'Black Diamond' Thornless Trailing Blackberry

Abstract

Additional index words. Rubus, fruit breeding, spineless 'Marion' is currently the most important blackberry (Rubus L. subgenus Rubus) cultivar in the world as it is the predominant cultivar grown for the processed-fruit market (Finn et al., 1997). While 'Marion' produces fruit of outstanding quality for processing, the plants are thorny (botanically termed spiny). When 'Marion' is machine harvested, thorns can end up in the product (Strik and Buller, 2002), which can lead to a poor product, and, more signifi cantly, in an economic sense, lawsuits. As a result, a primary priority for the breeding program has been the development of cultivars that are thornless, machine harvestable, and retain the excellent processing characteristics of 'Marion'. Three thornless blackberry cultivars with these qualities are being released simultaneously: 'Black Diamond', 'Black Pearl' (Finn et al., 2005a), and 'Nightfall' (Finn et al., 2005b). 'Black Diamond' is a thornless trailing blackberry from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) breeding program in Corvallis, Ore., released in cooperation with the Oregon State University Agricultural Experiment Station and the Washington State University Agricultural Research Center (Fig. 1). 'Black Diamond' is high-yield-N-71's parentage is much more straightforward but nonetheless complex as it is a cross between 'Aurora', a trailing cultivar whose ploidy is 8x +2, and 'Comanche' a 4x erect blackberry from the University of Arkansas. 'Black Diamond' is the result of tremendous cooperation amongst breeders who have shared their germplasm.

Weed Management Practices for Organic Production of Trailing Blackberry: I. Plant Growth and Early Fruit Production

“…The number of primocanes in 'Marion' was similar to the number produced previously by young plants grown under conventional conditions (Bell et al, 1995) but was less than the 16 to 20 primocanes produced by mature plants during an ''off-year'' (i.e., all floricanes removed in a given year to increase production the next year) (Cortell and Strik, 1997a). In general, 'Black Diamond' was less vigorous than 'Marion', producing shorter primocanes and less biomass aboveground, agreeing with observations reported by Finn et al (2005). Primocane vigor (number and biomass), however, was increased by weed control in both cultivars, although interestingly the length of individual primocanes was longer in nonweeded than in weed mat plots (Table 2).…”

'Obsidian' Trailing Blackberry

“…], rust [Kuehneola uredinis (Link) Arth.] and an-recently released three blackberry cultivars for the fresh market:'Obsidian' and 'Metolius' (Finn et al, 2005b) as very early ripening blackberries and 'Black Diamond' (Finn et al, 2005a) as a midseason, dual-purpose (fresh and processing market) cultivar.…”

“…These data, collected from 2001 to 2003, were analyzed as a split-plot in time with cultivar as the main plot and year as the subplot. Of the 23 genotypes harvested, only the data from the cultivars 'Marion', 'Silvan', 'Siskiyou', and 'Waldo' and the new releases 'Obsidian', 'Black Diamond' (Finn et al, 2005a), and 'Metolius' (Finn et al, 2005b) were included in the analysis (PROC GLM; SAS Institute, Cary, N.C.). The cultivar × year interaction was signifi cant for yield but not for fruit weight.…”

Flavour profiling of ‘Marion’ and thornless blackberries by instrumental and sensory analysis

“…In addition to the most widely grown 'Marion' and 'Thornless Evergreen' in the Pacific Northwest, 'Chester Thornless' is the predominant semi-erect blackberry grown worldwide. 'Black Diamond', 'Black Pearl', and 'Nightfall' are the recently developed thornless cultivars (Finn et al, 2005a;Finn, Yorgey, Strik, & Martin, 2005b;Finn, Yorgey, Strik, Martin, & Qian, 2005c). Although the aroma compounds of 'Thornless Evergreen' and 'Marion' have been identified, aroma profiles of other thornless blackberry cultivars have never been investigated.…”