Raspberry Cross

[Mortality]

Just wondering if Raspberries can cross naturally with Blackberries.
I bought some Raspberry canes from Poundland a few years ago and from what I can't tell they have been self seeding new plants, but these Raspberry plants seem to be bigger growing (twice as tall but no thorns) and the raspberries just slightly darker.

[Mortality]

[chriscross1966]

Yes they can, I believe Loganberries, tayberries, tummelberries and boysenberries are all the result of raspberry/blackberry hybridisation...

[Digeroo]

But many of them are very thorny.  It is quite a rarity to have a thornless one.

But they also produce runners, and the new plants can to be stronger than the original if they are on good soil.

[chriscross1966]

Too right.... once you have loganberries, the biggest part of looking after them is trying to make sure that pretty soon you don't have only loganberries.... given that raspberries themselves are pretty vigourous (I would be swamped by the four Tulameen summer fruiters at home if I didn't continuously pull out canes in the wrong place) and how vigourous blackberries are then the hybrids are never going to be exactly shy....

[Silverleaf]

Too right.... once you have loganberries, the biggest part of looking after them is trying to make sure that pretty soon you don't have only loganberries.... given that raspberries themselves are pretty vigourous (I would be swamped by the four Tulameen summer fruiters at home if I didn't continuously pull out canes in the wrong place) and how vigourous blackberries are then the hybrids are never going to be exactly shy....

Weird, my loganberry grows like crazy but it doesn't make runners and has behaved itself very well. I tie up the new canes otherwise they sprawl huge distances, but haven't had any other problems.

[chriscross1966]

Weird, my loganberry grows like crazy but it doesn't make runners and has behaved itself very well. I tie up the new canes otherwise they sprawl huge distances, but haven't had any other problems.

Actually I guess this is my experience.... raspberries send up runners, loganberries do more sprawling, but they will self-layer pretty easily....

[Digeroo]

I meant that the raspberries have runners and they can appear to be stronger than the original plant.  The loganberries produce new plants from the tips like blackberries, though unlike blackberries they do not produce what I call divers which suddenly go towards the ground and root.