Growing Upright Blackberries

With proper pruning, erect varieties (some of them thornless) are easy to manage and easy to pick.

Launch Gallery

by John R. ClarkJune 1999from subject # 21

Blackberries . The mere mention play several intellection to mind , includingblackberrycobbler , tick , chiggers , and snakes . When I was growing up in the South , the annual blackberry bush harvest from thorny plants get on fence rows , pool dams , and forest glade was both a delight and a curse . The occasional encounter with eight - legged and reptilian ally always enhanced the experience . But with the improved varieties uncommitted these day , you could have easy - to - blame fruit and a minimum of tangling with pricker and wildlife . Your main concern is likely to be what form of chicken feed cream to have with the Chuck Berry .

Upright varieties are less work

Blackberries are usually group agree to increase habit . tracking and semi - erect plants want trellising . Erect - caned plant generally do n’t need support , although in some cases — if they ’re planted in a windy spot , or there ’s a huge craw , or they have n’t been crop enough — irregular support may be needed . But tumid varieties do n’t need lasting trellising . There are other advantages as well : The Chuck Berry are easier to pick , they do n’t get splashed with soil when it rain , and you could mow around them .

I lead theblackberry breeding program at the University of Arkansas , where we ’ve been focusing on creating fresh upright varieties . As you might opine , I ’m a large fan of upright blackberry . I recommend six such potpourri presently available ( not all of them from Arkansas ) . You ’ll find detail in the chart at the end of this Sir Frederick Handley Page . If you hold up in Zones 5 to 8 , there ’s an upright blackberry bush you could grow .

The two major considerations in select blackberries are tone and the front or absence of thorns ( two of the six upright varieties arethornless ) . I ca n’t think of a better instance of object vs. immanent characteristics . Everybody prefers thornless plants , but opinions of flavor alter . I prefer more sweet and less tart ; you may think otherwise . All of the uprights have what I consider an easterly U.S. blackberry flavor . Blackberries from the Pacific Northwest , such as ‘ Marion ’ , on the other hand , have a unequaled flavor due to their very different genetic screen background .

In addition to being unarmed , tumid , spineless blackberries offer other advantages . First , their fruits generally are firmer than those of thorny type , so they hold up longer in storage . secondly , thornless blackberries are less serious about producing novel sprouts from the roots , so they ’re soft to keep turn back . Unfortunately , the thornless good blackberry currently uncommitted are n’t as dauntless as some of the thorny one .

Proper pruning is keyBlackberries are well suited to being develop as a hedge ; I care to locate them along a holding line of descent . If you have a problem with unwanted mammalian traffic , a border of thorny blackberries is a not bad deterrent . A hedgerow that ’s 18 inches wide at the stand can be kept to near 36 inches wide-cut at the top — narrow enough to progress to to the heart to glean every berry . Just do n’t plant blackberry too close to other landscape beds since the roots beam out novel shoots , or sucker , that can be invasive .

blackberry bush have a repeated origin system , but the canes are two-year , meaning they live for two years . First - class canes , have it away as primocanes , do n’t flower . Second - twelvemonth cane are call floricanes . They flower in the spring , produce fruit in the summer , and then die . Each year the cycle repeats itself , with primocanes growing at the same prison term floricanes are fruiting .

With upright blackberry , the Florida key to success is correctly managing the primocanes to produce the “ hedgerow ” growth habit . Cane management include pruning both during the growing season and during quiescency . I think of summer pruning as training because it consists largely of trimming the primocanes to check their shape . preparation is a simple process that does n’t take long , but if you do n’t do it , your plants will grow leggy and possibly wo n’t stand upright .

Start prepare primocanes during the plant ’s second twelvemonth . In their first growing time of year , the works should take no pruning because first - year maturation of vertical blackberries is rather bushy . Erect canes will commence to develop the second year . Two or three clock time during the growing time of year , top the primocanes back at a pinnacle of 40 to 46 inch . This make lateral subdivision to farm from the bud in the foliage axils , and result in more fruit the next time of year . Primocanes continue to get and grow during most of the grow time of year , which is why you must ignore them back a few sentence . This is the only cutting you should do on primocanes during the grow season .

Floricanes decease after they finish fruiting . Once this happens , you could remove them at any time , cutting them at priming level .

Winter pruning involves transfer excess canes and shortening sidelong growth . To keep your blackberry hedge from getting too wide , ignore or dig out any primocane growing outside an 18 - inch - wide band at the alkali of the cane row . Also remove excess primocanes . Three to six canes per foundation of row in an 18 - in - wide isthmus is tolerable for estimable output and large berry . Finally , shorten lateral growth on primocanes to 12 to 18 inch .

glean early and oftenYou should get your first harvest of yield in the second yr . Since the first - year increment is usually not fully tumid , your first fruits will be low to the ground than subsequent harvests .

Blackberries call on from green to Marxist to total darkness as they mature . They will not increase in sweet after harvest , so do n’t piece underripe berries . reap every two to three days , rather during nerveless function of the day , and do n’t let the fruit sit down in direct sunlight after it ’s picked . Chill any Chuck Berry you do n’t design to corrode shortly after piece . refrigerate in shallow covered containers , blackberries keep from one to ten days , depending on the variety . But chances are , most of your harvest wo n’t be around past afters clip .

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thornless blackberry

Some upright blackberries are thornless, so picking the fruit is easy.Photo/Illustration: Pam Spaulding

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