Varieties Of Berries

Black Raspberries :

Black Raspberries, affectionately called Blackcaps of growers, based in North America. These unique flavored berries are popular in specialty foods, especially jam and ice, and used as a coloring agent as well. The fruits are blue-black, round and small (2.0 g) and exhibits a whitish bloom on the outside of berries. Black raspberries have a distinct and moderately tart flavor, small seeds and, like the red raspberry, a hollow core contains.

Red Raspberries :

Oregon red raspberries are known for their brilliant red color and deep flavor. The Willamette and Meeker varieties are prevalent among the commercial varieties grown in Oregon, where a majority of the crop is processed as individually quick frozen raspberries, frozen raspberry puree, or frozen raspberry juice concentrate. Other processing methods include canning, drying, processed bakery fruit fillings and essence, and aseptic packaging. Raspberries are different from the blackberries and other Dewberry in the same family in the fruit separates from the container producing a hollow core. The fruit is medium to bright red depending on variety, medium size (3.0 g) and moderately tart with small seeds. Red raspberries are well suited for commercial or home freezing, as well as jams and jellies, with a small percentage of the crop that is destined for new markets locally and globally.

The Boysenberry :

Another link in Berry history was the discovery of Boysenberry. In the late 1920s, George Darrow of the USDA began tracking reports on a large, reddish-purple berry that had been cultivated by a man named Rudolf Boysen. He enlisted help of Walter Knott, a Southern California farmer known as something of a berry expert. Knott had not heard about the new berry, but agreed to help Darrow in his search.

The couple quickly learned that Rudolf Boysen had abandoned his growing experiments several years earlier and sold his farm. Undaunted by this news, Darrow and Knott also out to Boysen's old farm, where they found several frail vines surviving in a field choked with weeds. They transplanted the vines to Knott's farm where he nurtured them back to fruit-bearing health. Walter Knott's began selling berries at his farm stand in 1935 and soon noticed that people are held back to buy the large tasty berries. When asked what they were called, Knott said, "Boysenberries." As their popularity grew, Mrs. Knott began making preserves which ultimately made Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California world famous.

The Loganberry :

The origin and history Loganberry in 1880 was the beginning of the use of breeding to obtain better commercial varieties. Judge J.H. Logan was an interested backyard plant breeder who began experimenting with breeding small fruits at his home garden at Logan Heights near Santa Cruz, California. Dissatisfied with the many varieties of blackberries, Judge Logan tried to cross two varieties of blackberries and inadvertently planted beside an old variety of red raspberry, which had been abandoned for many years in the area. The canes of all three fruits and flowers together and Judge Logan collected and planted the seed. The 50 plants grew and produced a plant similar to the BlackBerry parent Aughinbaugh variety but much larger and stronger. This course was Loganberry, a cross between blackberries and raspberries. The remaining 49 plants were Mammoth Blackberry, the longest fruit of any variety ever grown. Since that time, viable crosses were made between varieties of raspberries and blackberries produce offspring as Logan to confirm its parents.

While Logan proved to be productive and well adapted to western climates, taste was not popular with customers and marketing difficulties made it desirable to search further. The legacy of the Logan, is a bramble of raspberry cross, stimulated interest in using it for breeding and thus overshadowed the use of wild varieties of many years. Why Logan was a famous parent in the breeding of many cultivated varieties are now commercially grown in the Northwest. Logan himself is grown mainly for juice, pies and wine.

The Young Berry :

The Young, Berry was another great breeding line used in many of our cultivated varieties. It was developed in Morgan City, Louisiana by BM Young in 1905. The Young Berry is a hybrid between the phenomenal (a black very similar to the Logan) and Mayes Dewberry or subsequent blackberries. It was not introduced until 1926, but it quickly became important to replace Logan largely in California and to some degree in Oregon and Washington.

Thor Less Evergreen Blackberry :

The most productive of all the commercially grown blueberries are Thor Less Evergreen, or Black Diamond. This variety is very popular with growers because it is easily in the growing and higher yields. The Thor Less Evergreen vigorous, disease resistant and productive, giving 6-10 tonnes per hectare. The fruit is black and half inches long, firm and sweet. The seeds are quite large, is one of the least desirable qualities. One problem with Thor Less Evergreens is that the season is very late, making it more difficult to harvest because of weather and labor problems.

Cuttings from Chehalem by Olallie cross has been outstanding in productivity that has great size and high flavor. The most significant of these choices is Marion Blackberry or Mr Berry. The Marion was introduced by Waldo in 1956. Custom western Oregon, the Mario Berry is named after Marion County, where it was tested thoroughly. The fruit is medium to large, round in diameter and somewhat longer than wide. The Mario Berry is a subsequent power generators, which normally produces only a few long canes which grow up to 20 feet. The ramifications are large and numerous, and fruiting lateral, long and strong, with many fruits. The Mario Berry produces up to 5-6 tonnes per hectare. The quality of Mr Berry is high, with better taste than the Boysen or Evergreen. Marionberries are suitable for use in local fresh markets and for commercial or home canning, freezing, pies, ice cream flavoring, jams and jellies.