Trailing Blackberries: From Clear-cuts to Your Table

Abstract

Received for publication 22 May 2000. I would like to acknowledge the contributions of Angela Anderson and Rengong Meng, whose MS thesis research at Oregon State Univ. contributed to this paper; Kirsten Wennstrom (USDA–ARS/Oregon State Univ.) for overseeing the maintenance of the plant material and crosses discussed; Hugh Daubeny [Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada, Agassiz, B.C. (retired)], Rick Harrison (Sweetbriar Inc., Watsonville, Calif.), and Ted Mackey (USDA–ARS) for help in collecting the bulk of the Rubus ursinus; and Jim Luby (University of Minnesota) for his inspiration in the initial conception of the work and help in collection of the plant material. The cost of publishing this paper was defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. Under postal regulations, this paper therefore must be hereby marked advertisement solely to indicate this fact. E-mail address: finnc@bcc.orst.edu The commercial blackberry (Rubus sp.) industry in the United States and Canada can be roughly divided into eastern North America, Oregon, and California components. In the eastern United States, the plantings tend to be fairly small (mostly <0.25 ha, but up to ≈8 ha), geared towards pick-your-own or local sales, with either semierect (e.g., ‘Chester Thornless’) or erect (e.g., ‘Navaho’) cultivars (Clark, 1992). In Oregon, there are ≈2500 ha in production (National Agricultural Statistics Service–Oregon Agricultural Statistics Service, 1999), the crop is primarily machine-harvested for the processing market, and the cultivars are trailing types (e.g., ‘Marion’ and ‘Thornless Evergreen’). The California blackberry industry, while still relatively small, is expanding, using publicly and privately developed trailing, erect, and semierect cultivars that are hand-harvested for wholesale, fresh-market sales. Breeding programs in Florida and Texas have developed blackberry cultivars from indigenous species, but have not accounted for a significant acreage in North America.