I like them a lot. My best description I can think of is they taste to me like a mix between triple crown and apache. Awesome! They were really black but not really ripe when I ate the two I had. I will leave the next one or two on the vine longer this next time.

Do you think you will double crop them (Summer and Fall crops) or just go with a Fall crop? I have been double cropping my Prime Ark 45's but I think I going to switch to a Fall crop only. They don't like cold weather and I would rather have the berries in the Fall when I have fewer berries being produced.

I plan on double cropping them. I wasn't thinking and cut the tips on couple but not sure if that matters. I hope to get as many as they will produce this fall. I have a lot of growth but just a few that made so far

This post was edited by BKG1 on Tue, Jul 22, 14 at 21:12

Cutting the tips is what you should probably do to encourage lateral branching, otherwise the canes will grow to 7ft and not have any lateral branches (I know this from past experience). If they get that tall, you'll want to tie them to a trellis wire for support. I learned the hard way last year and a storm with strong winds broke off half of my canes. Assuming they grow like Prime Ark 45, add 3 ft to the height at which you tip them and that is a good bet on how tall they will be by end of the season. I tipped mine at 4ft and they still hit 7ft again this year. Not only are the berries hard to pick, they are also hard to protect from birds because my netting won't reach that high. My Prime Arks are blooming now for the Fall crop and typically start ripening at the end of August and will produce until frost in mid to late October.

Regarding the flavor, I think Prime Ark 45's have a better flavor than several of the others in my patch (Black Satin, Ouachita, and Kiowa[removed]).

I picked this one and ate it :D My first home-grown blackberry was delicious!

Oh, and us, Larry Gene, it's a thorny one. Marion?

Yes. From what I can see, that looks like a marion. A ripe one should taste substantially different (and better) that what you get in the grocery store.

Do the prime ark freedom fruit the first year and the second? Or are you supposed to cut the first year canes after fruiting that first year?

Yes, Marion.

The sideways picture phenomenon is a combination of the way people hold their devices and the internal software of the devices.

Only posting landscape mode pictures would reduce the problem.

Cropping and resaving vertical, or portrait images, would help also.

These photos are really wonderful.
I'm planning to plant berries for the first in the coming bare root season. I recognize that I'm in a much warmer climate than most of you, but I'd really love to have your advice.

I already grow many blueberries, which we have to grow in pots here in order to achieve the right pH. I'm interested in branching out in to raspberries, blackberry hybrids, etc.

*Will I need to do that for other berries too? (Keep them in pots for pH reasons?) Any advice for planting scenarios?
*Whatis your take on best taste and disease resistance varieties? You guys seem to really like Caroline. Have any of you tasted Baba? I'm a bit limited in what I can grow in this heat.

I think I will order all of the ones above the line, and maybe one or two below the line -- input? (I'm in zone 10 -- the number that follows each is the listed high end of the zone for that berry)

Boysenberry Hybrid, Thornless or Thorny z9 - (very early = May/June), does great in SoCal
Loganberry Hybrid, Thornless 10 Red, (Early = June)
Blackberry Hybrid, Olallie 10 (Early = June)
Blackberry Hybrid, Marion 10 (midseason = midJuly-midAug)
_________________________________________________________
Blackberry, Prime Ark 45 - August
Blackberry, Triple Crown - to zone12!
Blackberry, Navaho Erect Thornless 10
Blackberry, Dirksen Thornless ?

Red Raspberry, Bababerry (@2x$) 7-9 - developed in SoCal, everbearing
Red Raspberry, Caroline 8 - best performing rasp in SoCal
Red Raspberry, Heritage 3-9

One last question. I'm not sure yet where I'm going to put them. One place I'm considering is a N-S facing chainlink fence that gets S and W sun. It's over cement, so I thought maybe a narrow trough-shaped container/bed would work.

Your climate is probably cooler in high temperatures than many of the people in the Southeast US who are on the forum but you may have less chill hours due to your location. I added a link to a chill hours website for California because that will be key for certain varieties to fruit properly. Based on what you mentioned for your location, I would guess that you get somewhere between 200-300 chill hours per year. That's enough for a Boysen and Olallie and perhaps Marion. I don't think any of the other erect and semi-erect blackberries you mention would fruit because there may not be enough chill hours. Tupy and Kiowa would work plus a few other varieties that have low chill requirements. Raspberries, other than Baba, may require more chill hours than you have too. There's no harm in planting a few and seeing if they work.. I could be wrong...again.:-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Cumulative Chilling Hours

Jburton: Thanks! Andyou are probably right on the mark about chill hours here. We are nearest Glendale which gets about 235, but our elevation is a lot higher. I kinda figured that would translate to more chill hours instead of fewer. In any case I hadn't really considered chill hours for the berries. Is there a good source that lists the minimum chill requirement for various varieties?
I've been reading various extension publications about which when and how much to tip, but I see very little about what kind of soil works or doesn't.

I'm going to dig up the Black Satin.It is very vigorous and produces quite a bit of fruit,but not much in taste.Plus,in the middle of their ripening,the Spotted Wing Drosophila start to come around.
Obsidian has a deep,sweet flavor and ripens early.
Also,Tayberry is super early and has more Raspberry in it than Blackberry.Very good for jam.Thorny,as is Obsidian.
I'm probably going to keep Chester and Triple Crown Blackberries because of their flavor,even though they ripen during the SWD egg laying season.May try some bags around the clusters. Brady

So...as far as taste, how would you all rank:
Boysen, Kiowa, Logan, Marion,and Olallie blackberry-hybrids, and Baba, Fair Dinkum and Fall Gold Raspberries?

And again for disease resistance?

babyg - blackberries and raspberries may have variances in flavor because of the climate, so my results in flavor and disease resistance may be different than what you may experience.

Flavor
- Boysen (Thorny) - Strong tangy flavor when fully ripe but somewhat tart until full ripeness. I like boysen but I also like strong flavors. The thornless boysen is a different plant with a different flavor (milder flavor).
- Logan (Thornless) - I couldn't get this one to ripen properly in my climate. My experience was that the flavor was bland and tart but others speak highly about it. It universally known as a low production plant, which would be especially true in a pot.
- Marion (Thorny) - The best flavored berry of any kind I have tried. Easily, in my opinion, the best tasting blackberry. I know that local SoCal retailers offer both Marion and Triple Crown plants in their garden centers but that’s not a guarantee they will grow well in your location.
- Kiowa - very large berries with the typical eastern blackberry flavor. Very thorny but grows well in hot climates, like Texas.
- Haven't tried: Olallie, Baba, Fair Dinkum and Fall Gold.

I have found that Siskiyou has an excellent flavor and large berries. It is thorny though and a vigorous grower. There are quite a number of blackberries and raspberries available. I'm attaching a reference put out by Oregon State University that describes a lot of the varieties.

Disease and pests. My climate (Northern KY) is humid with seasonal temperature extremes. Fungal diseases are my biggest disease issue. Since your climate tends to be lower in humidity, I don't think you will have a problem with that. As long as you don't pour water on the plant leaves, I don't think you will have fungal problems. Pests - That’s probably highly local, so I can’t advise you on that one. Once birds locate your berries though, they tend to become a persistent problem unless you cover the berry plants with nets.

Here is a link that might be useful: Blackberry Cultivars for Oregon

Brady - I dug up my Black Satin plants last week for the same reasons. The plants grew well but the taste was the worst of the berries I grow. It also ripened right when fruit flies started arriving. Since the berries are soft, it seemed like they were prone to fruit flies/SWD and other insects.

I also removed a couple of wineberry plants that I was trialing as well. Berries were too small and not worth the effort.

jtburton, you stumbled across my blog a few weeks ago. I typically post on the Far North Gardening Forum about my raspberry and blackberry trials here in Interior Alaska.
Briefly, prior to yesterday's freeze (limiting our frost-free period this year to just 104 days, instead of 120+/-) I harvested 6 Wild Treasure blackberries (with probably another 6 ripening under Agribon-50 in the next week), the equivalent of 1/2 a Siskiyou berry (very poor fruit set), one Marionberry, two Tayberries and one Loganberry. In all, I have about 35 blackberry varieties and 26 or so raspberry varieties. Many of them do not like our cool summers (only 750 growing degree days, 50F) or our cold winters. However, for those that don't mind the cool summer, a persistent 22 inch snow cover during the coldest part of winter usually protects low-growing plants hardy to zone 5 or 6.
Berry season for me begins August 1st most years, unless you like serviceberries (I certainly do) and honeyberries, both of which ripen a week or two earlier. Due to rapidly falling temps, berry season is largely over by mid-September, though Fall Gold continues into early October (all from floricane production). This was my first year to get blackberries and the limited number was largely due to the fact that the plants were not protected last winter, so most of the canes winter killed. In addition, they didn't begin ripening until August 22. I now know how to get better winter survival (as well as better summer growth), so production should be much higher next year - even if I can only harvest 10-20% of the crop before the cold becomes unmanageable (below 25F).

Good to hear from you wxjunkie! So what are you going to do to improve the blackberry survival next year?

Nice to be able to report good news here, my recent plantings have really taken off, Autumn Britten this years bare root plant from Raintree was planted at the end of April and it's a beast of a plant with several long canes with lot's of berries, def needs support as it grows up and out at the same time.....every berry plant has it's own personalty.....my Josephine has canes at least 7 feet long and supported by plastic wire on my trellis system, very heavy from weight of future berries and many......Nantahala is finally putting out fruit buds now, nothing from Double Gold or Crimson Giant but very healthy vigorous growth, Prelude another spring planting has several canes about 7 feet tall needing a mini trellis because of all the future berries and lot's, this is suppose to be a summer variety with bonus Fall Crop but mine has exploded growthwise and it has berries all over the place, not just the tips and it's still growing a great addition....both my Fall Gold and Kiwi Gold spring plantings are doing amazing with several healthy canes and suckers coming up, i may have an overlapping summer/Fall harvest on one Kiwi gold as the Fall crop is almost ready and summer crop is still not done, that's a great plant too and very tasty...,My Polka spring plantings are almost ready to deliver a small Fall Crop as the plants didn't grow all that much but healthy....Caroline failed to fruit as a late spring planting, neither did Jaclyn or my Heritage, but i'm told it's normal for a young plant not to fruit for 2 years.

Here's a pic of my Autumn Britten's Fall Crop .... my one plant which is all need of this variety as it's very vigorous and has many berries on the top third of it's canes and then some

this year is about experimenting with growth characteristics, productivity,disease resistance, root rot & how much suckering each variety offers and most importantly TASTE !

Some may have to go if i don't like

Nice berries Autumn Britten here

This post was edited by Greenhorn2 on Sun, Aug 31, 14 at 17:22

Jtburton, I have covered several blackberry varieties with Agribon-50 floating row cover or a lighter weight material. The others were left uncovered and I expect a few of these to still exhibit fair cane survival (particularly Silvan). Our one and only real cold snap came at the end of January and lasted about two weeks in town (lows to -43F or lower). At my farm, the lowest recorded was -28F, which was enough to damage every variety I have that wasn't under snow cover (a paltry 16 inches this year). Next spring I will lay black weed block under the promising varieties and see how it affects the floricanes. I found out this year that it nearly doubles the growth of primocanes in my climate.

As for blackberry taste, I was surprised by the taste of Wild Treasure. It is not at all like the blackberries you get in the store. Very fruity with a long strawberry finish. I let an Oregonian taste it and she said it is what the native wild blackberries there taste like. Most of the other varieties I tasted were probably not ripe as most were tart - and they aren't supposed to be that tart. I was rushed by a late August frost, which turned most berries to mush, ripe or not. However, I was surprised to find that Silvan weathered the frost quite well and, on the advice of others, cut a lateral off and brought it inside in late September. Four berries ripened between then and mid-October. These were truly amazing! Very sweet boysenberry flavor. Wish I'd cut off more laterals. I was looking forward to Tayberries, as the plants cope well with our cool summers, but they have to be purple to be ripe and I didn't wait long enough. Now that I know about ripening them inside, I will do that next summer.

wxjunkie,

Thank you for following up on your last report. I had never heard of anyone removing a floricane with unripe berries and bringing it inside to allow the berries to fully ripen. How, specifically, do you do that? I have a few fall-bearing blackberries that I can never fully harvest due to the approaching winter. I may try that method with them.

I have one wild treasure blackberry buried under the snow now and hopefully, I'll get to taste some of those berries in June. My favorite berry is still Marion (marionberry) blackberry. A ripe one is truly a step above the others. I also have Newberry and Columbia Star trailing varieties to try for the first time this year.

I had a decent amount of vole damage last year during a long period of snow. How do you manage that issue with your berries?

Don555 introduced me to the idea of ripening blackberries inside. I cut the laterals off that have berries on them, take them in and put them in a jar of water in a sunny window. It works best with berries that are close to being ripe. I cut off one Silvan blackberry lateral late last September that was about 12 inches long and had four berries on it. One berry was turning red and a second was the same size, but still green. The other two berries were about half the size of the first two and still green. The larger two berries ripened in two weeks. And the other two in another two weeks. The first two were delicious and probably just as they would be if ripened on the vine. The other two had less flavor, were a little "green" tasting, and were rather soft. It was still great to be eating fresh blackberries while watching the snow fall outside. Interestingly, the lateral stayed green until the last berry was picked and then it died in just a few days. I would have liked to compare these berries with similarly ripened Wild Treasure, but our August frost killed all of the young berries on Wild Treasure and the remainder ripened by September 15th on the vine.

I had thought about trialing Newberry and Columbia Star (and still might), but they are both later ripening and according to growers in Oregon, Columbia Star is potentially not as hardy as Marion - certainly not as hardy as Black Diamond. I have Marion and, while I have yet to get a fully ripe berry off of it, can't wait to taste it. Though, after tasting Silvan and Wild Treasure I have high standards!

Voles? Sunflower seeds and a vole-obsessed dog. WIth 6 months of snow cover, it is a bit difficult to keep voles out of things here. I can't wrap the canes like I would a tree, so I've been experimenting with an approach some orchardists use here. They put a bag (large bag!) of sunflower seeds out a little away from their trees just before the first snowfall. Voles prefer seeds to just about anything else. I go out and dump about a quart of seeds in a particular brush pile every two weeks. It is pretty near the blackberry patch and they still do chew on a few plants, mostly Triple Crown and Arapaho. These happen to be closer to the seeds than most the others. I don't mind them chewing on these, since they are not productive here. Come summer, one of my dogs hunts voles by the hour and helps keep the population down - she just kills them, though, and doesn't eat them. We also have a few ermines around that devastate the population every few years.

This year I hope to start crossing wild trailing blackberries with our local raspberry. I'm aiming for a tayberry of sorts with a bit more hardiness.

I never thought of ripening times. wxjunkie when is your first date of frost in the fall?

My average first frost date in the fall is around September 21 (last year it was August 30th). While that may seem late, consider that we do not get much heat after August 25th. By heat I mean average daily temperatures above 50F. Below that temperature, nothing grows and even raspberries have difficulty ripening berries. (Fall colors start August 15th and trees are largely bare by September 20th.) With the exceptions of Wild Treasure and Tayberry, none of my blackberries (and crosses) ripened any fruit outside after September 5th. We also had a cold and rainy summer that impacted fruit set. Again, numerous days with average temperatures below 50F. Even a zone 3 or 4 in MN gets much more heat than I do.

Last summer, the earliest blackberries began flowering in late June. I picked the first ripe berries (Tayberry and Wild Treasure) on August 22nd. Around July 20th I counted the flower buds on Wild Treasure. 20 had bloomed out of 60 that were present. By September 13, 4 of the 20 had not pollinated (rain and Lygus bugs during flowering) and the other 16 had ripened. One parent of Wild Treasure is a wild specimen from a mountain top in the Coastal Range of Oregon that has a summer climate very similar to mine. I think that has helped it adapt to my location.

For reference, Marion and Black Diamond began flowering on July 4th, Silvan on July 15th and all Eastern erect/semi-erects (Arkansas varieties, Triple Crown, Hull) the first week in August. Illini Hardy began flowering September 13th. Chester does not like it here.

Had 0.25 inch of freezing rain last night! Almost unheard of. You mind giving us our Siberian air back??

Yeah strange isn't it? OK, the late spring too explains the late ripening dates. Interesting, thanks for the info! Useful for research.

Siskiyou and Loganberry produce the earliest for me. I do leave the Argibon covers over them longer which traps the heat and warms the ground some. I had ripe Siskiyou blackberries by mid-June last year with the last frost usually occurring in mid-to-late April. The wild blackberries ripen about a month later in mid-July for comparison.

I'm also looking to create a few hybrids by crossing Loganberry with different blackberry varieties.

Good info JT! My Loganberry died, I'll have to pick another up!

Luckily here anything will have time to bloom and fruit. I do need a hardier type though.

So i will do a lot of crosses, but getting and end product is not easy with blackberries, and I know JT you are well aware of that, good luck!

JT I tried leaving the agribon on into the spring (until new growth was showing) this year on several of my trailing blackberries - Wild Treasure, Black Diamond and Marion. Worked well for WT and Marion as they have berries developing. In fact, I may have ripe WT berries the first week of August (2 weeks earlier than last year). To be fair, we have had a warmer than usual summer, but the flowering date was 10 days earlier and paralleled bud break which was also 10 days earlier than last year. Black Diamond succumbed to a late May frost and didn't appear to like the cover anyway. I also accidentally left row cover over some Silvans that I got mid-May. When I remembered to take it off on May 28th, the first flower was open! Unfortunately, the voles got that berry (it would have been ripe today), but there are many others that are nearing ripe.

I will leave the agribon over WT next year until the flowers begin to open if it will tolerate it. WT could be sensitive to overheating, like other Western trailing varieties can be. Silvan is actually tolerant of heat and that may have helped it this year. Regardless, I can't wait to pick all those tasty berries that are forming - 100+ berries/flowers on WT, 40+ on Marion and about 25 on Silvan. Considering that I only got 24 last year and shared many of those with naysayers around town, this year will surely be a treat. And what doesn't ripen outside, I will bring in and be eating fresh blackberries while watching the snow fall outside in October.

drew51, I am a little surprised that you lost your Loganberry. That is one (the thornless type) that survives here and produces some berries - if I can get them before the animals. It has been in the ground 4 years I think. It does die back if not covered well, but I usually have a few canes that make it. It grows back vigorously, too. The ones that don't make it for me are the semi-erect blackberries. I have lost all but one Triple Crown and one Chester out of 4 TCs, 3 Chesters, and 2 Hulls. And this may be Chester's last year. It just sprouted this last week and summer is mostly over here. I have a poor Darrow that I got several years ago and it struggles each year. This year it might produce a 1 ft long cane (last year it was only 6 inches). I have Stenulson and Nelson (new this year, but is just now flowering). The Stenulsons (2) are starting to spread - a bit different from the other erects that I have in that most of them are getting smaller or dying. I still favor the trailing ones for ease of maintenance (especially WT which lays flat on the ground) and early ripening. And, if I have to protect everything, it might as well be easy. How did your experiment with Wilt Stop go? Did those bushes flower and ripen fruit yet? I want to try that this winter. I hope it also discourages the voles from eating them, but it probably won't.

Good to hear wxjunkie! I had a really cold winter this last year at -12F (cold for Kentucky), and that killed off most of my blackberries (e.g. floricanes) that were not covered. So this year, I had more trailing blackberries than non-trailing! I found that Newberry might be a bit more cold hardy than some of the others (e.g. WT, Marion, Boysen, Siskiyou, etc.). Kotata was the most cold hardy but the berries don't taste as good, at least in my climate. You may want to try Siskiyou because it tends to ripen very early, thus ripening sooner in your climate. The flavor is very good and the berries are the largest of the trailing varieties that I have tried.

I'm going to experiment this winter with creating a heated mini-tunnel for the western trailing variety blackberries. When I say heated, I'm talking about keeping the temperature between 20 - 40 F. I had problems again with voles so I'm going to have to build in some protection this winter.

Let me know how you rate the flavor of the trailing blackberries when they ripen up.

JT, I have Siskiyou and it did flower last year. It started ripening with WT, but had very poor fruit set, so I only got the equivalent of one berry. IMO the flavor is not as good as WT or Silvan. Even with our warm summer this year, WT is suffering from poor fruit set, while Silvan (which I coaxed into flowering really early) set fruit really well. We have a plethora of wasps this year and they are eating the blackberries before they are ripe. I am not sure what I will be able to sample this year. Of the other blackberries that survived the winter, Marion and Thornless Logan will likely ripen before the end of the month. Black Diamond just started flowering and will probably get frosted. In addition to the wasps, our resident porcupine has taken a liking to our blackberries and is trimming the Siskiyous and any erects/semi-erects he can reach.

Another note about Siskiyou: it is a long-season variety and here it only ripened the first round of flowers (of what pollinated) last year. Not sure how useful it will be even if I can get it to flower much earlier (first of June).

I have Obsidian and Metolius, both very early ripening varieties. Obsidian appears to die from either the cold or lack of moisture. I have lost somewhere around 30 of them. Metolius looks to be much more adaptable, but it is still in pots. Although I have yet to get berries off of either of these, they will probably suffer from the same issue that plagues the others (except WT) and that is that they do not ripen when the average temperature falls below 50F. And when we have days like to day where the high was just 50F, they are not happy.

I had problems with Obsidian too and both of mine died. I have had success with Siskiyou though but my climate is much warmer and my summers much longer. One of my two open pollenated hybrids has turned out to have Wild Treasure as at least one parent, because it looks almost identical. WT has great flavor but I have not had great success overwintering mine. I'm going to try to provide a mini heated grow tunnel this winter to see if I can limit the cold damage even more.

Marion still has the best flavor, in my opinion, so I hope you get a couple of berries to try too.

Well my experiment with wilt stop went very well. I had very little loss. The amount of berries is very good. Currently Triple Crown and Chester are ripening. Chester is supposed to be a just OK variety, but maybe from the dry summer? I don't know? The flavor of Chester this year is really good! Almost as good as Triple Crown. Both plants produced hundreds of berries. Most are still not ripe. I'm picking daily.

I may have had bad luck with Logan. I guess I should try it again.

I only got a few tayberries. That was one plant that didn't fair well. Anyway the berries are fantastic! They taste more like raspberries to me. I like them a lot.

One reason it didn't fair well was the canes grew into the fence and I could not totally protect it with leaves.

Besides Wilt Stop, I used leaves, and even burlap on the uprights. It worked very well with our low getting to -16F.

Hello!!
See this variety of green blackberry, Rubus imperialis; in the center of the picture! I have in my backyard, this and other variety also green Rubus erythrocladus. The two are planted in pots. the first prostrate and needs espalier; the second is upright. its very sweet fruit, with a very pleasant smell, resembling the kiwi, but are small varieties in Brazil. Thank you!!

Your seeds!!

That is very cool! Any chance to get seeds? calmwave at comcast.net

Can i exchange these seeds with you! You may see the leaves of Rubus imperialis! This variety not resist -3° C!

I haven't noticed any SWD in my berry patch the last several weeks. There was some there in August but for some reason they appear to be gone. I even have some ripe raspberries that are free from any insects! Anybody experience low SWD this year?

Hi Gang...haven't seen any sign of SWD in New York here, although we are not getting any rain last 6 months and the Raspberry Fall Crop seems to be very light this year.......i am getting berries daily on some varieties still

Kiwi & Fall Gold, Polka, Caroline, Josephine, Autumn Britten ( Barely ), Nantahala !, Prelude

Some other varieties got berries growing , ready for harvest in 2-3 weeks......Double Gold, Crimson Giant, Heritage, Lauren ( A Summer Variety ) Bonus Rare Fall Crop

Caroline is a Fantastic plant with great tasting berries, Josephine very vigorous and healthy looking like Double Gold......Berries are big and tasty, but my favorite i think are Nantahala

One important observation this year with lack of rain is the ants are eating my raspberries, haven't seen this b4.

Will report back again soon

I myself have 2 white blackberries, and a yellow black raspberry. Always looking for unusual berries. Plants or seeds.

Zone 6a, Northeast Ohio; frost settles in my location

I'm a little late on this thread, but am interested in jtburtons and wxjunkies comments. I'm a home gardener.

I could not find local blackberries to pick (at U-pick-it places) that had any flavor or sweetness (they had their blackberry plants in greenhouses). So, planted TC and PrimeArk-45, and had bad luck, died to ground each year until I started using a combination of plastic top layer, and heavy agribon bottom layer, over the plants in winter. The blackberry plants quit dying back to the ground. Initially tried using pvc supports, but had to go to using either conduit or fence top rail to keep snow cover from collapsing the supports. I do not add any source of heat to the covered plants.

TC still didn't do well up here, so will remove, but PrimeArk-45 would produce some nice, large, sweet (even when not altogether black) primocane berries in the late fall for a short week or two (as long as the weather was pretty warm), until the weather turned cold, and then the flavor was not very good. But for a short time period, the flavor was much, much better than the local U-pick-it place.

Have since added PrimeArk Freedom; interested in the earlier primocane berry maturity date. Will try the black heavy weedblock fabric around the blackberries to try to bring the soil temperature up faster in the spring, as wxjunkies has suggested, along with the plastic and agribon covering.

Also interested in PrimeArk Traveler (thornless), any experience with it? Fairly new.

Have not seen SWD so far; but have not really been looking closely for it. Will start this next year. SWD does not sound very good.

The last two winters have been the coldest in at least 15 years, so I wouldn't give up on non-primocane fruiting blackberries yet. Last year I harvested few blackberries and lost half of my Triple Crown plants. I didn't lose any Osage, Oauchita, or any of my Western trailing blackberries. If your temperatures regularly get below -10F during the winter though, then you'll need to stay with primocane blackberries and/or trailing blackberries that can lay (nearly) flat.

I have PA Freedom and PA 45. This last year I double pruned PA 45 and it started fruiting several weeks earlier (usually early Sept when it fruits). I can't say that the weather didn't impact the ripening times but you may want to test double or single pruning to adjust ripening times. If you are willing to cover blackberries during the winter, give a few of the Western trailing blackberries a trial. Those do have the best flavor but they require more effort. There is a new thornless version of Marion that is available for 2016.

Thanks, JTBurton; sounds like good advice. So, won't yank out Triple Crown yet. May even try Osage and Marion when I retire (which will be in another year or two).

Yes, we had -15 to -20 degrees for a week last winter. I thought for sure that the blackberries would die to the ground, even with the plastic and heavy Agribon covering. But apparently covering the blackberries with the double layer of plastic on top of heavy Agribon kept them from doing that. I was very surprised. I expected that since Triple Crown didn't die back to the ground, that it would produce, but it didn't. But I'm not going to give up on it; Nourse rates it highly, and I'm still a beginner on learning how to grow blackberries (my favorite berry next to blueberries).

I'll double prune my PA 45 and PA Freedom this next year. I thought that would slow down production, but apparently you are saying it doesn't. So I learn something new every day.

Thanks for the feedback, and Merry Christmas. A Happy New (Growing) Year to you.

gmshack - Why don't you double prune one plant and not prune the other(s) to test the theory. The weather may have been a factor too. Merry Christmas to you as well. :-)

Gmshack - I have read of using both plastic and Agribon, but haven't gotten around to the plastic part yet. There are two main issues with overwintering and some studies suggest that dehydration is a bigger problem than cold tolerance in cold climates. I used drew 51's technique of Wilt Stop this fall, so we will see if it prevented desiccation. I also used two layers of Agribon. I find that one layer does not provide the protection that the company claims. I start covering mine around late August when our first frost hit. This is both to protect berries and reduce temperature shock from early season frosts. In the spring, I am leaving the Agribon on for a few weeks. This next spring I will leave it on until each variety begins to flower. This substantially increases growth for me (in our very cool Mays) and hastens flowering by a few weeks. I do remove it on days with temps over 70F.

Desiccation is a real problem for me since our ground is frozen solid for at least 6 months out of the year. Add to this that preliminary probing this last summer suggested that blackberry roots up here only extend 3 or 4 inches into the ground (it is too cold below that, with an average annual temperature at 3 ft of around 31F). In this situation I believe that the roots cannot take up water to replace what the canes transpire during the winter and they end up desiccating and dying way back (from 8-10 ft long to about 2 ft). We will see.

As far as the weed block, it will probably not increase the soil temperature as much as removing it. I'm not sure of this as I don't have experience with it in the Lower 48. Up here, it must be removed in the spring for about 4 weeks to allow the soil to thaw and then reapplied. Your soil is already thawed and substantially warmer, so you shouldn't have to do this. What I think I get from weed block is increased heat above it = though I have no data to show that. I just know that of two Wild Treasure plants I have (that are one year different in age), the one grown over weed block is much more vigorous than the other. I trellised the very vigorous one last year and it continued to grow strong even though most of the canes were not directly lying on the weed block. A study at Oregon State Univ. also supports this. However, Wild Treasure is a crown-forming variety, not a spreading variety like the ones you have, so covering around it with weed block is a simple process.

I do not grow primocane blackberries because the season is too short and there is insufficient heat. Everyone of them has died completely. I have one Triple Crown left and a very wimpy (it grew 2 whole inches this year) Chester. Neither has canes that survive - but then I have not covered them. I am guessing that if your TC canes survive and leaf out, but don't flower, that the flower buds are damaged by the cold. Flower buds on many plants are much less tolerant of cold than non-flowering buds.

I have two varieties of erect blackberries that I am trialing that might be of interest to you. They are Nelson and Stenulson. Stenulson has been in the ground for several years, but moose have browsed it down each year and voles girdled anything that was left. Thus, I don't have an idea of its ripening season, but it is likely too late for me. It grows pretty well here and is spreading (unlike TC and Chester which only get smaller each year). I have had a few green canes survive the winter and start to leaf out and then die because they were girdled by voles at the base, so it is pretty hardy (though these were covered by snow mid-winter, when air temps dropped as low as -35F). I just got Nelson last year and it actually flowered earlier than any other erect I have. Its berries are somewhat frost tolerant, as well, to at least 28F. It still did not ripen early enough, but it was in a pot and not established. The timing could change in the future, especially if I put an Agribon "sack" over it early in the season. Both of these are thorny. I got Balsor's Hardy Black from the USDA germ plasm repository this fall, but it failed to root before it rotted. This is another possibility, but it is not commercially available in the US.

Happy New Year!

WX you have it a lot worse that I do. I also though am looking at really cold hardy blackberries. I never heard of Stenulson. I could only find one vendor selling Nelson. Many places sell Darrow, so that is the one I'm going to work with for now. It is also supposed to be quite hardy. I figure it is still being widely sold for a reason and was a good logical choice to start. The plants I got were in very bad shape. I thought they would not make it. Only one did make it. It's so small I have to wait a couple years for it to become established.

Yesterday i sprayed them with wilt stop. We have yet to have winter here. So I was able to hold off application. The product now should last well into March.

I'm trying 4-mil plastic sheeting this winter to see if that works better than Agribon row covers. I can tell that it traps moisture inside but I'm not sure if that is benefit.

I live in NE Ohio, zone 5. I'm trying to grow a few blackberries. The last two winters have been brutal, -20F. I haven't lost any plants, but I have lost fruit production. Mostly, I grow blackberries in pots and drag them inside an unheated workshop for the winter. Two winters ago, I lost most of the fruit production. So last winter, whenever the temperature dropped to zero, I added a little heat. Fruit production was normal. On the other hand, my outdoor plants fruited much better last winter compared to the previous winter too.

I am looking for a better approach. I drug one potted siskiyou inside. I had one siskiyou planted in ground. I laid it down, covered with leaves. Both survived and fruited well, but the in ground plant was the clear winner.

I'm looking for better ways. I have some questions about covering with plastic.

1) My understanding is that plants need water even when dormant. If I cover the plant with plastic so that the roots are denied water, wouldn't that kill the plant?

2) In the spring, I place my potted plants under a pvc frame. At night, I drape plastic over the frame to protect from frost. If I were to leave that plastic up during the day on a sunny day, even when it's still cold, it would get very hot under there. Probably hot enough to kill the plants. So if I were to cover my plants with plastic for the winter, wouldn't it cause a green house effect on sunny days and go back to ambient temperature on overcast days, causing havoc with the plants dormancy?

3) gmshack, I'm a little confused about your approach. Are you covering the earth with row cover and draping 2 layers of plastic over top? Are you draping a layer of row cover over top along with another layer of plastic? Or something else? Thanks.

For the trailing blackberries that are covered and planted in the ground, there is enough water transfer in my soil to satisfy the water requirements for the dormant plants in my climate. In drier climates, this might not be the case. In pots, I think it is easy to over water while the plants are dormant. I'm using plastic sheeting to cover my potted plants outdoors as well and I haven't had a meaningful change in moisture in the pots for a least a month. Again, it is very wet in my geographic area right now and there has been little opportunity for the potted plants to dry out. I have had more challenges from the temperatures being too high in my garage than outside and under the plant covers. The plants that I had in my garage the last two years came out of dormancy too early and struggled whereas those plants planted in the ground and covered, fared much better.

Telmo42 do you have an email so I can contact you. Or Facebook page to contact you. I'm interested in the green blackberry seeds you have. I have many rare plants & seeds I can trade. Thanks

telmo42, If you ever check this old thread again I would love to exchange with you for the Green Blackberry seeds.