Blackberry flowers to fruit: most fruit ripe or picked! (as of July 17)

For each cultivar, we tagged 5 flowers in the same field. As the season progressed, we had wind damage, picker damage and other sorts of damage. So in most cases, we ended up with less than 5 ripe fruit.  

As of July 17, most of the fruit we labeled in the field has been harvested. Only 2 Von samples were still in the field. 

Based on our guesstimates* of harvest dates, the number of days from flower to fruit are:

Natchez 51

Osage 44

Ouachita 51

Navaho 51

Von 58

* these are based on only 3-4 flowers, so what you may see in your field may vary. 

Thanks to Abby Whitaker and Daniel Shires for their help with data collection and taking pictures on all these dates. 

Blackberry flowers to fruit project: More ripe fruit July 3

Pictures from last week, July 3, show that Osage was picked, Natchez and Ouachita were ripe, Navaho is red and Von is still green. We have five fruit of each cultivar labeled, so there is some variation in ripeness. Once all fruit is black, we will average he number of days that it took five fruit to get from flowers to fruit in 2014. 

Flowers to fruit June 27 seeing red and black!

Natchez won the race, it is the first cultivar to produce a ripe fruit. Two of the five flagged berries are ripe. One was picked before the picture was taken and this one was fully ripe. It took 38 days for this berry to go from a fully open flower to a ripe fruit. We will calculate the number of days for the rest of the fruit as they ripen and post that list at the end of the season.

The flower below was actually at a stage we call petal fall, the flower has been pollinated (you can tell because the anthers are all brown, indicating that the pollen has been released).  It was probably in full bloom a day or so before the picture was taken.

Ouachita, Osage, Navaho are all at the red stage. Von was the only cultivar that still had only  green fruit.

In this little trial, we are determining how long it takes a group of five berries to progress from a flower to a ripe fruit. Fruit in the field are at a range of stages. We have been picking Natchez, Osage and Ouachita in our research plots for over a week.

Photo credits and big thanks to Abby Whitaker and Daniel Shires. Photos taken at Killdeer Farm, Kings Mountain, NC.

Flowers to fruit third week update

These are images taken on 3 separate dates, showing development from flower to fruit of 5 cultivars, starting at full bloom. Images taken by Daniel Shires, NCCES Agent and summer intern Abby Whitaker. 

Crop Phenology Revisited

It has been a cool spring, but the buds are finally breaking. Now is the time to find that notebook with last years key dates of things happening in the plants growth, also known as phenology.  Some of these events are bud break, bloom, primocane emergence, and harvest.

I posted a longer discussion on phenology last year. Here is a link to that site.


http://teamrubus.blogspot.com/2012/04/crop-phenology-when-things-happen.html

Frost 2012 damage to blackberry crop

I was able to visit blackberry growers earlier this week in Western NC.  The current situation is very complicated. I saw a lot of flowers and buds with blackened centers (Figure 1). The center part of the female part of the flower, (technically the pistal), it is attached to the receptacle. Both of these flower parts form the blackberry fruit that we eat, and....both were damaged.

Temperatures. Temperatures dipped to 25-27 F degrees and stayed there for 4-6 hours depending on location the first night, but temperatures likely varied due to location as was evidenced in variation in the amount of damage we saw. (In 2007, it got to 20 F and was widespread across the entire state, damage was severe and killed the entire fruiting shoot).

Crop stage and location. According to most growers, the crop was about 2 weeks early, so all cultivars were well ahead of their normal schedule and many were flowering.   Natchez was at or near full bloom and Ouachita had some open flowers and many flowers that were at popcorn stage. Navaho was behind with just a few open flowers. However, these stages varied depending on the location of the field, location within the field (higher spots had less damage), and location within the canopy (upper wire had more damage than lower wire). 

Crop damage. Damage ranged from very little to severe depending on the location  and cultivar.  In some cases, just the king flower was dead (Figure 2). In other cases, flowers only in the upper portion of the canopy were damaged. I estimate that in some severe situations, there was 80-90% damage and in others only 30-40% damage. 

As I mentioned above and in earlier posts, the 2007 freeze killed the entire primary shoot and the secondary buds emerged and were able produce a crop. However, this year only flowers were damaged, the primary shoots are still viable and they will likely remain attached to the canes. This will likely inhibit the growth of the secondary buds and the crop that they would produce. 

Figure 1. Blackberry flower after 2012 frost. Photo courtesy of Amy Lynn Albertson.

Figure 2. Navaho fruiting shoot. Area circled shows king fruit dead, but subbordinate flowers are viable. 

What to do this year? There are a couple of options, these are some that come to mind at this time.

• You could just wait and see what happens, some buds lower on the primary shoot may not have sustained damage as is seen in figure 2. They will produce fruit, in general the tips of the shoots have the most fruit, often 3-5, while lower down the shoots, only one fruit per node is produced. 
• Prune off primary shoots. You would have to do this close to the cane, but be careful not to prune or damage the 2nd bud (leave approx 1/4 inch). This MAY allow the secondary buds to develop.
• Prune out the entire canes, removing all the dead flowers and the canes that they are attached to. 
• In all cases, maintain a fungicide program, in the first two scenarios, you will have more dead tissue out there that will be susceptible to disease infection.  

Future? Wind machines or helicopters may help if inversions are present. Helicopters or wind machines are often used in peach orchards and grape vineyards. When inversions are present these machines are able to mix the air,  bringing the warmer air down and mixing it with the cooler air, and keeping the temperatures above lethal stages. 

We are also evaluating a movable trellis. This trellis can shift positions. So when it gets cold, the trellis can be laid down and row covers can be placed over the entire row. Finally, we can hope that we are not 2 weeks early in the upcoming years. The earliness of this years crop really elevated the amount damage we saw.