Blackberry Osage

Blackberries are becoming more and more popular in garden plots. It is no secret that the berries of this plant are beneficial, and new varieties are easier to care for and harvest from them. Scientists are developing thornless varieties that have a sweet taste and a strong immune defense against disease. New varieties of this fruit and berry shrub appear annually. The Osage blackberry variety is a novelty with sweet fruits and thornless stems - an excellent example of successful breeding development.

A brief excursion into history

Breeders from the University of Arkansas began to breed the Osage blackberries in 2000 in the United States of America. The task of breeding is to improve the taste and aroma properties of blackberries. The result is a new blackberry look. Scientists cross-pollinated seedlings "A-2108" and "A-1719T". In 2012, a patent was obtained for this hybrid variety.

Blackberry Osage: variety description and characteristics

Blackberry Osage: video

• Shrub of medium stature, grows vertically, medium spreading.
• Shoots grow in length up to one hundred and seventy cm, without thorns, tall.
• The leaves are dark green in color, their tips are sharp, there are denticles.
• The flowers are medium-sized, pink-red in color with a purple tint.
• Fruits are black, round, small.
• There are many brushes, growing vertically.

Characteristics

The Osage blackberry ripens early. The yield indicator is at an average level. Good immune defense against disease. The fruits are sweet in taste, weighing up to five grams. The inner content is plump, juicy, has light fruity notes and pleasant aromatic properties, also fruity. Berries have good transportability.

Resistant to dry and frosty periods.

The variety is distinguished by good tolerance to dry periods, the fruits do not bake under the scorching sunlight. Resistance to frost is at a low level, the death of a shrub can occur under temperature conditions less than minus thirteen degrees. For wintering, the shoots bend to the soil and take cover.

Yield indicator, fruiting period.

The average yield indicator is about five kg per shrub per period. The variety begins to bear fruit on the 15th of June, fruiting lasts forty days, as indicated in the description. The fruits do not fall from the bush after they have ripened, they remain on it for a long time.

Blackberry Osage: Landing

Blackberry Osage: photos

The blackberry bush is not so picky about care, even novice gardeners can grow it. Proper planting of blackberries is required before being content with a decent harvest.

To this end, it is necessary to select a suitable site, purchase high-quality planting material and prepare the soil for planting.

Optimal time.

The variety is planted in the spring season after the snow melts. The soil should warm up well, temperature conditions should be positive and stable, there should be no cold snaps at night.

How to choose a site for planting.

Osage blackberries feel comfortable on loamy soils with a neutral reaction, they will not grow on acidic soils. The site should be well lit and warmed up by the sun's rays, but at the same time protected from cold winds.

Groundwater should be located one meter lower from the surface soil layer. The soil is freed from weeds and their roots, it is thoroughly dug up, if necessary, additional fertilizing is applied and the level of soil acidity is corrected.

How to select and prepare seedlings.

To grow a healthy blackberry that pleases with generous yields, you need to carefully select the planting material.

High-quality seedlings should be one year old, they should have two powerful shoots, reaching two cm in diameter, the roots should also be well developed, and a bud should be present on them.

It is recommended to purchase material for planting in specialized nurseries. The seedlings should be intact, have smooth skin and a flexible stem.

How to plant.

Before planting begins, a soil mixture is harvested to fill the planting holes. For this purpose, the soil is mixed with humus, and potassium and phosphorus are also added. Clay soil is diluted with peat and sand.

Algorithm.

• Root inspection, removal of damaged areas, pruning of very elongated roots. When the root system dries up, it is soaked in a solution of the preparation for root formation.
• A hole is dug into the depth of 1.5-2 bayonets of a shovel.
• 2 handfuls of soil mixture are poured into each hole, watering is carried out, wait for the liquid to be absorbed.
• Two seedlings are placed straight, the roots are straightened.
• Further, the planting material is covered with soil, the soil is compacted.
• The root collar is buried three to five cm.
• A groove is being built, filled with water (ten liters per bush).
• Mulching is carried out with straw, peat, sawdust.
• Saplings are cut, leaving twenty cm from the length.

Blackberry Osage Care

Blackberry Osage: photos

The cultivar requires support during cultivation. This is getting rid of a lot of difficulties: there will be no sagging and breakage of the stems, it will be much easier to process and collect fruits.

The best way is to use a trellis. For this purpose, pillars or pipes are dug in, two to two and a half meters long, at an interval of ten to twelve meters from each other. Twine or wire is attached to the props, the stems are tied. The shrubs of the first year do not need to be tied, they are simply directed to the twine or wire.

The circumcision procedure is mandatory. Young bushes are cut off when the middle shoots grow up to one meter, their apical parts are shortened by ten to fifteen cm. The lateral branches are trimmed when they reach half a meter in length. In the spring season, frozen shoots are removed, only live buds need to be left.

In the autumn season, they are pruned carefully. All dry and broken lashes are removed. Extra branches that do not give fruit are cut off at the root, no hemp is left. Young, thin and weak sprouts are cut off.

After pruning, there should be seven to nine young, powerful shoots on the bush.

Watering after planting is carried out systematically until the seedling adapts. Further, the soil is kept moist from the moment when the bush began to bear fruit and before you are going to remove the fruits, the frequency of watering is once every seven days. Loosening of the soil, cleaning of weeds is also carried out. To facilitate care and avoid drying out of the root system, the trunk circle is mulched.

In the spring season, nitrogen-containing fertilizers are applied, in the autumn season - potassium-phosphorus fertilizers.

Osage Blackberry: Harvesting and Storage

Fruit ripening begins in the last days of June. It is necessary to collect ripe fruits, because ripening does not occur after harvesting. The berries of a dark purple color are removed, carefully, without pressing hard. The collected fruits are quickly sent to the cool or removed to a place where the direct rays of the sun do not fall. Before storage, the berries are re-sorted, all damaged ones are picked.Washing the entire crop is not carried out - the fruits are washed before being used for food.

The shelf life of fresh fruits in a cool state is up to twenty days. To freeze, the fruits are freed from the fruit legs, soaked for ten to fifteen minutes in cold water, washed under running water, laid out in 1 layer on a napkin and dried to the fullest. Freezing is done quickly. For this purpose, the fruits are laid out in the freezer in 1 layer. After freezing, they are transferred to a storage container and placed back in the freezer.

One container should freeze as many blackberries as you want to use at a time. The berries are not frozen the second time.

Frozen berries are stored for thirty six months. Fresh fruits are frozen, as well as those that are ground with sugar. To grind, take fruits and sugar in a 1: 1 ratio. They grind well, you need to leave them before the crystals dissolve and put them in the freezer. The shelf life is up to eighteen months.

How to prepare a shrub for wintering

Blackberry Osage: photos

• Immediately after picking the berries, the shoots are removed from the trellis and gradually bend down to the ground.
• In order for the plant to overwinter comfortably, the following manipulations are carried out.
• The bushes are pruned, leaving only powerful, healthy shoots. They cut off ¼ of the length.
• All branches, leaves, fruits and old mulch are collected from the soil. All this is burned outside the garden area.
• The soil is dug up, top dressing is applied, watering is carried out, the soil is mulched.
• A round material is placed under the base of the shoots to avoid breakage, then the branches are bent to the ground and covered with insulation.

Blackberry Osage: reproduction

Breeding methods of the variety: dividing the bush; with the help of root suckers; cuttings (green cuttings are taken).

The first method is used when replanting a shrub. To this end, a bush is carefully dug out, powerful young sprouts with a well-developed root system are separated and transplanted. All old twigs are cut from the parent shrub, you need to leave only a few strong young shoots from all sides.

Second method. Fruit mother bushes are selected, root processes are separated together with roots and transplanted. The procedure is performed in the last spring days. The seedlings should become powerful, thickened, they should grow up to fifteen to twenty cm in length, and in thickness - up to five mm.

Cuttings. More effort is expended, but efficiency is good, especially for varietal retention.

• Strong young shoots are selected and the apical parts are cut off, you need to leave two or three buds on them.
• Cut cuttings are divided into parts, each should have one bud and leaf.
• The lower part is immersed in the drug solution in order to stimulate growth.
• A soil mixture is prepared, for this purpose sand and peat are mixed in equal proportions.
• Paper cups are filled with substrate.
• A stalk is placed in a glass.
• Seedlings are grown in greenhouse conditions, with a temperature regime of plus twenty-two degrees, soil moisture within ninety percent, air - one hundred percent.
• After thirty to forty days, the seedlings are transferred to a permanent site.

Diseases and harmful insects

The Osage blackberry is a novelty; in rare cases, it can be affected by diseases and harmful insects. To avoid difficulties, place the brambles away from the raspberries, because they have identical harmful insects and diseases, and preventive measures are required. It is necessary to remove weeds in a timely manner, loosen the soil, avoid stagnant water in the roots, spray the shrubs. Below are the most popular diseases and pests, as well as information on how to get rid of them.

Fungal infections.

Purple spot. The whole bush is affected, it becomes covered with specks of dark color, then they grow together and dry out the shoots, there can be no question of any harvest in this case.

Anthracnose. Appears due to high moisture content. The leaves and twigs get sick, first there are specks of purple color, then the formation of gray sores with a purple border.

Septoria. First, spots appear with specks of brown color, then the bush covers with mucus.

Powdery mildew. The leaves are covered with a bloom of white color, which resembles flour.

Gray rot. Young leaves are covered with a fluffy bloom of gray color, then damaging buds, flowers and fruits.

When fungal infections are detected, treat the bush with fungicidal preparations. For preventive purposes, plants are sprayed with these agents: the first spraying is after the bush has awakened, the second is before the flowering period, the third is after flowering. When blackberries bear fruit, it is advisable to use biological agents or folk infusions, decoctions.

You cannot spray the bushes when they are blooming.

The most effective folk way to fight fungus is ash. Five hundred grams of ash is sifted, filled with water and boiled. The infusion cools down, filtered, water is added up to ten liters of infusion, the shrub is processed, first from above, and then on all sides. The plant is sprayed once every ten days.

Diseases caused by viruses.

Curliness. It is a great danger. Fruiting shoots are affected. They shorten, the leaves become dark and fall off. When a disease is detected, the bush is destroyed.

Mosaic. The virus carries aphids, specks of different colors appear on the leaves, resembling a mosaic.

The mesh is yellow. On the leaf veins, areas of yellow and green color appear, spreading along the leaf in the form of a fan.

For preventive purposes, the bushes are treated with insecticidal agents or Karbofos. If a blackberry disease is detected, the Osage is immediately removed to avoid contamination of the entire area. The bush is burnt outside the garden area.

The Osage blackberry is often attacked by aphids or ticks. Preventive treatment with insecticidal agents is carried out against aphids, and against ticks - with acaricidal agents. If you notice the appearance of pests, then parts of the plant are removed with them and burned.

Against aphids, the plant is sprayed with a soda solution. Recipe: two tablespoons of baking soda are diluted with boiling water (glass) and cooled. Twenty to thirty grams of liquid soap is added. This solution is diluted in 1 liter of cold water.

Processing of Osage blackberries is carried out after the winter season and when aphid attacks are detected.

The Osage blackberry variety is a promising young variety with berries with excellent sweet taste. The variety is undemanding to care, even beginner gardeners can easily grow it on their territory. Care should be taken to ensure that the Osage blackberry will delight you with an excellent, generous harvest.

Blackberry Osage: reviews of gardeners

Blackberry Osage: video

“The Osage blackberry variety was developed by Arkansas breeders to enhance its flavor profile. The Osage blackberry ripens a little earlier than Ouachita and after Natchez. The fruit is medium in size, smaller than the Natchez, but almost the same as the Ouachita. Osage has excellent post-harvest properties. It is possible that it will be an addition to the "Ouachita" in terms of early-middle and medium-term fruit harvest. Shoots are thornless, vertical. The fruit weighs six to seven grams on average. The dry matter (sugar content) is eleven percent, which is reminiscent of the Ouachita variety. The Osage blackberry variety has shown a good shelf life comparable to Ouachita, Natchez and Prime Ark-45. "

““ The fruit is sweet, almost without acidity, I liked it.Compared to the Lough Tay variety, young Osage blackberry bushes lagged slightly behind the adult Lough Tay bushes in terms of ripeness, the size of the fruits and the yield indicator promise to be identical. "