Oh, forgot to mention I also got Loganberry. It's pretty cool to be growing a 140 year old cultivar. Lots of rasperry action too but I'll get to that later.

Interesting way of growing raspberries. Is there a reason they're not in the ground? Or why you are growing them on netting rather than wires? Doesn't that make pruning fiddly, untangling the floricanes at the end of fruiting?

Since you've opened this up to a "all things rubus," I wonder if you are familiar with wineberry (R. phoeniculasius)? It is native to Asia but escaped in much of the Eastern US, where I remember it as one of the best wild edibles (reliable harvests, predictable quality, etc.). Now that I live in NM I don't get to enjoy it anymore, although I do have one plant growing well in the garden, but have yet to taste a real crop from it. It is very difficult to find in nurseries, and as far as I know, there has been no selective breeding done with it, although I could be wrong. Is it ever grown for its berry crop where you are?

Thanks for the interesting post and pic, that's wonderful that you are so into the brambles...

Floral, I guess the reason is that these plants aren't winter proof here. The canes would be all but dead the following spring. The plants are on wires but we put those nets there today to support the laterals. They are already drooping and the yield on these can be up to 1 kilo per cane, they couldn't support the weight on their own. I also have to point out that these are plants are at my work place so not my personal grow. I have some canes at home too so we'll find out how they do without netting.

They are in pots because canes like these are disposable after the first crop. Traditional strains are still being grown in the ground but production here is rapidly moving into tunnels because of the extended growing season and superior yields, and like I said the new strains would be half dead on open ground the following season so it is actually more productive to replace the canes each year. I must admit it pains me somewhat to throw away perfectly good plants but this is how things are done here at the moment.

nmfruit, thank you for your positive feedback. I'm interested in all kinds of plants but from my point of view as a grower and amateur breeder brambles are the most interesting and versatile group of plants to work with. There's so much to explore.

I am familiar with Japanese wineberry. I tracked down a local nursery that was carrying them as a curiosity and tried doing some simple crosses with hardy garden raspberries but to no avail. Afaik they're not being grown commercially anywhere. At the end I was a bit disappointed with the taste but that could have been because of the environment. They're good, don't get me wrong but I was expecting something spectacular based on some comments posted online. The taste reminded me of red currant, but without any tartness or acidicity whatsoever. I still have the plant but the floricanes didn't make it through the winter (which was expected) so no wineberries this year. I do plan on working with them in the future but I can see why there's limited interest in breeding them. >>> tiny berries, very very prickly canes and low diversity to choose from. They are tolerant of raspberry beetle though and that is worth exploring imo. One would just need to introduce the genes for thornlessness and bigger berries but I decided I don't have the time for such an endeavour right now. I'm pretty much occupied with blackcaps at the moment.

Germans, they don't fool around. These are decent sized plants for 6 euros apiece

Is that Malling Jewel? I have that. They're absolutely loaded this year.

No sorry, should have said black jewel. Both are black raspberries. I also got starlight from a different vendor but boy does it look shabby in comparison. Kotata and sylvan blackberries made it here too but not much to look at yet. Still happy to finally grow western blackberries!

Hi Berry Allen I am glad you started this thread because I love rubus. I recently moved into my parents home and now have room to expand my raspberry and blackberry collections, In the last two years i have added about 30 varieties of raspberry and 10 varieties of blackberry. I am Zone 6a to 5b depending on which map I look at so most varieties are hardy for me except trailing blackberries. I always loved the flavor of Canby raspberries but a couple days ago I tasted my first ripe Tulameen raspberry which was very good and I would rank it a very close second to Canby in flavor.

Great thread ,

I’m growing about 40+ types of raspberry ( old types and new) yellows , blacks, purples, reds etc

20 + types of blackberries Inc white types

, 20+ types of hybrid berries ( veitchberry , sunberry, boysenberry, tummelberry etc

many unusual rubus , I breed many of my own now this one is an autumn fruiting orange coloured from a sweet Metz x red two time sugana

stew

Thanks for posting Houzz user. It's good to find like minded people here. I haven't tried as many varieties yet but the Polka raspberries I grew last year were the sweetest so far. On par with the best wild batches.

Thanks for sharing your plants Swaine. There's no looking back once you start breeding your own. What is your climate like? Are those purple ones an R. occidentalis hybrid or did you use something else for the cross?

Keriberry is a new one for me. Apparently it's from the malochobatus family and is probably allopolyploid. After a quick search they can have have a chromosome number as high as 14x so I imagine it might be tricky to hybridize. R. ursinus often has a 2n of 12x but the allopolyploidy makes things a bit more complicated.

From my little experience Not easy to identity hybrid from occ x occ seedlings from canes until they fruit fully ripe ,

I’ve never tried occidentalis x ideaus but at a guess it would be earlier to identify the cross

if your cross was the jewel ( female ) rubus occ x muskoks ( ideaus) you may have a hybrid as cane does look like ideaus if you used the muskoka as seed parent I would wait to see the colour of your fruit and cane growth

Where do you guys find new cultivars?

I'm always on the look out for new cultivars because my ideal plant doesn't seem to exist (primocane, thornless, heat tolerant, delicious). I would really like a list every year of new cultivars, but haven't found a good one yet.

I am wondering if it’s possible to get black raspberries to produce indoors with artificial (hi pressure sodium) lighting? They certainly quite well in these conditions but haven’t flowered.

Kurzhnur have you tried prime ark freedom?

I like the purple thorny raspberries although the thorns are a downfall lol The prime ark freedom is my second fav https://myperfectplants.com/product/prime-ark-freedom-blackberry-bush/

Sorry slipped my mind, I was only thinking about raspberries when I made that post, forgot to name raspberries by name.

I have a few plants of PAF, produced for me early and got two smaller crops from them(first year from bare root). Half the berries were sour but I think that's because I planted in rootpouches that were too small (10 gallon) and they wouldn't hold enough water. Next year should be better with bigger root balls in bigger containers (the berries that were good were amazing)

As for raspberries... I've only tried two: Joan J and Raspberry Shortcake. The dwarf nature of the shortcake made it a disease and pest nest and it produced okay berries but too hard to keep pest free. Joan J did really well, producing an early crop in june, but then suddenly all leaves turned light grey and died, and almost all the fruit was super sour because the crop wasn't ready; Think it might have gotten rootrot.

Out of (Primocane, Thornless, Heat tolerant and Delicious), and finding no one plant that seems to have all of that, I'm thinking of dropping thornless and going with Dorman Red or Nantahala for next year. If I could find a place that would sell to a home gardener, Wengi raspberry might be interesting (https://www.abbreeding.nl/varieties/wengi/?lang=en) but they only just filed patent a few months ago, so it'll be years before I can find it I bet.

On the topic of new (new-ish) cultivars, has anyone tried Itsaul Summer Everbearing Raspberries? I bought 4 of them at a local plant nursery on the 8b/9a line in Louisiana last summer, so far they seem to be doing good growing in ground near my thornless blackberry patch, though only time will tell. Being in Louisiana most raspberries will not grow here as they can't stand the heat, though based on some garden club reports from east Texas it seems Itsaul Summer does tolerate our climate, apparently it originates from the Atlanta Georgia area, so slightly cooler than here, but not much.

I also grow Prime Ark Traveler, Prime Ark Freedom, Ouachita, Osage, and Sweetie Pie thornless blackberries. Out of these Osage is by far my favorite in terms of flavor, and Prime Ark Freedoms have been my least successful out of 11 plants planted (6 one year with 100% failure, and 5 the next) only 1 or maybe 2 are still alive vs 80-100% of all of the others.

I'm going to try Itsaul raspberry as well although it's hard to find an online supplier for them. Someone in Tennessee said it was the only raspberry successful for him in his hot/humid climate. Atlanta is very hot/humid in the summer the only raspberry variety UGA recommends (for non mountain areas) is Dorman Red although it's better for baking than fresh eating. Mysore raspberry does well in south florida I'm not sure how cold hardy it is though.

ItSaul Summer raspberry looks good for my climate as well, but I couldn't find any local stores that would sell me any (Blackberry/Raspberry isn't too popular here, only old cultivars are sold and my favorite store is skipping them because they sold poorly last year) so I bought online.

It wasn't until they arrived that I realized "ItSual Summer" raspberry is also known as "Koplin Berry", or at least the store I bought seems to think they are. It makes sense though, I couldn't find a patent for Itsaul summer, but the patent for koplin berry is available through google and the owner of the patent is "It Saul Plants LLC" and I don't see any other raspberries sold by them. https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP26872P2/en?q=berry&inventor=koplin&oq=koplin+berry

So if you're having trouble finding it, they're probably the same and should look for both to cover the bases.

Do black raspberry bushes turn yellow and lose their leaves in winter in mild climates? Zone 10-San Diego. I was concerned about some type of disease, as they were very healthy until December.

Thanks!