Recommended Blackberry Cultivars for Missouri

Blackberries are getting easier and easier to grow in your own backyard. No more thorns, no bloodshed and maybe even a little less sweat! With the latest cultivar releases from the University of Arkansas, blackberries can be enjoyed from mid-summer to frost. Arapaho, Navaho, Apache and Quachita are thornless cultivars that can be grown without a trellis. These cultivars produce fruit during late June and July on the two-year-old lateral canes called floricanes. PrimeJan and PrimeJim are thorny cultivars that have the potential to produce fruit from mid-July through frost. Fruit of these cultivars is produced on one-year-old canes called primocanes. Like all fruit, there is no one perfect cultivar. Each blackberry cultivar has its attributes and shortcomings. For example, the thornless cultivars make harvest painless. However, you can only enjoy harvesting fruit from most of these cultivars for 4 to 5 weeks during mid-summer and winter pruning can be a bit timeconsuming. While Navaho berries have an excellent flavor, berry size is small. Alternatively, Apache has very large berry size, but the fruit could be sweeter. The chart below lists some of the characteristics of the cultivars for comparison.

The primocane-fruiting cultivars make it possible to harvest fruit over a long period of time, but beware of the thorns. Fruit of PrimeJan ranges from 3 to 15 grams with 9.6 percent sugar content. PrimeJim berries range from 2 to 10 grams with only 8 percent sugar. Another important limitation of these primocane-fruiting cultivars is that temperatures above 85 degrees reduce fruit set. However, pruning is easily accomplished by mowing all canes to the ground before new growth in the spring.

There has been considerable interest in other cultivars such as Chester, Hull, and Triple Crown. These cultivars have semi-erect canes that require a trellis to support the canes. They also tend to be more susceptible to winter injury than the cultivars developed in Arkansas. Additionally, Triple Crown berries can sunburn. Thus, these cultivars are not recommended for planting across the state.

Harvest Berry Cultivar	Date*	Size (g)	Flavor	Sugar content (%)	Yield
Arapho	0	5.0-5.5	good	9.6	moderate
Navaho	+13	5.0	excellent	11.4	mod. high
Apache	+18	9.0-10.0	very good	10.7	high
Quachita	+7	6.0-6.5	very good	10.0-11.0	very high
* Average number of days after Arapaho is harvested.

Michelle Warmund
Ag Ext-Plant Sciences
573-882-9632