Blackberry Productivity; Doyle vs. TC

13 years ago

Having finally figured out how to post in-line photos (with a lot of help from my son and wife), here are some photos of Triple Crown and Doyle blackberry trellises. Each of these trellises spans 16 feet, and they are in identical full sun and soil that has been improved for many years with stable manure. The trellises are now close to 15 years old, and it is about time to replace the end posts and dig and reset all the plants. Big project. I keep putting it off, but the blackberries keep producing every year anyway.

Since these photos were taken on July 2, the berries have all filled out and begun to ripen. We are picking every day. Nice rains in the past week or so in Northern Virginia.

I don't really intend these photos to be a conclusive study, but it is pretty clear when standing next to them that Doyle produces more than three times the number of berries as Triple Crown. Doyle also ripens slightly later, but continues production for at least 10 days when TC is finished. Size and quality are comparable, though Doyle berries may be slightly smaller and ever so slightly less sweet.

1. First an overall shot of a TC trellis:

{{gwi:118522}}

2. Another Triple Crown shot of the same trellis:

{{gwi:118523}}

3. Now a Doyle trellis:

{{gwi:118524}}

4. A close up of part of the Doyle trellis. Note the number and size of berry panicles compared with TC. Of course, both sides of the trellises have equal numbers of berries:

{{gwi:118525}}

5. A final overall shot of Doyle. Berries top to bottom. This trellis originally had only two plants.

{{gwi:118526}}

I don't want to be critical of TC, which is many times more productive than any of the older thorny varieties I used to grow. TC is a wonderful berry, and we are keeping them. Doyle plants may be harder to find and more expensive, but if you want really high production for winemaking or just juice, I am pretty sure they are capable of outproducing any other blackberry variety available, planted in similar soil and sun conditions. And, of course, trellised trailing blackberries will always outproduce stand-alone or erect varieties because they cover a larger vertical area.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (15)

tyler_j
13 years ago
Great pics Don! I received my Doyle this year so its only about 16" tall at the moment. Looking forward to it producing like yours though!

I also have TC, Navajo and Chester in their 2nd year with some berries just ripening now. Judging only from their first year fruiting my chester has more berries and then my TC. The clusters seem larger and more evenly ripening. Then again that might change once the plants get more established. My Navajo grew a very thick cane straight up which I clipped at about 5'. It now has 9 or 10 laterals about 16" long and growing. I looks like a xmas tree lol. It looks like it will be productive for me.
0
franktank232
13 years ago
Doyle really looks to produce. We've been eating TC for a few days now, just a few of the first ones to ripen... My problem is hardiness ...all the tops die back, so the only way to trellis here is to lay them down during winter. Whats weird is i have some ripening, while i have some still flowering...
0
Related Discussions
Thornless blackberries
Q
Comments (24)
Fruitgirl is right of course. The PNW has berry varieties that creep rather than stand. Triple Crown, Doyle, Chester, Black Satin etc. will stand up for a while before they really need support. But I think it is good to remember that semi-erect does not mean they can be grown properly without support. They will curve over, flop over, or fall over, and it's not the best way to grow these varieties. They also get better light and air movement when they are on a trellis, and are a lot easier to pick. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
...See More
And now BLACKBERRIES!
Q
Comments (5)
Yes, don't bother with the UMD recommendations. I sometimes look at neighboring states (PA/VA/WV/NC/etc) for recs. Triple Crown is considered the best all-around blackberry. Navaho seems to be #2 but I have never grown it. My impression is it is as tasty as TC but has the thorn disadvantage. The rest of the eastern berries are not in the same league for flavor. The best tasting blackberries are the western trailing types, but they are often not hardy and are more difficult to grow since the canes want to grow along the ground and you need to lift and tie them up. I wouldn't recommend Marion, I grew it for five years and it would die back unless covered for the winter. You can cover it every winter if you want; I have too many growing projects to be covering anything. Marion is the best-tasting blackberry I ever found, and if you look up taste tests you will find the same results there. My recommendation for a western type is Kotata, it has proved to be very hardy for me and is very tasty. It has a small % of raspberry in its heritage and that shows up in the flavor. So, if you want a 100% standard kind you may want a different one. I am growing several others, including Obsidian, but I don't have good hardiness data yet. Many of them have proved to be not hardy (Cascade, Logan, Black Pearl, etc) so its a bit of a crap shoot. Scott
...See More
Doyle's blackberrys
Q
Comments (2)
We had 20 planted and as long as you live in a place where it cools down at night or if not they're planted in an area with afternoon shade, they'll do great. We live down near Montgomery AL and they started to ripen in late June when it's 90+ during the day and a humid 70+ degrees at night. We would get a couple of pickings and then they would burn up in the heat. However, as Olga mentioned, they are slow to start, but once they do, they are quite hardy growers.
...See More
Doyles Thornless Blackberry
Q
Comments (6)
We have a blackberry U-Pick near Montgomery AL and bought 20 Doyle Thornless blackberry plants 3 years ago to see if the advertisements were true about getting 10-20 gallons of berries per plant. The big reason we bought them was because they ripened much later than our other varieties (Arapaho, Navaho, Apache, Ouachita, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Roseborough and Boysen). This they did do. On average they start to ripen around the 20th of June whereas our others start ripening from the middle to the end of May, with the Navaho being the latest around June 6th or so. As far as production goes, this is by far the best year we've had, but no where near the advertised volume. Right now we've pick off those 20 plants a total of 50 pints (i.e., a litlle over 6 gallons) and they're about halfway through their ripening cycle. However, we believe the reason for this "bumper crop" is because our temps in July so far have been in the high 80's which is unseasonably cool for us. However, the mid 90's are coming back this week, which is normal for this time of year, and we expect only one more picking before they stop ripening all together because of the heat. Bottom line, if your average temperatures are like ours in July and August (e.g., low to mid 90's with high humidity), I would not recommend spending the money buying the Doyles. By the way, our chill hours, for what it's worth, range around 800-850. If you want more information about developing your U-Pick and about the blackberry experiences we've encoutered developing ours, send me an email directly and I'll tell you all I know. Hope this helps, Ken Barber Barber Berry Farm Millbrook AL
...See More
tcstoehr
13 years ago
Digging them up... yech... no fun. I hadn't even thought about that but I guess eventually their roots get congested and played out. I can only imagine how many "volunteers" will pop from the root fragments left behind.

Don, my TC trellis looks just like yours. Not too surprising since I built it according to your specs. In the picture below there are 4 TC's on a 24-foot trellis.
How many Doyles would you put on a 24-foot, 8' high trellis such as this.
0
Scott F Smith
13 years ago
Don, I found the Doyle productivity data I could not find earlier. See in link below. It is for Williamette, Oregon so it may be that Doyle needs heat to produce well. There is also data from a Penn State study of blackberry growing in tunnels where TC and Doyle were about equal.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: blackberry varieties; see note on table 4.
0
olpea
13 years ago
Don,

Glad you figured out how to post pics. We are picking TC now. I find it sweeter than any of the erect AR releases, including Navaho. I had hoped Navaho would be sweeter, but not so.

TC may not be as productive as Doyle, but I plan to add another row of it.
0
larry_gene
13 years ago
When comparing the productivity of the two varieties, more information would be needed than just the length of the trellises. It is obvious in Don's setup that there are many more Doyle berries than TCs. I would be interested to know how many florocanes of each type there are, or even how many feet of laterals for each variety. Perhaps they were pruned and trained to have roughly equal amounts. TC is known for having fewer berries per cluster.

The data that Scott posts is from the North Willamette Research and Extension Center near Charbonneau. Willamette is a small town some distance away and across the Willamette River. Not that any of you were going to get lost driving there!

The Research Center has many varieties in the test fields, many of them take on a "wall of black" appearance due to the fruit density. The quest is to get more fruit and less foliage for ease of mechanical harvest.
0
fruitgirl
13 years ago
Larry, isn't the North Willamette station gorgeous??? I love the view of Mount Hood from there.

And I'm not at all surprised that Doyle didn't look so hot in a (very, very) different climate. As I said in another post, a cultivar's phenotype (including yield!) is equally affected by the environment as it is the genotype. So what's great for Don may only be so-so for somebody else. That's why it's (IMO) so important to keep the ag schools and extension service in each state alive and kicking. (sorry, slight soapbox moment there)
0
mrtexas
13 years ago
Don't expect to get any Doyle berries in zone 9. They lied that they would produce, yet not one berry. What a waster of money for SE Texas!
0
larry_gene
13 years ago
Yes, fruitgirl, the Experimental Station (as we used to call it) is on very pleasant, flat farmland. Still the countryside, newer housing developments yet at a distance. Substitute a stack of berry crates for the soapbox. We lost the extension service in Multnomah County several years ago. The North Willamette station was asking for donations from Open House attendees this year.

The triple crowns there in 2009 looked woeful next to the "wall of black" varieties. The test fields are usually just drip irrigated if at all and the TC variety prefers lots of water if you want lush growth and plump berries.
0
andrewjohnson
13 years ago
Don,
your willingness to share your knowledge and experience has been an inspiration to me, and I relied on your advice when selecting berry varieties. I have doyle, TC, Prim Jim, Caroline and Anne berries on a 100 foot trellis.

They will require different methods of trellising and I am working on that as they grow. I have posts in the ground every 20 feet and am starting to run wire.

My question if you have time is that my TC canes are about 7 feet high now, much taller than I expected. Do I manage them at their max height or trim to suit my trellis height?

And at what levels do you suggest wire be run, as I recall at one point you said 18 inches, 36 inches, and 4-5 feet.
0
andrewjohnson
13 years ago
Don,
your willingness to share your knowledge and experience has been an inspiration to me, and I relied on your advice when selecting berry varieties. I have doyle, TC, Prim Jim, Caroline and Anne berries on a 100 foot trellis.

They will require different methods of trellising and I am working on that as they grow. I have posts in the ground every 20 feet and am starting to run wire.

My question if you have time is that my TC canes are about 7 feet high now, much taller than I expected. Do I manage them at their max height or trim to suit my trellis height?

And at what levels do you suggest wire be run, as I recall at one point you said 18 inches, 36 inches, and 4-5 feet.
0
olpea
13 years ago
Andrew,

I prune my TC to fit the trellis, but you can prune it to any height. I would suggest you prune your TC for comfortable picking. When TC fruits, it sends up some small fruiting shoots that end up about a foot higher than the cane. So if you are pruning your TC to seven feet, figure that the highest fruit will be about eight feet.

There's also nothing magic about how many wires and their spacing. I've noticed professional recommendations, as well as folks who post on fruit forums all seem to run them a little different. Your proposal to run them every 18" will work fine.
0
larry_gene
13 years ago
TCs are unmanageable at their max height if you have fairly upright canes. TC laterals tend to branch out at an upright angle. If you prune the main cane to the same height as the trellis top, some laterals may still overshoot this, and as olpea said, some fruiting spurs will go up another foot.

The upward-angle laterals will arch down eventually.

I would say to prune the main cane to keep 3 or so forming laterals. I prune mine at about 6 feet and deal with the slightly higher arching laterals. If your canes want to branch lower, that is good for you.
0
dethride
13 years ago
Pictures from jellyman! I should be inspired to learn posting pics myself.

Soon.

Maybe.

How do you keep them so disease free? I have terrible disease pressure (rusty looking leaves, deformed leaves and shoots) from wild BB's and have killed many a patch around my plots. I sprayed Kocide 2000 this spring to no avail.

Herbert
Mineral Bluff, GA
0
iceman909
12 years ago
Jellyman, could you repost those photos.
0

Blackberry Productivity; Doyle vs. TC

Comments (15)

tyler_j

franktank232

Related Discussions

tcstoehr

Scott F Smith

olpea

larry_gene

fruitgirl

mrtexas

larry_gene

andrewjohnson

andrewjohnson

olpea

larry_gene

dethride

iceman909

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US