones tend to end up in the progeny as well, but maybe some backcrossing can take care of that. I tried ordering cuttings from other raspberries (red, yellow and black) and some blackberries & hybrids, but they don’t seem to have much available right now, if anything. For the time being, what I have to work with is those two, Caroline, Prime Ark Freedom and Wild Treasure. I had Black Hawk, but I lost it; I aim to replace it with Niwot and/or Ohio Treasure when I get the chance. A lot of other brambles on my wish-list, but I won’t go into it right now.

Far more complex with possibilities are the number of strawberries I ordered. I already have Reine des Vallees Alpine and Mara des Bois (plus I recently bought an Alpine seed collection that includes Pineapple Crush, Yellow Wonder, White Soul and Ivory). I wanted to order Hawaii-4 and a chromosome doubled (4x) Mignonette, but they’re not currently available through GRIN. What I did get to order from GRIN were several Garden Strawberries (F. x ananassa, 8x – Fern, Aromas, Diamante, Guelph S01, White D and Mieze Schindler), one Scarlet Strawberry (F. virginiana, 8x – Intensity), several Musk Strawberries (F. moschata, 6x – Capron, Profumata di Tortona, 2 more female accessions and a male), one day-neutral F. x bifera (2x – F. vesca x viridis), several Comarum Hybrids (10x – Frel, Lipstick, Rosalyne), two F. x vescana (10x – Sara, Rebecka), and a complex semi-fertile hybrid (8x– F. x vescana “Florika” X moschata). I don’t know what to expect with that last hybrid… F. x ananassa is the descendant of an 8x virginiana x chiloensis cross. Crossed with a chromosome doubled (4x) vesca, you get the aromatic 10x vescana (it should’ve been 6x, I’m guessing a haploid “doubled vesca” gamete fused with an unreduced ananassa gamete). Then crossed with 6x moschata, you get this 8x plant. Should be interesting.

What I find interesting in the potential for strawberry breeding (besides the range of flavors and textures between the species) is the ploidy hopping that might be used to bridge otherwise uncrossable species (I’m trying to avoid odd ploidy levels). Moschata, in particular, seems a wonderful bridge between the lower and higher ploidy levels, and its dioecy would simplify the initial breeding attempts. Moschata could be bred to vescana (as in that last hybrid) or a Comarum hybrid to make a highly aromatic octaploid that could be bred into ananassa. Moschata could also be bred with diploid vesca and bifera to make tetraploids; these could then be crossed with octaploids to make hexaploids or decaploids (depending on whether or not the gametes reduce). Hexaploids could be backcrossed with diploids for further tetraploids, or with moschata for further hexaploids (and so bring in new traits to the moschata genome – day-neutral, bigger berries, greater production, monoecy, etc.). Backcrossing decaploids would yield octaploids for further crossing with ananassa, with the vescana x moschata hybrids, or with the tetraploids for further ploidy hopping. You could keep jumping back and forth between the different ploidy levels by using moschata (and any hexaploid progeny) as a bridge. All of this assuming that fertility wouldn’t turn into an issue (maybe all this ploidy hopping would turn the chromosomes into a pretzel). :sweat_smile: I wonder if I’m reinventing the wheel with a breakthrough someone else already had, but if I am, I haven’t actually seen this ploidy-hopping plan mentioned anywhere else.

I’ve heard of one breeding program trying to cross moschata into ananassa (link here: Berried Treasure | Science | Smithsonian Magazine), and they’re finding it difficult to get the flavor right because of how complex the aromatic compounds are for moschata (never mind the ploidy issues). I’m thinking of trying the reverse… Rather than breeding a complicated flavor into ananassa, we might breed size, yield and other traits into moschata (that is, keeping the genetics mostly moschata). We might even consider a pure moschata breeding program, though that’s outside the scope of my hybrid projects.

I haven’t given up on crossing 2x raspberry with 2x strawberry, but now I’m hoping to test 2x raspberry with 6x musk strawberry. I might get a tetraploid out of it. The strawberry’s dioecy makes it easier to make the cross without having to emasculate the flowers, but its short season could complicate things if I can’t get flowering times to match up. Maybe if I develop a dioecious female day-neutral hexaploid strawberry? Too many steps for my liking, but it’s an option. Day-neutral & everbearing are really the best options for the tropics. It doesn’t make sense to grow berries with one explosive harvest season when they could be bearing all year long in this climate.

Besides brambles and strawberries, I ordered Medlar & Hawthorn (Tejocote & C. monogyna) to cross with each other, as well as Quince and three Apple scions (no rootstock, I’m hoping they’ll function as cuttings, and said so in the order form). Chestnut Rose (Rosa roxburghii, 2x) to cross with the brambles, with the strawberries, and with the Apples (an alternative version of Schoener’s pomifera hybrid). A couple of Rowan hybrid scions (also as cuttings; Likyornaya & Granatnaya) and Currant seeds to test in my local climate, and several kiwi varieties to cross arguta with chinensis.

I have enough projects here to keep me busy for a lifetime. There was a point where I should’ve stopped and I have clearly passed it… But let’s keep going and see what happens. :grin:

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Glad to see you post . I have seeds planted of a cross I made . A long wait . Mine should sprout about August . I follow nature’s way . Pass seeds through a chicken then plant in a pot outdoors and wait .

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My method has been similar to yours Jerry, I planted a bunch of named blackberry cultivars years ago. Most didn’t make it because of heat, drought, poor soil and inconsistent attention. I have done what I could to preserve the few that did survive, scratching the soil and forcing them using bricks to hold them down. A couple of years ago we had a new patch appear under a toothache tree, courtesy of birds. Those have been more productive and hardier than their parents. Thorny? Yes, but everything where we are either has claws, teeth or thorns! D

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LOL! Ha! I have one yellow raspberry plant from a robin. I have removed at least 20 black raspberry volunteers. Passing it through a bird works! I would have kept some of the blacks except my intentional crosses produced two nice cultivars. I talked about them elsewhere

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@jerry63

What did you cross on this particular attempt?

@Drew51

Your collection never ceases to impress me. You should think about releasing your blackcap as an official cultivar, if not commercially licensed, then at least to ARS GRIN. A primocane blackcap with good flavor and decent size is worthwhile breeding stock, and a worthwhile crop in itself, considering it’s superior to fully-released cultivars. What name shall you give it?

I’ve thinking of trying Arctic Raspberry for the breeding program. It’s a diploid, and almost seems strawberry-like in growth pattern. It’s pollen-fertile, but self-incompatible, which should facilitate some breeding combinations. First I’d need to see if it survives here… Then, can it flower without winter chill? Can it pollinate (and be pollinated) in higher-heat circumstances? If so, I could get some interesting progeny out of it, within Rubus, and with other genera.

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They wont send Arctics. I tried, they emailed me asking me to try something else for my ground cover project. The articts are difficult to clone when there busy apparently. Overall I wouldn’t dont think they are good for the tropics they the need for both sun and protection I dont think they can take the heat.

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Who won’t send Arctics?

None of the places that sell them ship to PR, so I’d have to pass them through my relatives in Texas. I was thinking about ordering them from Logee’s for a better deal. One Green World has them at $20 each, but at Logee’s you get two varieties for the same price.

It’s worth a shot. I don’t expect much, but if there’s the slightest chance of success, I’m willing to try. They’d be a valuable resource if successful, as would the information (that they could survive here, if so).

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Well I have a seedling blackberry that needs a pollinator . Only thing blooming with it was Niwot and Jewel . I was told by Bob Hayes they would not cross . Anyway I got berries and saved seed . Got Niwot seed planted and purple raspberry seed . My own purple . It is a bowcane type like the blacks .

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That blackberry hybrid should be excellent (and it might be primocane too, given its dominant nature in the blackcaps). Olympic Berry is considered one of the best for flavor, despite being exceedingly rare, and it has blackberry and black raspberry in its immediate heritage.

Is your purple an F1 of Black and Red? I think most of the commercial types are backcrosses to Red. How does yours taste?

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The purple is likely Jewel x Brandywine as I had no Niwot then . Good flavor IMHO . Birds planted it and bees likely did the cross .

A backcross to black rasp then? First one I’ve heard of. ¿What are the flavor nuances like? ¿How do they compare to the flavor of Brandywine, blackcaps and red raspberries?

I just placed an order on eBay for Rubus glaucus seeds, from Washington, and I found out some information that’s new to me. For one, this species is an everbearer in the literal sense of the word… Apparently it blooms and fruits throughout the year, not in a pair of seasons like common domestic primocane berries. Second (found this out by reading “Chromosome Numbers of Rubus Species at the National Clonal Germplasm Repository”), apparently it’s a species of hybrid origin, between a black raspberry and a diploid Andean blackberry (subgenus Lampobatus, I think), with a later chromosome doubling event (it’s a tetraploid). Suddenly the flavor comparisons to Loganberries and Boysenberries make sense. It’s apomictic, so if used for crossbreeding, it should be the pollen donor.

It’s generally considered a high-quality berry, on par with the best North American and European domestic selections, and is grown commercially in South America. It’s also feral in Hawaii (meanwhile in Puerto Rico, we just have Roseleaf & Atherton Raspberries).

I hope, for once, that I have success with these seeds… I have a poor track record with Bramble seeds. I’d love to report my experiences with this one, it really sounds like a worthwhile berry.

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I don’t know yet? Still thinking about it. I was friends with a professional breeder and it’s so difficult to launch a cultivar if you’re an independent breeder. It costs a lot up front. 10 grand for a patent, You need farmers to run trials for you against other known raspberries.
Without trials no nursery will even talk to you. Well if you pay them they will propagate enough for trials. Best take and save tissue cultures too to be able to produce a virus free cultivar. You have to pay for virus analysis too.
The whole process takes about 10 years. I tried to pass stuff to ARS and they were not interested. So I lost interest in doing anything with my hybrids. It’s fun to do. I love plants and don’t care about much else if given a choice, all I would do.

On arctic raspberries I also doubt they will do well in hot weather.I have been trying to grow them. They seem to have established, but still are small clumps. These new hybrids fruit much better than the other types. Fruits so far are very small though. These are the Swedish hybrids Sophie, Valentina, Anna, and Beta. I have the former two.

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That’s depressing… I wonder why they make the process so expensive and extensive.

And it’s weird about ARS, I’d expect them to be the first to line up for new varieties with useful traits. I’ve actually called up my local ARS stations a few times to share rare root crops… They always say they’ll call me back, but they never do. I guess if it’s not tracked down by their agents on their own terms, they’re not interested.

But if they’re not interested, we are. If you’ve made some good hybrids, pass 'em forward. It’d be a great shame if good germplasm is lost (it hurts every time I see an ARS GRIN accession listed as “Historical”). I plan on tracking everything I breed back to the source. The history and origins of a variety is almost as important as the variety itself.

I do have some shadier microclimates that should be quite a bit cooler than the surrounding spaces, so I hope to at least keep the arctics alive, even if I don’t get good yields from them.

I’ve continued reading the literature lately, and my scheming has been kicked into overdrive… For starters, the primocane-fruiting trait in the Prime Ark breeding program is derived from a blackberry variety called “Hillquist”. A quick check of the Rubus Cultivar Ploidy document revealed it to be a diploid R. argutus (it chance-produced an unreduced gamete, which is how it ended up in higher-ploidy breeding). Coupled with “Whitford Thornless” (another argutus) and/or “Burbank Thornless” (R. ulmifolius), there’s real potential for a Thornless Primocane-fruiting blackberry at the diploid level. Add in “Snowbank” for pale fruits. Cross it to Joan J raspberry, and you might get a diploid, thornless primocane Logan. Tip of the iceberg, and the possibilities multiply… This does put a smile on my face. :grin:

One thing did strike me as odd, though. “Snowbank” (listed as R. allegheniensis) is a confirmed diploid, developed by Burbank by crossing and backcrossing “Crystal White” (R.a.) & “Lawton” (R.a. x R. frondosus). Yet “Lawton” has been confirmed as a tetraploid by genetic testing at Corvallis. This would mean that, either Burbank managed to breed down from tetraploid to the diploid level by some fluke, or that Burbank’s Lawton is different from the Lawton currently in the collection (and either one might have been misidentified). Burbank claimed Lawton was fixed (that it bred true from seed). Maybe it was seed-grown for a time, and somewhere along the line there was a doubling event. Who knows? It’s all idle speculation at this point, but it makes one wonder.

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Maybe just the person I emailed and had correspondence with? I also had some rare cultivars, and just asked if they wanted them, and they did not. . I also have local wild rubus. One is exceptional. At least for breeding. A brown cap. It is disease resistant, and has large berries. I also have a collection of wild black, red, brown, and yellow cap seeds. Frozen, collected across the USA. I have seeds from a Bristol x Niwot cross. I will grow these out one day. Pete the rubus breeder I know gave me the seeds. He said do what i want with them. I’m working on stone fruit right now, and will come back to rubus in the future.

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What does a brown cap look like? For that matter, what species is it? I’m having trouble picturing a brown berry. :sweat_smile: Regardless, it sounds like a winner to me! I’d like to breed with it, maybe improve further on the Niwot primocane lines.

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About 50 years ago, I found a clump of wild blackberry vines that produced berries up to 2 inches long and 5/8 inch diameter. That clump is still growing.

A year ago, I noticed a small clump of wild blackberries that bloomed in mid February which is about 4 or 5 weeks earlier than normal for this area. I’m going back to that clump in a week or so to see if it is blooming again this year. If so, I’ll dig up a few plants and bring them home. I would love to have a blackberry that ripens fruit up to month before any other variety.

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Rubus occidentalis. Instead of being black they can be yellow, brown, or red. I have seen yellow and browns. I have seeds to a red. Mine starts out yellow and when ripe it is brown. Taste is OK, nothing special. What is cool, is the size and prolific amount of fruit it produces. Seems disease resistant too. In my one cross I think the pollen is from Jewel, but it could be from this Ontario wild brown cap. I crossed both, and they got mixed up once planted out. It could explain the huge berries. I thought the plant emerged from my Jewel x Niwot crosses, but
accidents happen. I have a 2nd plant too. It is also primocane fruiting but smaller berries.
I had 3 or 4 others i discarded.

Ontario wild brown cap

This plant is grown in a 30 gallon root pouch and is 6 years old. The container is not moved in the winter. here it is today. I took this a minute ago, still dark out this morning. Hard to see but canes are yellow/green.

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Impressive! They look like the pic of OIKOS’ Yellowcap. Now I wonder what the yellows and browns look like side-by-side.

When you say the flavor of a berry is nothing special, what precisely do you mean? What makes a great berry! I grew up with R. rosifolius here, and no one would sing its praises, but I personally enjoyed them whenever I could get them. I did notice Caroline to be a flavor explosion by comparison, so maybe that’s the difference?

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