I don’t think any have ever been released. I recall they have issues with texture or something.
Might could do with oryzalin instead of colchinine. Also apparently MSG can do the trick, no idea how effective it is though but it’s way cheaper, safer, and easier to get. Oryzalin is a bit harder but still possible, colchinine is hard to get and dangerous.
Hi, Actually you get only BBRR. However in practice, random gene swapping causes variations in the amount of blackberry and raspberry genes on each chromosome. This provides plenty of variation.
Doubling triploids is not difficult, I have done it before.
“Colchicine is an extremely toxic alkaloid that poses severe health risks to humans and animals if inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through the skin. It acts as a potent antimitotic agent, and exposure can lead to systemic organ failure.”
Yikes level stuff.
I have compitition. The breeders at Lubera are doing what I am doing and they are ahead of me.
Hi, You are correct however, there is some gene transfer between raspberry and blackberry chromosomes.
Okay, this is awesome! I did a bunch of research and while there are still some minor nuances, you and Favman appear to be correct, especially for even numbered polyploids with an even number of raspberry/blackberry chromosome pairs (like Tayberry, Loganberry, etc). Ie, each gamete would receive BBR, or an equal alloploid distribution.
It does get more complicated when a) you have an odd number of raspberry/blackberry chromosome pairs (ie BBBBBR) or b) an odd ploidy (7x heptaploid for example). For an odd number of raspberry/blackberry chromosome pairs, it looks like there’s a forced pairing of B and R, so going back to the BBBBBR example, the two gametes would either be BBB or BBR at a 50/50 distribution. For an odd ploidy situation, I am at a complete loss at what would occur haha.
Here are the papers I looked at to come to this conclusion: 1) Thomas, P.T. The origin of new forms inRubus . Journ. of Genetics 40, 141–156 (1940). The origin of new forms inRubus | Journal of Genetics | Springer Nature Link and 2) Crane, Morley Benjamin and P. T. Thomas. “Reproductive versatility in Rubus; raspberry-blackberry hybrids.” Heredity 3 Pt. 1 (1949): 99-107.
Interesting! What kind of organization is Lubera (I haven’t heard of them before)? Are they associated with a university?
Has anyone tried to distribute one of their hybrids to the public, or tried to patent one of them in preparation for attempted distribution? It would be very cool to be able to contribute the fruit of your/our efforts with the community! And yes, pun intended haha.
Lubera is a large agro business in Europe.
Lubera concentrates on novel cultivars for the home gardener. They sell in the UK and Europe. They breed for short seasons with medium to high chilling. I am breeding for long growing season and low chilling, so there will not be much overlap in cultivars.
My newberry is very vigorous and I have a nice airlayer I could send you in the winter, if you like. Just cover shipping and its yours.
That would be amazing! I’ll DM you.
That’s pretty cool! Machine harvestable fruit is great and all, but I really think the home gardener cultivars are the best. That makes sense on the cold chill. Definitely sounds like complementary approaches.
I’m not sure how helpful this would be in your own program since you mentioned taking the triploid approach, but have you ever thought about making your own tetraploid raspberry? In theory perhaps you could even make a hexaploid (4x crossed with doubled 4x (ie 8x))? Perhaps just not worth it when you can double gametes whenever you’d like chemically?
My understanding is this would be difficult to achieve without a lab.
Doubling a single time is itself a bit of a crapshoot since you can often end up with no results at all and unchanged original plants, or mixaploids, or dead plants if the exposure isn’t just right. Verifying the doubling is somewhat easy in some cases, such as going from diploid to polyploid or triploid to hexaploid, since there are visible things you can check. But going from one even polyploid to another even polyploid would be extremely tricky, both in getting the doubling to happen right and to verify it happened and in which plants.
Makes sense! If this wasn’t difficult I’m sure it would have been done before/used in crosses. Thanks for the elaboration.
Hi, What do you think of Willis orchards as a source of Bababerry? That’s what I got on a quick search. I at 2800 feet 50 miles east of San Diego. It’s in the 90’s every day here. Thanks. Mark
There’s another thread that dived into this a bit - I’ll summarize! The thread specifically recommended Bay Laurel, Bob Wells, and Scenic Hill. They warned against Willis and Ty Ty.
I’ve also had great experiences with One Green World and I’d be willing to bet they stock authentic Bababerry plants. Bababerry Raspberry - One Green World
Willis sent me wineberry instead of Bababerry. I got the real Bababerry from Scenic Hill nursery. I would very strongly recommend never ordering from Willis nursery, nor Ty Ty. I do not think they are honest companies.
Funny enough, you’re pretty close to where Bababerry is supposed to have originated, east of LA. And you’re quite close to some of the wild population we were talking about earlier in this thread haha
Richard is over in Vista CA and I think he grew Bababerry for several years.
Hi, Thanks. His approach, using a 4x raspberry is the most common but limits him to 4x blackberries. In my approach, doubling a triploid from a 4x blackberry x a 2x raspberry, giving a 6x plant, I can cross with 6x blackberries and with 2 x raspberries to produce 4x blackberry raspberry hybrids. I can then use these to cross with 4x blackberries. I can maximise genetic diversity, which help to avoid inbreeding depression. I am going to double some of the 4x BR hybrids to get 8x BBBBRRRR, this I can cross with 4x blackberries and 6x blackberries or BR Hybrids like Tayberry etc to give 7x plants. These are fertile and often have fewer softer seeds.
Hi, Not difficult, hardly an inconvience. Pollen size, using a microscope, will identify 8x plants from 4x plants but I must use genetically diverse 4x plants, which I will do, otherwise the 8x would be weak and only semi fertile.
I’m planning on crossing snowbank white blackberry (diploid) with joan j raspberry (diploid) to get a pink tayberry sort of thing, which supposedly usually end up being tetraploid, but regardless if it is tetraploid I plan on planting out a bunch of seeds of a self pollination and select for thornless, primocane, large fruits, toughness, and all the colors and flavors possible (ie- pink, white, and red; raspberry flavored, mixed and the blackberry.)
Another cross I’d like to make is the Joan j and and local black raspberry and cross between the best of a few offspring and select for thornless, primocane, toughness, fruit size, and the black raspberry flavor and color, which may have to do a backcross again to a black raspberry and then cross between siblings again to get the black color and flavor with the larger size, thornless, and primocane.