North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[derry&bill <wchase@interchange.ubc.ca>]

Suzanne,

Anyone who has ever eaten Tayberry sauce or jelly, wants to buy a tayberry 
plant.

They grow very well in south coastal B.C. Last year was the first year we had
winter damage (die-back of about 2' on the canes) 'cos we had a sudden drop 
intemp
in December fro about 10°C  to -12°C. They will withstand -12°C if they are
hardened up gradually.

The negatives are that the core/hull stays with the fruit so if eating them 
fresh
you will be spitting out the hull (as we spit out the seeds in the grapes) so 
they
are better suited for cooking. I usually cook fruit and hull and strain the 
mess
to get a juice which I make into jelly or sauce.

Another negative is that it is very thorny - small hairlike thorns.

Some would say that another negative is that the canes grow about 12' in a 
year so
you need to have space.

The positives are the flavour, low/no disease, low/no pests, aroma from a jar 
of
jelly.

We actually mix tayberry juice with black currant juice and sometimes with
blackberry juice and raspberry juice to make a delicious sauce/juice.

They are well worth growing, perhaps along a fence line.

They were developed at the Scottish Crop Research Institute on the Tay River 
in
Scotland, from a black raspberry (SCRI 626/7) and an Aurora blackberry.

Raintree Nursery sells it and says it is a cross between a loganberry and a 
black
raspberry. I'm pretty sure  the parent was not a loganberry.

I had a thornless, but it died. I think the thornless is a chimera and any 
damage
to the stem means the thorny variety will take over. The thorns are really 
not a
problem.

Cheers,

Derry

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Derry Walsh & Bill Chase
wchase@interchange.ubc.ca
Aldergrove,  B. C.,  Canada
phone/fax (604) 856-9316
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Home web page  http://www.interchange.ubc.ca/wchase/HTML
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 I'm just wondering, are there a lot of
tayberry growers out there?
Has anyone tried the thornless variety 'Buckingham'?
Thanks,
----Suzi Teghtmeyer