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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Kearneysville, West Virginia » Appalachian Fruit Research Laboratory » Innovative Fruit Production, Improvement, and Protection » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #307867
Title: Lateral cane lengths affect yield components in 'Triple Crown' blackberry on rotating cross-arm trellis and cane training system

Author
item Takeda, Fumiomi
item Rose, Ann

Submitted to: International Journal of Fruit Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/20/2015
Publication Date: 10/1/2015
Citation: Takeda, F., Rose, A.K. 2015. Lateral cane lengths affect yield components in 'Triple Crown' blackberry on rotating cross-arm trellis and cane training system. International Journal of Fruit Science. 15:281-289.

Interpretive Summary: In the last four years, over 200 acres of new blackberry plantings have been established in the Midwest using the rotating cross-arm (RCA) trellis and cane training system, which was developed by ARS scientists. Blackberry plants are vigorous and produce a tremendous amount of canes each season. On conventional trellis systems, much of the canes are cut back in winter in order to keep the plant size confined within the trellis. Whereas, with the RCA trellis and cane training system, more than 200 feet of canes can be managed. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of retaining 125 or 200 feet of canes on variables that contribute to the productivity of ‘Triple Crown’ blackberry. Our findings showed that there was a decrease in percent of budbreak, number of fruit clusters per three feet of cane length, and number of fruit per cluster, and no yield increase occurred by leaving 200 feet of canes compared to 125 feet of canes on a plant. This study provided additional information on the relationship of vegetative growth, pruning, and yield in blackberry plant. This is valuable information to users of the RCA trellis system and for properly managing the blackberry plants.

Technical Abstract: Three primocanes of mature ‘Triple Crown’ blackberry plants were trained on the rotating cross-arm trellis (RCA) trellis. By the end of the summer, as many as 30 lateral canes with lengths greater than 3.5 m had developed on three primocanes that had been bent at a 0.50-m height and allowed to extend approximately 1.5 m in a horizontal orientation. In winter, the lateral canes were pruned back to 1.5 m lengths or left un-pruned. Data on cane length, percent budbreak, cluster numbers, fruit per cluster, fruit weight, and yield were collected in 2012 and 2013. Our findings showed that pruning of 3-m-long lateral canes to 1.5 m increased percent budbreak, the number of clusters/m cane length and flower numbers/cluster, but had no effect on fruit size or yield.