boysenberry?

[habitat_gardener]

I've been growing a brambleberry for 3-4 years that was labeled as a boysenberry at a plant exchange, and I'm wondering if it's really a boysenberry. I pull out lots of little plants that have sprouted and give them away at plant sales and garden shares all spring.

It has a horizontal trailing habit, with thin, flexible stems. The fruit is roundish rather than long and oval like blackberries. It's palatable when it's still reddish and fairly firm, with large drupelets. THe earliest berries have very few drupelets. I start eating it when it's firm, to avoid the spotted-wing drosophila maggots that had infested my raspberries and blackberries (which I pulled out a couple years ago), but so far, I haven't found any maggots, even in the softer, riper fruit. And in fact that's the main reason it still has a place in my garden: a berry with no maggots.

Does this sound like any particular variety, or is it within the range of variation for boysenberries in general?

[Tormato]

Originally Posted by habitat_gardener

I've been growing a brambleberry for 3-4 years that was labeled as a boysenberry at a plant exchange, and I'm wondering if it's really a boysenberry. I pull out lots of little plants that have sprouted and give them away at plant sales and garden shares all spring.

It has a horizontal trailing habit, with thin, flexible stems. The fruit is roundish rather than long and oval like blackberries. It's palatable when it's still reddish and fairly firm, with large drupelets. THe earliest berries have very few drupelets. I start eating it when it's firm, to avoid the spotted-wing drosophila maggots that had infested my raspberries and blackberries (which I pulled out a couple years ago), but so far, I haven't found any maggots, even in the softer, riper fruit. And in fact that's the main reason it still has a place in my garden: a berry with no maggots.

Does this sound like any particular variety, or is it within the range of variation for boysenberries in general?

If the taste (in the fully ripe stage) is much more intense than blackberries, then it may be some type of boysenberry or boysenberry cross. Boysenberries generally have a much larger (longer) fruit than what you are describing.

Dewberry also has a horizontal trailing habit.

Gary

P.S.
Like tomatoes, I don't find boysenberries palatable in the red stage.

[Durgan]

http://www.boysenberry.co.nz/index.p...he-boysenberry History of the Boysenberry. I have seen these berries in NZ and they are huge.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/n...tinuing-losses Boysenberry growers call it quits after continuing losses

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?SNGHX Images.