Interesting...and very late! Weather looks great the next few weeks for most of the country, so should have plenty of sun/warmth to ripen them.

Might have to add that. I'm still get a ton of gold raspberries, along with plenty of reds...

You know my golds are slow this fall. The reds are doing great! No complaints! Monday's harvest, includes a trickle of strawberries. Nourse Farms will be selling Niwot next year. Oh I talked to the breeder and he said the first year the fall crop can be very late, even too late. But it is not. And may develop earlier next year. Double Gold, and Rosanna are still all green for me. Looks like some years I will only get a summer crop on those. As you said weather looks good, i should get a crop this year. At least I will berries till the frost comes! I think in 2 weeks they will be ready. Hopefully a week, but they are slow to ripen, they are getting bigger, just really slowly!
{{gwi:124123}}

This post was edited by Drew51 on Wed, Sep 24, 14 at 14:57

Niwot looks cool...make sure you weight them so we can compare notes. My double gold are still several weeks away from ripening.

I have to dig around and see what golds i'm growing... I think I bought them at Home Depot or someplace like that...so i might have lost the container they came in... All i know is i had a small summer crop and a bumper fall crop.

Caroline are fantastic this year for me.... Only issue is i have to hack them back hard every year or they spread too much.

I have almost every yellow around, all are just doing OK, not great. last year was a lot better. Summer crops were moderate too, Last year the summer crop was huge! As was the fall crop. it might be the extreme cold from last winter set them back, not sure what's going on? I have them in 2 locations, so it's not location. Caroline, Polka and Prelude are exploding for me. Himbo Top too, it's always been a heavy producer. Caroline and Polka are the best tasting. Crimson Night is super sweet but a shy producer. My wife's favorite.

For Niwot black raspberry pruning ideas, please refer to my pruning file at http://home.comcast.net/~ptallman/PPprune1.pdf

Pete Tallman
Longmont, CO

Thanks Pete,

Your Niwots are on my list for next spring.

I couldn't weigh the berries, but they all finished and ripened. Pretty good size, taste was OK, hard to judge without other blacks around. Plus plant is new. From memory I like Jewell better, but taste is subjective.

They have an excellent size Drew. Those are the largest blacks I've seen.

The fall crop berry size is large, the summer crop is more normal.
Very cool Pete Chimed in! Thanks for the help Pete!
Pete gave me some advice on how to breed raspberries.
A PDF file on all you need to know. Very helpful, I used techniques from the file on a cross I'm doing now.
Very helpful on pollination to germination techniques.
Anybody need it, pm me.

Hey Tyler! Yes, the summer berries were huge and had a good taste! It also was a heavy producer. It is very impressive. Mine too has a fall crop. I pinched the canes at 3 feet so I have multiple leaders on all canes, all have berries now.

I think I will try pinching next years primocanes as well Drew. I was leery about when these would ripen and thought pinching might delay it too much. Good to hear yours did well too!

Tyler

Pinch them at 3 feet waiting any later and as you say you may delay fruiting.

I'm not that interested now in primocane fruiting, as the SWD fruit fly has found my yard! The fall crop will be infected. They came about August 1st, so only summer crops are safe from them. No doubt heading your way! So look for a reddish fruit fly around your berries.

berrypete

The comcast version of my Niwot pruning guide goes away in early October. I put a more lasting copy of the guide at https://www.dropbox.com/s/39g2ltitvlw0az1/PPprune1.pdf?dl=0

Pete Tallman
Longmont, CO

Thanks Pete, good to see you around! As you can see we are very pleased with the cultivar. First impressions were bad, although I was impressed this year. The berries are a lot more juicy than most blacks, it's a great cultivar!

SWD is here as well Drew. So disappointing for sure!

SWD here in NKY as well. Seem to ruin raspberries quicker than my Prime Ark 45's though. I think the tougher skin on the 45's helps keep them intact longer. If the berry isn't dripping juice, I just eat it anyway.

I do the same thing JT, I think I'm going to keep the plants anyway. I had a taste of Marion, wow, it is the best. It tastes a lot different. Yes, my favorite now. i also like Tayberries, they taste more like raspberries than blackberries. I need to have a few more berries though to evaluate better. I'm having a hard time keeping it alive here, it's too cold here.

My best fruit this year was a Arctic Glo nectarine. Wow, absolutely amazing fruit.

I told you Marion was that good... but it is difficult to grow in our climate. I'm going to try to build a heated tunnel for them this winter to see if I can get a few more to live through the winter. It's been a tough blackberry year. First the winter cold, then pervasive rain caused root rot, and now I noticed a lot of red neck cane borer knots, especially on the trailing blackberries. I'm going to make some big changes for next year to focus on the plants that do the best.

I'm going to pull all of my grapevines because they are just a pain to grow and raccoons won't leave any grapes for me. They chew through my bird netting and rip open all of my bagged grapes too...just not worth the trouble any more. I'm also going to consolidate my trailing blackberries and cut their number in half, keeping only the best. I'm going to replant several eastern varieties of blackberries (Osage, etc.) that are easier to grow and maybe another variety or two of raspberries. I might try some Niwot since you are liking that variety now.

I do have one complaint about Niwot, the fall crop is just not that good tasting. Niwot fall crop is ripening and the berries have little flavor, and are dry. Now this plant makes a wonderful summer crop, so I'm keeping it.

It's like it's a different plant, very strange. The summer berries were so much better.

What's the timing of the summer crop compared to the other black raspberries?

About the same as Jewel. Maybe a touch later. I didn't take notes, I remember picking Allen, Niwot, and Jewel at the same time.

I was not that impressed with Allen this year. Berries were small and extremely dry. I need to prune better. The plant needs thick stems to produce good berries. Limiting length of laterals is a good idea with this one.

I planted 5 Niwot bare root from Nourse this spring and I am happy to get a taste of them. I think they are good but I have no reference as I have not tasted any other black raspberry.

I planted Niwot this year and was very disappointed with the flavor, wondering whether to dig them out or let them go a second year. Any help would be appreciated. The plants grew very well, made plenty of beautiful fruit the first year, had good conditions right next to red raspberries which are thriving. will the flavor be different next year somehow? I want a fall bearer so I can mow them down rather than hand pruning. I did the tip pruning as recommended. The variety has gotten good reviews in general, I don't understand why mine had hardly any flavor. we didn't even bother to pick most of them. I have mowed them this fall. If I do leave them for year 2, do they need support? thanks kindly.

Well the fall crop does not taste good. The summer crop tastes very good! And you lost next summer's crop by mowing them down. The fall crop will taste the same as this year. Niwot produces a poor tasting fall crop for sure.

thanks Drew. if were to let them grow for a second year instead of mowing them, what kind of support do they need?

Very little, if any support needed. If you need some, a stake would work! . Keep in touch, as I have seeds of a cross of Niwot with another black raspberry that produces a decent tasting fall crop. Pete Tallman gave me seeds, the breeder of Niwot. But I have not grown out seeds. It's not easy to grow out bramble seeds. I need to practice before I try on these important seeds. So it will be a couple years. I will try next winter. They remain frozen till then. I'm working on my technique right now. Scarification time is what I need to work out. How long in sulfuric acid? I have seeds with varying amounts of time in the acid. See what germinates best. Seed from my own plants. Two stages of stratification too, room temp,and at about 40F. Again not easy to get seeds to germinate!

thanks Drew. Do you think the poor flavor of the Niwot fall crop is due to colder temp or just because it is on a primocane? I am wondering if the primocane crop might have better flavor if I could get it to ripen earlier. I am only interested in growing primocane raspberries so that the whole row can be mowed. Perhaps the second year (having been mowed) will have an earlier fruit set on the primocanes because the plants are established, and also I could skip the tip pruning which delays fruiting. I still can't decide whether to rip out the whole row due to such poor flavor this first fall, or let them go for a second year and experiment. I have an established row of Caroline red raspberry which is easily managed by mowing. Caroline has excellent flavor on primocanes.

I have Caroline too, and agree, excellent berry. No I think it's just Niwot, even the breeder agrees and made a cross to improve primocane quality. Mine have had 2 primocane crops, and I'm only keeping them as the summer crop is bigger and good quality berries. I have no use for the poor tasting fall crop. Eventually I will replace them with this cross once grown out.

tyler did you get any seeds to grow from your cross ?

Does anyone have pplants or cuttings of Niwit available? TheThey seem to be sold out everywhere!

Best shot is to order from Nourse for 2020 spring delivery.

I ended up finding one at Harlaquins Garden in Boulder. I happened to be driving from Grand Junction back to Loveland so I drove through Boulder. They had 5 on friday i'm told. They only had two when I got there on Sunday.