North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Michael Dossett <phainopepla@yahoo.com>]

Well I think it depends a bit on the berry.  The trailing blackberries we 
grow here as well as the thornless semi-erects like Triple Crown are crown 
forming so it's pretty easy to catch small seedlings coming up between the 
plants when managing other weeds either through sprays or mechanical removal. 
 For the erect blackberries or for things like red raspberry (black 
raspberries too, in commercial settings) which are managed as hedges I 
suppose it's more likely to be an issue, but in a healthy, relatively dense, 
planting seedlings have a limited chance to get established and are quickly 
outcompeted.  I don't think most growers generally worry about it, and I 
suspect that a lot of commercial plantings get turned over before the number 
of off types in a field would really be noticeable at all.  Having said that, 
there are fields of 'Marion' here in the Willamette Valley that have been in 
production for 30 or 40 years.

We do have a small problem in our research plots with the occaisional 
Himalayan Blackberry getting established in our fields.  When this happens 
and we notice it, we generally rely on mechanical removal and a little bit of 
roundup.

Michael


Michael Dossett
Corvallis, Oregon
www.Mdossettphoto.com
phainopepla@yahoo.com


--- On Wed, 10/8/08, Mark Angermayer <hangermayer@isp.com> wrote:

> From: Mark Angermayer <hangermayer@isp.com>
> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Triple Crown blackberry-keeping seedlings out
> To: phainopepla@yahoo.com, "North American Fruit Explorers" 
> <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2008, 7:06 PM
> Michael,
> 
> This discussion reminds me of something I've been
> wondering for a long time.
> How does one keep unwanted seedlings out of the blackberry
> rows?
> Invariably, many berries drop from the plants, in spite of
> the best
> intentions of orchard sanitation :-)  What is to keep these
> berries from
> germinating new crosses in the rows, thereby mingling and
> contaminating the
> improved cultivars originally planted?  Will the rows
> eventually become a
> bunch of crosses?
> 
> Mark
> KS
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael Dossett" <>
> To: "North American Fruit Explorers"
> <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 3:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Triple Crown blackberry
> 
> 
> > Triple Crown is indeed a USDA release and is not
> patented.  For a variety
> of reasons, USDA has not patented any of its blackberries
> (can't speak to
> any of it's other releases), but is coming under
> increased pressure from the
> industry to do so.  Within the next few years, new
> blackberry releases from
> the USDA's program here in Corvallis will probably all
> be patented.
> >
> > As for the putative primocane fruiting, my guess is
> that this is a strong
> "lateral" that broke bud from the crown of the
> plant and is not truly a
> primocane.  I have seen Triple Crown do this on a couple of
> occaisions.
> While it is not common, it's not unheard of either.  If
> this were my plant
> and I wanted to cover my bases, I would do two things. 
> First, I would save
> seed from a couple of the fruits that are currently ripe
> from this part of
> the plant.  These are most likely to be selfs unless there
> are other fall
> fruiting blackberries nearby which could have acted as a
> pollen source.  If
> it is a sport or some other genetic mutation you should see
> primocane
> fruiting in the resulting seedlings.  Second, I would mark
> the cane with
> flagging or in some other way.  Save it and don't prune
> it out at the end of
> the season.  Wait until next spring and see if any of the
> buds below the
> fruiting portion of this cane break and leaf out.  If they
> do then it is a
> >  primocane.  If they don't, then it was just a
> strong lateral coming from
> the crown of the plant.
> >
> > Michael
> >
> > Michael Dossett
> > Corvallis, Oregon
> >