Prime-Ark Freedom in North Florida

5 month view growing Primocane Blackberries in Zone 8B. Here are links to the 5-month update • Prime-Ark Freedom upda... and the 1-year update • Prime-Ark Freedom Blac... .

[@Grandpaige]

Hello from Florida Panhandle. I also grow Primeark Freedom and love them. I have 6 and also 6 Navajo which is a Floracane. All bought at Dothan nursery. This year I’ve been negligent in my care of my plants and yet I picked 10 gallons. Keep on growing!

[@eardw2251]

It’s been so dry and hot here for the last month I’m surprised mine are doing as well as they are.

[@mar1video]

Great video ! Thanks for sharing your experience !

[@eardw2251]

Thank you and your quite welcome.

[@earlharris571]

We just planted 100 Prime Freedom and another 100 Apache that we purchased from Isons Nursery in Georgia. We are located in North Florida just south of Quitman, Georgia.

[@eardw2251]

You are gonna have a huge harvest next year if they are anything like mine; I would expect 1200#’s from the Prime ark alone if we have a good year. You can’t be more than 30 miles away from me and mine are just past peak blossom for the floricane crop. I took some damage from Hurricane Idalia (vines on the east side of the wire broken off at the top, vines on the west side laid on the ground) that might impact yield, but not enough for me to care. I would love to see your plantings!

[@davidwelty9763]

I just planted these on my place on Ocala. This video was very helpful. Thank you.

[@eardw2251]

Thanks! Just out of curiosity, did you plant TC plugs or something else?

[@QtmMtrlzr]

Great video! I really enjoy your style of presentation, you earned a new subscriber. I'm planning my trellis setup here in Tucson AZ for a handful of blackberries, raspberries, grapes and muscadines.

[@eardw2251]

Good luck to you! I’d always heard that blackberries and raspberries should be planted far apart. I don’t recall why but thought I’d let you know.. In some ways our gardening limitations are based on the same criteria - hot and long summers with short warm winters. We just get more water in a given month than you do in a year! That gives us a lot more viruses to contend with and I’d guess the advice was based on that.

[@QtmMtrlzr]

@@eardw2251 Thanks for that, and yes we have quite a bit in common with our climates except the rainfall. My situation would be irrigated and virtually no fungal issues. I have been reading that black raspberries can vector viruses to red raspberries if they are planted nearby. I am only experimenting with a few red raspberries to see if they can produce in our climate here. Cheers!

[@shanegray1846]

Nice Berries! Your setup for prime-ark looks perfect . we put in 20 ft of prim-ark freedom 2 years ago.(we love them!)they are strong producers. the berrys are huge! the canes are way easier to manage than our raspberries. and way less pruning than our hardy kiwi. they are vigorous grower but your first year growth looks more like our 2nd year growth! we planted ours in an excavated trench filled with straight compost and lined with bamboo guard (they are aggressive spreaders) for growers with tight space we highly recommend 18 inch bamboo guard, the first thing the plant did was send runners smack into the guard these plants are no joke you will be taken aback buy their vigor. we used 7 foot cast iron fence stakes and 2 inch wire fencing to clip the canes too . this system works well for us. our irrigating drip tape is run along the ground, but i like your method too. if we new about this variety of black berrys sooner we might not have planted as many variety's of raspberries. there are a lot of companies selling inferior variety's of plants, it can save a ton of hassle and frustration to research your plant selections carefully and not settle for what is "in stock" because the are huge differences between some varieties. Fruit plants take money and also a lot more time than annuals , for example hardy kiwi do not really come into full fruit production for at least 5-7 years.... if you decide you need to rip it out after 5 years .....ouch ! that's a soul crusher. (yes you could graft onto the roots but I am keeping it simple) plant resellers just want to sell more plants, i.e. clones...and they may not have access to the best variety's. the best info on this seems to be coming from the university's and extensions fyi. we are in Massachusetts and last year we got the exact same sun damage you got on your plants, it did not really seem to affect them. one more thing to note these plant are nearly evergreen, they stay green below freezing! they made it more than halfway through a new England winter staying green, before they finally succumbed. this is an amazing bramble.

[@eardw2251]

Thanks for the detailed comment Shane, that was awesome, and I would never have guessed they would grow so far north. Mine came through the winter with a lot of leaves and even made berries after the first frost. I’ve been picking florocane berries here for 2 weeks. Picking every 3 days I got 2.5#. 3.5#. 6#. 8# and I’m guessing 10 or 12 pounds tomorrow. But the big flush is coming soon; SO MANY GREEN BERRIES! Did you have any issues with training the new primocanes while the florocane harvest was busy?

[@tehScribbles]

I've had luck mulching with a thick layer of whole oak leaves which I have an abundance of, and that seem to do a good job suppressing all but the most vigorous weeds while keeping the upper layers of soil insulated and moist, worms seem to love to live under them as well which keeps the soil soft.

[@eardw2251]

Thanks for the tip! I may give that a try next season. I have never seen an earthworm in my soil, must not like the chemistry.

[@morespamfortom]

Noticed your nice looking muscadines in the background behind the blackberries. I grow both here in north central Florida.

[@eardw2251]

Yeah, another crop that has done way too well here😀. Almost finished with the floricane blackberry crop (about 350 pounds) and the muscadines likely in the 600# range starting in July. It’s just me and the wife. Needless to say we don’t want for wine, jelly, fresh fruit, frozen fruit, cobblers, pies………😁

[@morespamfortom]

@@eardw2251 that's amazing. I have 30 Ouachita blackberries and I probably only get half of that. I'm putting in another 30 now. I've got 10 muscadine vines and plan to put 5 more in later this year. Enjoy watching your videos.

[@everydaydad2618]

Awesome video! Very informative and inspirational. Thanks for putting this together.

[@eardw2251]

How very kind of you, thanks!

[@AmzBackyardOrchardandVineyard]

Greetings from Arizona growing zone 9B! We have about 14 varieties of blackberry, raspberry, boysenberry and Loganberrys. We too are growing Primark freedoms and Primark travelers in our collection, so far so good. All of ours started as a five-leaf plugs last spring. Thanks for all of the tips and tricks. This is our first year growing blackberries successfully! Cheers 😎

[@eardw2251]

I have never seen anything like the PAF’s, just monster vines and monster berries!

[@tracey1708]

This is my 4th year with prime ark freedom here in Texas. I have 12 plants and they are in wicking tubs. Spring harvest produced 13 gallons of berries! Best ever. Had one berry 2” big

[@eardw2251]

Sounds like you have this down to an art Tracey. Any advice?

[@FurFeathersandFlowers]

Very helpful video. Thanks for sharing. Did not know about tipping so I learned an important tactic.

[@eardw2251]

Glad it helped! I’m seeing a few blooms on the plants already (February 2024).

[@FurFeathersandFlowers]

I bought one PA Traveler and it arrived with just a couple small leaves a couple days ago. I sure hope this will fair for me in Central FL. I'm on the West Coast. If it shows promise, I will order a bunch more. Used to pick wild ones as a kid up north.@@eardw2251

[@juliarroberts1621]

Thank you for this video. I live in the Caribbean on the island of Antigua, where we average about 85 deg F daily. I live on the most arid & windy side of the island. I have three varieties of blackberries that I will be planting out soon: 70 Triple Crown, 40 Sweetie Pie and only 4 Prime Ark Freedom. I will be planting them in the ground by the end of April. I found this video at the right time. It reinforces that I am doing things right for my climate & soil style. 🙏🏽🙏🏽

[@eardw2251]

Good luck and let us know what you learn!

[@jeanlanz2344]

Very helpful! Thank you so much. I saw your link from Nourse Farms. We just bought 10 of them and will plant in zone 5, NE Ohio. Your advice will help. God bless you.

[@eardw2251]

Good luck to you Jean!

[@laurensmithee1203]

This was so helpful- the most helpful video I've seen on Prime Ark Freedoms. Thank you! I have a few questions: 1) Do you only tip them when they reach 36" or do you tip them at other heights as well, such as when it's over the highest wire? 2) Is tipping a one time process or do you do this every year with each plant? 3) For tying the plants onto the wire, this is done once a plant's growth reaches each of those wire levels, correct?

[@eardw2251]

Thank you Lauren, that’s very kind of you to say. 1) I try and tip at 36” and again at 54”. I may be a bit more aggressive with this years primocanes and tip anything that isn’t making fruit when the new laterals get to 36”. 2) I tip the new primocanes, not the florocanes, so yes, every year will require tipping as the new primocanes start growing. 3) yes, as each cane reaches a wire I tie it on. I had to slide them around to find a spot as they started using up all the space.

[@careyjohnston4176]

Loved your video and your voice is very pleasant. ❤

[@eardw2251]

What a nice thing to say: Thank you!

[@charleywalker2982]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and keep your videos coming please.

[@dc-wp8oc]

Earl, informative video. Beautiful plantings. How did you prepare the soil? Any amendments? What are the size of your posts? How do you control the grass and weeds from your row? Your photos don't seem to have mulch. We have "wire grass" which grows by seed and rhizome, and it is a nightmare.

[@eardw2251]

Hey, thanks! I worked in a lot of compost before planting, then each winter top-dress with more. I tilled the ground then hilled up the soil to make a single row. The end posts I think were 5” posts and the middle posts were 3-4”. Although most of the vines blew down during hurricane Idalia, the posts and wire were unaffected. I don’t use mulch (other than the top-dressing with compost) but weed every couple of months. We have Bermuda grass here so I feel your pain!

[@abigailwurtz9106]

Very helpful! Thank you!

[@briancast427]

greetings, thanks for everything in growing tips on a timeline matter for blackberries... I live in central Florida Gulf Coast area; and I ordered a Nazchet & a Triple Crown blackberries from north Florida nursery in Jackson county outside of Tallahassee - i planted both 2feet apart and have two wooden goal posts for them to be trained on lots of twining string, their still young plants... Haven't started to learn to climb yet, I mixed my native loamy dirt with cactus soil and garden soil and peat moss with organic fertilizer granular pellets; their in a raised bed using cinder block stones... with heavy wood chip bark mulch to keep weeds down. My question ❓ is can northern thornless blackberries grow good in central Florida area? I thought having two different varieties, could cross pollinate each other through the wild bees and other pollinators.

[@eardw2251]

Hi Brian. I really couldn’t tell you how well Natchez or Triple Crown would grow in your area. Blackberries are remarkably adaptable plants but you live in a very warm area with few chill hours. If I could be so bold, I’d love to hear how yours do over the next year. I’m very curious if your vines will die out over the winter, and if not, will they set fruit?

[@charleywalker2982]

Excellent video.

[@ccoody1]

I have multiple varieties of blackberries, and I do agree these make whopper berries, but I am not super keen on their sweetness. I have the thorned prime Ark next to these and I think they are considerably sweeter. Also, some of thorned are 11 ft tall and I tip them severely. I use aged chicken poop from our birds.

[@eardw2251]

I have to agree with you about the sweetness, but I tend to use them for cooking, jams, syrups and wine where a bunch of sugar gets added anyway. Having said that, I will never plant a thorny blackberry again.

[@abdmwenabennis]

Really helpful video, thank you!!

[@jeffreymmanion2002]

Your weed control methods are phenomenal. What’s your secret? I’m happy to see that there doesn’t appear to be landscape fabric…

[@eardw2251]

You may change your mind if you see the most recent update☺ But when I’m caught up it’s mostly a hoe and I spread compost between the plants in winter. . No, I gave up on landscape fabric yeas ago; Bermuda grass loved living under that stuff.

[@jeffreymmanion2002]

Thanks!

[@lisabigon1426]

Great video! So informative. We are just about to plant just a couple. Did I see that you put your irrigation drip hoses on the bottom wire? We live in Central Texas and the heat last year was just horrible here, too. We do have a drip watering system but should we put them on a wire for the berries or leave them on the ground? Thanks for your awesome advice!

[@eardw2251]

Thanks Lisa. I hung 1/2” drip tubing from a wire about 12” off the ground. I got this tip in a video from Ison’s Nursery about muscadines and now I do it for everything. By keeping it off the ground, critters (my dogs mostly) don’t mess with it, it is easy to weed around, gives another point to tie canes to, but mostly it makes finding clogged emitters so easy! Every once in a while I have to replace broken tie wraps, and if you turn the water on in the heat of the day the water will be quite hot at first so factor that into your decision. If I were to do it over, I would still use a suspended drip system, but I would put a 1/2 gal/hr drip emitter on either side of the plant 6-9” away, Had I done this initially, I wouldn’t have had to provide supplemental water from a garden hose when the plants were young.

[@percyblok6014]

Awesome! Ordered a bunch of the UA varieties for the farm. Freedom is the primocane I went with as well. I'm in Central Florida, just above Tampa and think they're gonna do great after seeing your results, especially in that heat. I see it looks like you're into grapes as well? Hope you do more on what you got growing. Good stuff!

[@eardw2251]

Thanks for the comment Percy. My place is about 5 miles shy of the Georgia border near I-75 in zone 8B, so we probably get a little hotter in the summer and a little colder in the winter with a few hard freezes. I’ve been pretty busy harvesting fruit and making wine and jelly, but I ain’t doing much today, so let me see what I can do for an update.

[@rohitnaiknaware2592]

@@eardw2251 Hello How should the weather do this? What is the maximum temperature it can withstand?

[@eardw2251]

@@rohitnaiknaware2592 air temperatures here were at 100°F for a couple of weeks in mid to late June (Heat indices of 125+) so I would say about 100°F where they start seeing damage. I really couldn’t speak to why the plant doesn’t care for the heat other than it was developed for the Arkansas area. I did communicate with Dr. John Clarke at the University of Arkansas who said that Freedom was doing remarkably and surprisingly well in the deep-south.

[@eardw2251]

Additionally, Dr. Clarke indicated that the primocane harvest can be reduced by the heat, but will likely result in a much larger florocane crop the next year.

[@cpharper]

@@eardw2251 Can you say what variety of grapes you are growing? We are going to use your trellis system to plant our blackberry and rasberrys but would also like to plant some grapes and muscadines as well. From the best I can tell your posts are about 24 feet apart and it looks like the grape plants in background are planted center of each posts?

[@dianehopkins6127]

You don't have to spend time tying up the canes. Instead of one set of wires, put two sets of wires, 2 ft apart, creating a box for the canes to grow in. Works great! No tying.

[@eardw2251]

Do you grin the really long vines or just weave them in between the shorter canes?

[@ryanhargis8773]

Hey, enjoyed all your videos, i'm excited to getting started with mine. I could use some trellis pointers. How far apart are your posts? whats your wire heights again? Any pointers? I have two 70 foot rows to do

[@eardw2251]

Hi Ryan. The posts are se 18 feet apart and the wires are set 18”, 36” and 54” above the ground

[@wayneha1]

Great video - starting mine this season - thank you for the info!

[@eardw2251]

Thanks Wayne. Coming up on my first floricane harvest starting in about a month and it is going to be spectacular!

[@freddymmccall2062]

picking up some up next Friday for planting in Central Louisiana. Question, im not sure i understand about the tipping. after tipping the primacanes will bear berries, correct? will only that one primacane produce? what about next year, will the laterals produce or only new primacanes ? sorry for misunderstanding. i am learning more from this video than i have in a week of watching others

[@eardw2251]

Yes, the tipped cane as well as all the laterals it generated will produce fruiting canes. Primocane Berries will form at the ends of the fruiting canes, and as I understand it, florocane berries will form form lower on those same fruiting canes the next year. Since I haven’t had these for a full year, what happens next year is just information I gleaned from the internet. I put out an update to this video a week or so ago and even with all the tipping I did early on, the lateral canes grew way too long. Next year, when the next primocanes sprout from the base, I am gonna be much more vigilant in keeping these guys tipped.

[@dns_error]

What's the best pesticide for these? Swd is a problem for us in Canada Ontario. I have 20 floricanes that survived the winter, so hoping to get berries this year, without the swd that we get in raspberries

[@eardw2251]

I couldn’t answer, I haven’t used any.

[@GamingHut05]

if you want to propogate them and make another row how do you take cuttings? Do you take cuttings on first year or second year canes?

[@eardw2251]

These plants are still under patent protection so I can’t really speak to that, but probably like any other blackberry or rose.

[@danebelarmino4809]

i tipped the canes off of my prime ark freedoms. They sent out laterals that have now gotten quite long but still no signs of fruiting.

[@eardw2251]

Where about do you live Dane and when did you plant?

[@danebelarmino4809]

@@eardw2251 Thank you for the reply. I live in the tropical Philippines. The mother plant is a little over a year. It already had fruits when I got it. The other plants (tip layered from the mother plant) are less than a year old.

[@eardw2251]

@@danebelarmino4809 please keep us updated. There were questions about this cultivar in climates with little or no cold weather and you may be the test case.

[@akkr3548]

​​@@danebelarmino4809 I think you didn't defoliate. Did they fruit or not ?

[@danebelarmino4809]

@@akkr3548 I defoliated several blackberry plants bushes it before and tipped the cane off as well but it didn't work. Now that I think about, what I have may not be a Prime Ark but another thornless variety. Prime Ark is supposed to be erect, but what I have is trailing. I purchased one from a different seller and compared it with my existing plants, the leaves and growth habit are different - the new one is wider leaves (less point) and the canes are erect as well.

[@taosfamily]

How do you keep so clean no weeds.? What do you use for spray? Thank you..

[@eardw2251]

Haven’t used any spray Carlos. Periodically I’ll use a hoe to clean up under the plants being careful to just scrape the grass/weeds off of the surface. Blackberries are very shallow rooted so if you go hacking at the weeds you might injure the plants. I am not an organic gardener and wouldn’t have a problem using glyphosate but the shade thrown by the canes keeps weeds manageable for me.

[@Amyas80s]

Primary freedoms are amazing. Have you tried prime ark freedoms?

[@eardw2251]

Yes

[@fidelantoniogomezgarcia638]

What kind of padding do you cover it with?

[@eardw2251]

I don’t quite understand padding. If that is the same as mulch, currently I’m not using any mulch. If padding means netting, I don’t use that either.

[@SomethinCatchy]

3 ft spacing?

[@eardw2251]

Yes, I used 3ft spacing. It might be a little crowded but I am also using the plants as a visual barrier.

[@earltharrisjr6955]

How much water should we be giving blackberries this time of year, especially since we haven't any rain in a month?

[@eardw2251]

Where I live, it’s an inch per week. I run the guys on a drip irrigation system pushing 35 gal/hr of water over an area of 400ft2. 1” of rain would be 33.3 ft3 which is about 250 gallons. During hot weather, I try to irrigate twice a week for 4hrs each session. My soil is mostly sand with compost mixed in and drains real well. Temperatures near 100° are frequent.

[@earltharrisjr6955]

Thanks for the reply. I think we will adjust our timers on the plants. How was your blackberry season? We had a nice harvest, but the heat shortened the harvest.

[@eardw2251]

​@@earltharrisjr6955 good harvest ;way more than I needed..limited a bit by hurricane damage last September and my decision not to tip them.

[@charleywalker2982]

👍

[@eyeonart6865]

So their gmo?

[@eardw2251]

Not that I am aware.