I have not heard of a commercial effort to create a hybrid blackberry that is primocane-fruiting and trailing. Two challenges with primocane-fruiting blackberries are: (1) fruit yield and (2) the number of frost-free days to get a full Fall crop. Primocane harvests tend to only provide about half or less the yield of a floricane variety because you are only getting one of the harvests that year. Since harvests are expensive, it generally doesn't make financial sense to grow them. Second, you need to grow them in a climate that has a long growing season to get a full primocane crop. My season in 6A/B is 180 frost free days and I only get about half of a Fall crop before frost arrives.

With regard to sexually reproducing patented plants, see: Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 and the subsequent case law.

It depends on patent holder. Columbia Star blackberry is a new patent but the USDA, and OSU seem to have put it out to breeders if they want to use it.

An application for a U.S. Plant Patent has
been submitted for ‘Columbia Star’. When
this germplasm contributes to the development
of a new cultivar, hybrid, or germplasm,
it is requested that appropriate recognition be
given to the source. Further information or
a list of nurseries propagating ‘Columbia
Star’ is available on written request to Chad
Finn, USDA-ARS Horticultural Crops Research
Unit, 3420 NW Orchard Avenue,
Corvallis, OR 97330. The USDA-ARS and
Oregon State University do not sell plants. In
addition, genetic material of this release has
been deposited in the National Plant Germplasm
System as CRUB 2643, where it will
be available for research purposes, including
development and commercialization of new
cultivars

I'd actually love to get a non-thorny, free-standing, hardy blackberry which tastes like Boysenberry or Marion. No need to make it primocane fruiting :)

Now that I say that, maybe I should give it a try...The thorny and erect should be pretty easy to screen for early on. Doh- another project.

Columbia Star has Marion and Logan in it's linage as does Newberry and also has Boysen.
The more I look into breeding the harder it looks. Three types of thornless genes, one recessive, two dominant.
All three genes also give the plant less hardiness, or seem linked. Bob what you mention, a free standing, hardy, thornless Marion type plant may be impossible, It might be better to make a new Marion with a raspberry plant. I'm going to play around with breeding for fun. Germinating the seeds is also quite difficult. I'll get back to you in about 20 years!
Last year I crossed Anne with Prelude to see if my pollination technique worked. I'll let people know next year if plants grow. Seeds are stratifying now, I used Prelude as the mother so if the fruit is yellow or orange for sure it worked.

Drew, since my post I've been doing a bit more reading and I think you may be right. Doing all that to a Marion is a big task. It seems that just getting a thornless trailing Marionberry has kept the ORUS research station busy for a while. And they aren't even trying to make it erect or hardy.

You've probably seen this good primer on blackberry breeding, but it may help others.

The article describes the stratifying process and it seems pretty involved. Burning off the outside with sulfuric acid for just the right amount of time, then neutralizing the acid before temperature stratification...Not exactly, "wash them and put them in a bag in the fridge" simplicity.

I may still try a few boysenberry crosses for fun. I think it is hardy enough for me (at least the thorny one). From what I read in the above link, erect+trailing generally produces semi-erect progeny. So, I can probably get a semi-erect, hardy-enough plant. The question would be thorn-less and flavor.

Do you know of any erect, good tasting blackberries with a dominant gene for thornless? Ideally, one I've already ordered :) If so, about half the results would be good enough at a high level (thornless, semi-erect) and could proceed to the tasting/productivity phase of the test. It would be even better if there is a popular cultivar with a reinforced dominant gene.

That's too bad it's so hard to cross those varieties. I'm in zone 10 so I'd love blackberries with low chill hours, heat tolerance and extended primocane production. This will be the first year of prime-ark freedom for me. But berries like Olallie that ripen for all of a couple weeks really deserve to have longer seasons.

I think Driscoll's has their own varieties and crosses that fit some of these descriptions (like their replacement to Tupi) but they aren't publicly available.

No I don't know of any erects that have the dominant gene. Oh you an use bleach. I don't know exact amount. I have to experiment on that too. Currently I'm trying 1/2 cup for 1 cup distilled water for 12 hours for raspberry, and 2 days for blackberries. . The breeder of Niwot said he uses about what you would put in the washing machine with a cup of distilled water for 12 hours for black raspberry. Which from my understanding is about 1/2 cup of bleach. If it doesn't work I will increase time to 24 hours. I will experiment all summer, as it takes a long time and seedlings can be started anytime as you need to baby them for about a year anyway.
Soon the seeds I scarified with bleach will be ready for germination. It's almost 7 weeks of cold stratification now.
These are raspberries.
If I get them to germinate I will start a thread on progress.

This year I will further practice techniques and next year start some serious blackberry crosses.

To stay on subject I don't think primocane fruitng blackberries are worth it, the yields are low. Raspberries are the only crop that seems to fruit a lot if primocane fruting. And myself take a floricane crop of of all of them.

Depending on how much pollen I collect from my thornless loganberries, I plan to cross is with at least one erect thornless variety of blackberry.. probably Osage. Not sure if that gets me to an erect thornless boysenberry, but maybe a reddish berry that is more cold hardy.

Sounds like a plan, it will be fun to see what we can come up with.

Hey Drew, re: primocane blackberries, it seems there's some pruning methods that really make the prime crop explode (basically, top 'em when they get a couple feet high) otherwise they only produce at the end of the canes and the yield is sad. I forget where I read about the topping and increased yield, but for people like me (with no real winter chill hours), having a prime crop is really appealing. I'd love to get olallie, marion etc more than a couple weeks out of the year.

I checked on the three open pollenated hybrids over the weekend and they have overwintered well so far. I'll post pictures once they get some growth this spring. I'm really curious about the parent plants. Thorny boysen and loganberry both produced berries nearby along with Marion, Wild Treasure, and Silvan.

Jay, I think primocane blackberry could be good for you, given your lack of winter. I brought in a potted (5 gal bucket) Prime Jan one year just before the first frost and it continued producing berries for months. The production wasn't great, as even in a south facing slider door there is limited sun light during Nov-Feb here. But, it kept flowering and making more berries (usually about 5 at any given time). It's been a couple years so my memory isn't perfect, but I think it only quit when it was close to spring and I stopped giving it much attention (or water...).

Edit: I found a pic from Feb 26. Thinking more about it, I think I brought it inside in early November, about a week after the first mild frost. The frost zapped the part of the cane you see in the top left of the pic, which also displays the nasty thorns...

This post was edited by bob_z6 on Tue, Feb 3, 15 at 23:19

Yes, curious about your volunteers too!

Jay I tried that with primocane fruiting black raspberries, and it did form 3 branches, but by the time it did the season was over, so it didn't really work. No berries formed. On the cane I left alone I did get a small harvest.
I have had as many as 300 berries per cane on floricane fruiting black raspberries. Black raspberries are more like blackberries than raspberries in many respects. so I just don't see primocane fruiting blackberries as very useful.
Even regular fall bearing raspberries can have huge floricane harvests too. I'm all for trying if that fits your needs though. I guess I would prune canes earlier, they need time for new branches to form.
Currently I struggle to keep blackberries alive so breeding for hardier plants has priority for me.

I have 3 prime-ark freedom, planted fall last year so I might see some floricane action soon. I'm really hoping they act like raspberries and produce from aug-jan here :)

Drew, here's someone in TX growing prime blackberries (I think he has jan and jim). He says he gets nearly non stop production with pruning and big primocane crops:

Here is a link that might be useful: blackberry production

Drew, I (almost) always tip my Prime Jan blackberries. I probably don't do it early enough- sometimes they are 6' tall before I remember. It is still important to not let them get so tall that they fall over. But, they seem fine from a productivity standpoint. I do lose plenty of crop due to green berries and flowers getting frozen out. But, I think that would be true even if our growing season was 2 months longer.

The 3 problems with Prime Jan- 1- SWD ruins a lot, 2- taste is OK, but not up to Triple Crown, let alone the trailing varieties, and 3- very thorny (these go through thick leather gloves)

Jay, here is another pic of the same plant on the same day, but from another angle. It shows a bunch of ripening berries, at the same time there are a dozen flower buds starting to open.

Hey Bob, cool pics! I'm growing all my brambles in pots (15 gal Root Pouches). Fingers crossed they'll work in my climate.

I can see using primocane in the warmer climates for better production. It just doesn't really work well here.
To tell the truth I'm not a big fan of even primocane raspberries. IMHO even those the 2nd crop is better. And the video you linked, yes he is using primocane fruiting, but most of those canes are floricanes! In his zone probably they overlap well between the primocane and floricane crops.
If he wants better production from thornless he should use trailing. Trailing types will out produce those primocane plants too, but require more work.

Trailing blackberries can produce like crazy if grown right. Here is Doyle thornless trailing.

This post was edited by Drew51 on Wed, Feb 4, 15 at 9:14

For anyone curious, here's a study by the CA University AG dept about increased prime-ark 45 production with double tipping. They suggest tipping once at 1.5ft then tipping the new canes again at 1.5ft. It looks like they get huge production from aug to frost. Lots of pics and examples of different tipping results:

Here is a link that might be useful: Prime Ark Tipping Trials

This post was edited by Jay-Part-Shade on Thu, Feb 5, 15 at 9:34

Those look great, and should work well in your area, in my area not as much. Season is not long enough. But at least 1 tipping should even work here. I would also harvest the floricane crop myself. As I said with my black raspberry I tipped it too late in the year, my bad. Thanks for posting I will try this with my black raspberry. I don't have any primocane fruiting blackberries. They are borderline hardy here. I can protect trailing types but uprights I can only try anti-desiccants for protection. This year was better so far it only got down to -4F. I guess though if I could do the single or double topping, temps will not matter, as long as the crown survives. I may have to pick one up and see what happens.

Hey Drew, glad to help, and got a question for you: are you growing your brambles in root pouches? If I remember correctly, we're both big root pouch fans. I have all my berries in 15 gal bags right now with an organic mix, mostly bark but not nearly as fast/dry as 5-1-1. What do you use?

Also, here's something I found about rasp growers in canada using 3 gal plastic bags for primocane raspberries. They don't do floricane crops, but just pile the bags up and cover at the end of the year.

Here is a link that might be useful: Canadian Raspberry Growing

Thank you for the link Jay. I have been single-tipping my PrimeArk 45's, so I'll try to double-tip them this year and see how it goes.

Actually those raspberry growers are doing both primocane and floricane raspberries.
Most of mine are in ground, but i ran out of room, so last year some new plants were put in 15 gallon root pouches. Overwintering in garage. I use 3 parts pine, 1 part peat, 1 part DE, and 1 part compost (prevent root rot, lower PH, feed bacteria) and a handful of lime, 1 tbs azomite, and organic fertilizer on top, also some dynamite time release if I have it. I'm getting low! . Well will add fertilizer in the spring.
I may add perlite in the future if drainage is slow. I doubt it will be. Currently the organic fertilizer is Holly-Tone or Plant-tone depending on what the PH tests out as.
I use the same mix for blueberries but leave out the compost and lime and add sulfur and use Holly-Tone and Ammonium Sulfate. I need to put my blueberries in bigger pots this spring.

Good to know, thanks!

My mixes are a constant experiment, so I reserve the right to change them at any time! I also add fungi to all pots, you know Mycorrhiza. MycoGrow has all you need except for blueberries for over 200 plants for 5 bucks, it can't hurt, and may help a lot. My yields are decent!