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eskota

raspberry hybridizing question

eskota
16 years ago

I live at the very southern edge of the raspberry growing regions. In the course of looking for varieties that might do well here in East Texas (Extension agent says just 'Dormanred') I came across a North Carolina program aiming to come up with more southern-adapted raspberries. They're doing 'Dormanred' and 'Mandarin' (one of their 1950's introductions that never caught on) crosses.

I wrote to their experiment station asking how they treat the seeds for germination, and got no reply. So I thought that I'd ask here. Has anyone done rubus crosses? From what I've read, raspberry seeds in nature can stay in the soil upwards of 20 years without germinating, and forest fires somehow break the dormancy.

The seeds are probably too small for scarification, and I guess that you'd have to have a pretty exact recipe to do acid treatments.

Any advice or comments would be appreciated.

Comments (9)

  • FrozeBudd_z3/4
    16 years ago

    I've just started hybridizing raspberries and last year had set out about a hundred seedlings. They are very easy to start from seed! I had simply sown them about 1/4 inch deep and placed the container within the cold room (40F) for about four months and then out into the warmth and had a high rate of germination. Plants develop very quickly and you'll likely aready get fruit in the second year. I intend to do furher crosses this summer.

    Terry

  • eskota
    Original Author
    16 years ago

    Thanks, Terry.

    The information I found was from a Canadian forestry department, and was specifically about native red raspberries. What varieties produced the seeds you germinated with cold stratification?

    Do you know other raspberry hybridizers? I read about one guy in Colorado working with blackcaps, and there are three ag experiment stations in the US and one in England that introduced most of of the varieties now in the trade.

  • farmfreedom
    16 years ago

    You can cross : rasberries, blackberries , mulberries ,dewberries , wineberries ,blackcaps, thimbleberries, boysenberies , and tayberries (loganberries). good luck

  • venom_within
    16 years ago

    Just thought I'd add this:

    My grandmother purchased some seedling of very large dewberries from a seed catalog years ago and they did exceptionally well here just north of Houston. Had no problems whatsoever, and if I recall correctly, they were a northern variety. Not sure if this has relevancy to raspberries or not though.

  • membertom
    16 years ago

    I've also germinated quite a few raspberry seeds and remember them being fairly easy to germinate. I never had to use acid treatment or scarification, just a period of damp-cold in the fridge. I was working with black raspberry, wild red raspberries (from New York state, and upper Pennsylvania),red and yellow domesticated types, and wineberries (Rubus phoenicolasius). All of these kinds, and their hybrids, germinated with only a cold-damp period.

    Tom in Maryland

  • FrozeBudd_z3/4
    16 years ago

    Eskota, I had crossed the 'Wyoming Black' raspberry with a very good thornless red raspberry, and succeeded in obtaining a few plants in which have retained much of the flavor of WB and yet are also thornless, just what I wanted!

    I've also crossed both 'Autumn Bliss' and 'Kiwi Gold' with that thornless raspberry. This year will add 'Polana' to my breeding work.

    Terry

  • boizeau
    16 years ago

    i had a cousin up in High Prarie Alberta a number of years ago who was trying to grow wheat, but he finally moved back to Viceroy Sask, to take care of the folks farm. Am also into rubus and have some Rubus Hawaiiensis seeds going as well as a few superior selections of Salmon Berry, 'the native of the NW coastal forests all the way to Juneau Alaska. I am interested in hybrids of the Tayberry. The Chromosome # of raspberry is diploid but many other rubus are hexaploids, so a simple cross it is not. Also Salmon berry x Raspberry can be done, but the hybrids are mostly sterile or set few drupes on their berries.

  • boizeau
    15 years ago

    I have a lot of Korean Wineberry Seedlings. It seems to be a better than average wild species of rubus and the fruit is very attractive rich ruby red. The fruit is a bit sticky though. I had hoped to cross it to Domestic Raspberry by interplanting but so far, I cannot tell if any of the seedlings are truly hybrid.
    Have a lot of extra seedlings to share. It roots and spreads by tip layering like a black raspberry.

  • lievendavid_skynet_be
    13 years ago

    The ideal method would be to pass the berries thru some intestinal duct: your own, your chicken's, whatever :-)
    Anyway, I've had quite nice results sowing ripe fruits directly in potting soil. Patience & luck will do the rest of the job.

    Here is a link that might be useful: some of my berries