Recently, garden blackberries, the closest relative of the well-known raspberries, have been especially popular among gardeners. Scientists in many countries at the end of the 19th century began to cultivate this interesting plant, creating hybrid varieties that differ significantly from wild ones in the abundance of fruits and their size. In Russia, the first species were bred by I. V. Michurin.
General description of blackberries
This plant belongs to the Rosaceae family. In the wild, it is found in the form of blackberry thickets in open areas of the forest, near water bodies. This is a perennial shrub plant with a well-developed root system with developed lateral roots. But above-ground shoots, like raspberries, are updated every two years. In the first year of life, stems up to three meters in height grow from dormant buds of rhizomes. They form generative buds, the basis for future fruiting. Blackberry varieties differ in annual shoots, their appearance. Their colors range from green to brown. They come with and without spines, with and without pubescence. Next yearthese branches no longer grow, and from the fruitful buds located at the base of the leaf, shoots are formed with buds collected in brushes. After harvesting, the stems dry out, and new young shoots develop in their place.
Blackberries bloom in early summer with white or pinkish buds, which are located at the top of the shoots in the brushes.
Berries are a complex fruit, consisting of many juicy drupes, located close to each other on a cone-shaped receptacle. They ripen in the middle of the summer season. Like raspberries, blackberries have different varieties. Their photos show the differences in the fruits.
Complex drupes are purple, black or dark red, sometimes pubescent in the form of small villi located on each small component. The shape of the berries are elongated or spherical. Modern large-fruited varieties of blackberries produce fruits weighing up to 25 g, while in the usual culture of this plant they are about 4-6 g.
Blackberry Varieties
Depending on the structure of the bushes, the plant is divided into the following types:
1. Kumarnika is a blackberry whose stems grow straight up.
2. Dewberry is a variety with creeping and creeping shoots on the ground.
3. A transitional look that shares the characteristics of the first two.
The description of the blackberry varieties belonging to the first variety indicates the tallness of upright shoots reaching 4 m. This feature must be taken into account when choosing a place for planting;the branches did not hang down and did not touch the ground. Can be planted in one or two rows near the fence, using a wire trellis. The distance from one bush to another is no more than a meter. You need to tie the ends of the stems to the upper trellis, and the young short shoots are attached to the lower wire. These varieties are propagated by root layers.
Strawberry loves moist soils, because water is necessary for the normal development of stems and fruits. The lack of moisture leads to a deterioration in the quality of the berries, their underdevelopment occurs or they do not set at all.
Many tall blackberry varieties have winter hardiness, which allows them to grow in the middle zone. Unlike creeping species, kumarnika tolerates frosts better. To do this, trim the tops of annual shoots by several tens of centimeters. Two-year-old branches are cut off, as well as weakened, broken young shoots, they are left on the bush up to 8. After that, the stems are tilted to the ground, fixed and sprinkled with leaves.
For the second type (dewberry) supports are not needed, as the creeping stems are located on the soil. It reproduces by rooting apical buds. When forming a bush, young shoots are bent to the ground and attached with hooks to the soil, after which their tops are trimmed. Soon branches with fruitful buds form on the stems.
Compared to erect varieties, the creeping blackberry has a larger yield, but it is much inferior in terms of winter hardiness. Rosyanik without failshould be protected from frost. If such technologies are violated, or when the bushes are not freed from the mulch on time, due to insufficient ventilation, the shoots may freeze or burns develop on them. During a sharp warming in the last days of winter, the shelter should be regularly ventilated.
The transitional species (semi-creeping) has absorbed the characteristics of the two previous ones, therefore it can reproduce both by root layering and by rooting of apical buds. It is recommended to shelter from frost.
By the presence of outgrowths on the shoots, blackberry varieties without thorns and thorny plants are distinguished. By the number of harvests per season, remontant and ordinary cultivars are distinguished.
Blackberry garden: varieties
Hybrids of modern cultivated blackberries are superior to their wild relatives in yield, fruit enlargement, greater winter hardiness. However, unlike weed blackberries, horticultural varieties cannot tolerate excess moisture in the soil, which can cause root rot. The lack of light negatively affects the formation of the bush and the taste of the fruit.
Widely used by Russian gardeners are garden blackberries Izobilnaya, Thornless Evergreen, Thornfree, Smootstem, Black Satin, Orkan, Black Diamond, Arash, Helen, Lucretia, Jumbo, Agavam, Darrow, Texas.
Thornless Blackberry
Currently, productive varieties with several positive qualities are widely used. This is an excellent taste of berries, and large fruits, and the absence of thorns on the shoots. Blackberry varieties without thorns have been bred for a long time by breeders, since this feature allowsensure safe picking of berries and save time. The best are Thornfree, Loch Ness, Ruben, Navajo, Chester, Helen, Natchez, Arash, Chief Joseph, Asterina, Jumbo.
In Russia, the first such product was Thornfri's thornless blackberry. Breeders received it in the 60s of the last century.
The Loch Ness thornless garden blackberry is a plant that bears fruit from late summer until the first frost. Such a winter-hardy variety was bred in Sweden. Berries of medium size, weighing about 5 g, black with a glossy finish, with excellent taste, withstand transportation and storage well.
Another great hardy plant is the Navajo thornless garden blackberry. This is another late high-yielding hybrid with fruits up to 5 g, with a beautiful appearance, black color and a glossy finish, with a pleasant taste and suitable for long storage.
If we compare the yield of thornless varieties of blackberries and raspberries, the advantage will be on the side of blackberries. Both of these plants begin to bear fruit in the second year of the life of the shoots. One-year-old blackberry stems are shortened to increase branching, as a result of which the yield of the bush increases, and old two-year-old shoots are removed.
High yields are due to late flowering, in which the buds are not damaged by May frosts. The best varieties of blackberries produce berries for about a month, which increases its yield.
The roots of blackberries are deep enough to get moisture from moredeep layers of soil and withstand a dry period. It grows on almost any soil, but prefers soil that is easily permeable to water and air with low acidity. Excess moisture is detrimental to plant growth.
Blackberries are rich in minerals: iron, sulfur, phosphorus, calcium.
Repair varieties
A variety of blackberries are plants that bear fruit already in the first year of planting, at a time when other varieties have already moved away from fruiting. These are repair varieties. Such plants do not need to be covered in the fall to keep the bush until the next season, because the fruits produce annual shoots.
Among gardeners, it is considered high-yielding, well-pollinated blackberry remontant variety Ruben. Her fruits appear on the stems of the first year. With thick, strong shoots growing up to 2 meters, this blackberry does not require support, and due to a well-developed root system, it can grow on any soil. The Ruben variety is very resistant to adverse factors such as lack of moisture in the soil, summer heat or shading.
The first large fruits weighing up to 14 g begin to ripen at the end of summer, and then for another two months you can harvest a wonderful harvest of juicy, fragrant berries, until the first frost.
Fruit branches do not have thorns, which makes harvesting easier, but there are small outgrowths on the stems themselves.
When the berries are all harvested, the shoots are cut at ground level. Such pruning protects the bush from freezing in winter and prevents diseases from developing. Fruits of next yearwill be free of harmful chemicals that are usually treated with bushes for the prevention of diseases.
Blackberry Thornfree
Thornfree is a blackberry variety bred by American breeders in Maryland in the 60s of the last century. This hybrid is popular among gardeners and has been introduced into commercial horticulture.
Thornfree variety is a variety of large-fruited dewberry with late fruiting. It has creeping shoots without thorns, reaching a length of 5 meters. The tops of the stems are cut off for better branching, which allows you to get twigs strewn with large black berries, starting in mid-summer, for 30 days. The leaves of this plant are complex, dark green in color, consist of five leaf blades.
This blackberry has qualities that allow it to develop resistance to various diseases and insect pests. If you use the basic rules of dewberry farming, then this variety gives little shoots and pleases gardeners with its abundant flowering in early summer.
For many lovers of Thornfree blackberries, the downside is the abundance of sweetness and lack of sourness in the ripe, fragrant berry, which becomes inelastic and difficult to store. To avoid this, the fruits are plucked in advance, then they are not so sweet, but the smell is practically absent. Thornfree blackberry has elongated berries, weighing up to 6 g, they are collected in a brush, which can have up to 40 fruits.
Such plants are planted with the help of rooted tops. Bushes in winter without shelter can freeze slightly, so the shoots are laid on the ground, andthen cover with soil or leaf mulch.
Blackberry Black Satin
The blackberry variety Black Satin was also bred by American breeders in the state of Maryland, but already in the 70s of the last century as a result of crossing three different hybrids, one of which is Thornfree. Therefore, he has some of the qualities of an ancestor.
Blackberry varieties (photo presented in the article) Black Satin is of an intermediate type, since strong, thornless shoots first grow up 1 meter, and then go down and spread along the ground. Young stems are green at first, and as they age, they become yellow or even brown, grow in length up to 4.5 meters. The rigidity and strength of such shoots prevent the bush from bending and forming.
Ripe fruit faster than its sister variety Thornfree, and as early as early August you can start harvesting large black berries with an excellent sweet and sour taste reminiscent of mulberries and a faint blackberry aroma. Complex drupes come off hard from the receptacle, but overripe fruits, due to their softness, are easy enough to pick.
The shape of the berries resembles an elongated cone with a rounded end, weight - 5-8 g, which is slightly more than Thornfree. Complex drupes are collected in bunches in brushes. Black Satin blackberry produces a high yield from early summer until the first frost.
With good care, this hybrid can become remontant. This property manifests itself at the end of summer in the form of the growth of fruit twigs with buds from the lower buds on young stems. Gooddeveloped resistance to pathogens of various diseases. For the winter, bushes require shelter, as they are prone to freezing.
Blackberry with thorns
The best blackberry varieties with thorns are Agaves, Darrow and Texas.
Agawam is an American hybrid. Young green stems grow straight, and only their upper ends are down. Branching shoots of annual bushes become purple or brown in color, covered with thorn-like processes and fluff of glandular villi. Leaves with alternate arrangement, divided into 3 plates, also have needle-like outgrowths.
Complex fruits of this variety consist of large drupes, and the berries themselves are also large - up to 6 g by weight, black. Their taste is sickeningly sweet. The stems are not covered for the winter because of the impossibility of bending them to the ground.
Darrow is another American buffalo variety. Its upright shoots are strewn with thorns, the length of which reaches 3 meters. Very high-yielding and winter-hardy blackberry variety. The fruits are elongated, medium weight, black, glossy, sweet with a slight sourness.
Texas is a Michurin variety obtained as a result of selective selection of seedlings of the Logan variety. The hybrid belongs to dewdrops, creeping shoots are covered with thorns and fluffy coating. Huge berries of this variety - weighing about 9 g - are pleasant to the taste due to sweet and sour notes. The color of the fruits varies from dark red to black, there is a coating of wax. Texas bushes do not tolerate severe frosts.
Varietiesblackberries for the Moscow region
When choosing blackberry varieties for the Moscow region, one should take into account such a characteristic as winter hardiness. Therefore, the description of blackberry varieties should indicate their ability to tolerate frost. If you do not pay attention to this, then you can waste your time and effort.
In the Moscow region and in the Moscow region, blackberry varieties such as Thornfi, Agavam, Ufimskaya early, Wilsons Airlie, Loch Ness, Thornless Evergreen, Darrow, Flint, Chester, Smoothsem, Izobilnaya have gained particular popularity among gardeners. These species have medium to high frost tolerance. In the conditions of the Moscow region, the ambient temperature can reach quite low values, which has a very negative effect on the state of the bush in the spring and subsequent harvest. Despite the high winter hardiness, almost all of the above varieties require shelter in late autumn.
Among the hybrids that have thorns, the Agawam variety is suitable for this region, which is particularly resistant to cold, high yields, no diseases, and also beautiful.
Flint is another hardy variety. The shoots of this plant reach medium size, covered with thorns. This is a large-fruited variety, the berries are black with a blue tint, weigh about 5 g, spherical in shape, with a wonderful smell and taste of blackberries. Compared to the Agawam hybrid, the yield is slightly lower. Not affected by diseases and pests. Blackberry Flint is very easy to care for.
Thornless Evergreen - frost-resistant variety, bush for winteringleaves without dropping leaves. Powerful shoots spread along the ground, without thorns, although there are plants with thorns. A very productive variety, the bushes are literally strewn with fruits. Starting from the twentieth of August and until the end of September, sweet and sour black berries with a glossy finish are harvested, they weigh up to 3 g. One of the disadvantages of this variety is the ripening of large seeds, which impair the taste of the fruit.
In the conditions of the Moscow region, the blackberry shoots of Thornless Evergreen are best covered by laying on the ground and covering with sawdust or foliage.
Wilsons Early is another winter-hardy straight-growing variety with small thorns, shoots reach two meters. It is an early hybrid, harvesting begins in the middle of summer, and it lasts until the beginning of autumn. The fruits are black-purple, oval, not very large, up to 2 g by weight.
Variety Abundant, although not winter-hardy, is popular with gardeners in the Moscow region. The founder of this variety is the Russian breeder I. V. Michurin. Creeping stems of powerful bushes are covered with hook-shaped thorns. This late variety produces a high yield of large berries, weighing up to 10 g, with a sweet-sour taste. Bushes are covered to protect against freezing.
Blackberry cultivation in Ukraine
Garden blackberries are growing in popularity. Varieties Ukraine buys abroad. In some southern regions of this country, where the climate is milder and the winters are mild, farmers have begun to grow high-yielding blackberries on an industrial scale. area under itoccupy up to 200 acres of land. In the north of the country, it is difficult to do without the shelter of such plants, because in winter there is often no snow, and severe frosts will not spare the bushes from freezing if they are not prepared in the fall. With dewdrop varieties, things are much better, they do not need to be specially bent down. But straight-growing species, as the shoots grow, must be gradually tilted, otherwise their sharp bending will damage the branches. In order for the stem to gradually bend, a load is tied to it, and due to the elasticity of the tissues, they will gradually bend down.
Ukrainian farmers for the production of blackberries often use late varieties, the fruits of which ripen at the end of summer, and the harvest lasts until the end of September. At this time, many berry crops have already disappeared from the counter, which doubles the demand for blackberries.
