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Performance of Blackberry Cultivars, Plateau Experiment Station, 2002 A. Brent Smith Interpretive Summary Most varieties performed well. ‘Chester’, ‘Hull’, ‘Triple Crown’, and ‘Illinois Hardy’ had the largest yield per plant and yield per acre of the cultivars tested. Berry weight was greatest in ‘Kiowa’. Introduction Blackberries are native to much of North America, and are part of the diets of both people and wildlife. The first serious effort to cultivate these plants occurred in the 1850's. With tobacco and traditional row crop growers seeking to supplement their incomes, the blackberry is beginning to receive significant attention, mainly due to the relative ease of production. As of 1997 only 112 acres were planted in domesticated blackberries in Tennessee according to the most recent records available from Tennessee Department of Agriculture. New varieties continue to be developed in attempts to improve flavor, yield, and disease resistance, and evaluation of these varieties under local conditions is needed to evaluate their performance. An experiment was began at the Plateau Experiment Station at Crossville, TN in 2000 to evaluate the performance of 10 blackberry cultivars. Methods and Materials The site was prepared in mid-March of 2000. Paraquat (Gramoxone Extra) at 0.47 lb ai/A was used as a burn down on existing vegetation. Plot size was single row, 20 ft long, with rows spaced 12 ft apart. Erect type cultivars were planted 6 plants/row, while trailing type cultivars had 4 plants/row. Plants were obtained from nurseries in Arkansas, Georgia, and New York. Experimental plot design was a randomized complete block with four replications. Plots are side dressed annually with 200 lb/A of 15-15-15 fertilizer. Trailing type cultivars are trained using a two wire trellis system. All varieties are pruned in early April. Carbaryl (Sevin XLR ) at 2 lb/A or Malathion 57 EC at 0.95 lb ai/A was used as needed for insect control, mainly Japanese Beetle. Row middles were mowed with a standard riding type mower, while norflurazon (Solicam) at 4lb ai/A, simazine (Princep) at 3 lb ai/A, and paraquat (Gramoxone) at 0.3 lb ai/A were used to control vegetation around the base of the test plants. Berries were hand harvested three times a week from June 26 until August 2. A berry was considered ripe if more than 3/4 of the berry had ripened. Harvest yield and flavor levels were recorded for each plot. Results and Discussion The fruit of ‘Chester’ and ‘Hull’ began to ripen almost a week later than the other varieties. ‘Chester’ and ‘Hull’, the only trailing type cultivars had higher yields per picking than all other varieties except ‘Illinois Hardy’ and ‘Triple Crown’ (Table 1). Due to trailing type plants high rate of growth and the tendency to spread out, fewer of these plants are needed to plant a crop than are needed with the erect varieties. ‘Arapaho’, ‘Apache’, and ‘Shawnee’ had smaller yields/picking than other cultivars. ‘Chester’ and ‘Hull’ also had higher yield/per plant than all other cultivars. Berry weight was highest in ‘Kiowa’ and ‘Chickasaw’. ‘Kiowa’ and ‘Triple Crown’ had higher flavor ratings than other cultivars except ‘Apache’ and ‘Illinois Hardy’. Japanese Beetle pressure was very high on all the cultivars tested, and should be of primary importance to a producer. Total yields for the cultivars tested could not be accurately determined due to premature pruning, and unrecorded harvest of some of the varieties that occurred during the fruit and vegetable field day, August 6. Several varieties continued to produce fruit through mid-September, but records were not kept of harvests during this time due to the pruning having removed fruit clusters. Table 1: Yield, weight, and flavor of different blackberry cultivars at The University of Tennessee Plateau Experiment Station at Crossville, 2002.
x Ratings on o scale of 1-10. 10 = good flavor.z Means within a column followed by the same letter are not significantly different at the0.05 level of probability, Duncan’s multiple range tests. |
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