Eclipse blackberry variety

Eclipse (ORUS 2816-4) is thornless semi-erect blackberry cultivar with medium-large, firm, dark fruit. Eclipse is introduced as a high quality blackberry that has medium-sized, uniformly shaped berries that ripen in the early season where it is firmer or earlier than current standards. Developed by C.E. Finn and others in United States, Oregon.
Eclipse has high-quality fruit in the early semi-erect season and vigorous productive plants. Fruit is uniformly shaped and firm. The primocanes of Eclipse are slightly less vigorous than those of Chester Thornless and Triple Crown. Eclipse has moderate yields with yields comparable to the other commercial cultivars.
Cultivar has an excellent size for clamshell packaging.
Fruits are medium-large, average fruit weight is about 6 g with blocky-conical shape. Fruit shape can be affected by drupelet fertility, and although Eclipse had the highest rating for fertility, it was not statistically different from the Triple Crown and Chester Thornless. Berries have excellent black color that is comparable to Chester Thornless, and although statistically darker than Triple Crown, the color was not meaningfully different from Triple Crown.
Eclipse was rated as having comparable firmness and skin toughness to Chester Thornless and rated much better than the softer, more tenderskinned Triple Crown. This combination of firmness, uniformity of shape, medium size, and excellent skin toughness make Eclipse an excellent candidate for shipping in clamshells in the wholesale fruit market. When eaten fresh, blackberry Eclipse fruit flavor was as good as the highly regarded Triple Crown and better than Chester Thornless.
Blackberry Eclipse ripens with or before Navaho and Triple Crown, the midpoint is comparable to Navaho and 10-14 dayes before Chester Thornless and Triple Crown. In trials Eclipse cultivar ripens at the middle of July. Harvest season's length is about 30 days. Averaged crop from each plant is about 8 kg.
Cold hardiness is very good, has shown no injury in 10 seasons despite temperatures below minus 20 C. Also Eclipse shows very good disease resistance.

Table 1. Yield and average berry weight of Eclipse cultivar at Oregon State University’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center (planted in 2013)

Cultivar	Berry weight, g	Yield, kg/plant
		2015	2016	2017
Eclipse	6.4	6.65	7.20	12.71
Chester Thornless	6.3	8.40	10.89	15.60
Triple Crown	8.1	11.44	9.14	14.39

Table 2. Subjectively evaluated fruit quality traits of Eclipse, Chester Thornless and Triple Crown blackberries (planted in 2013, scale from 1 to 9, where 9 is the best)

Cultivar	Eclipse	Chester Thornless	Triple Crown
Drupelet fertility	6.9	6.0	6.5
Firmness	8.6	8.4	6.1
Color	9.0	9.0	8.8
Shape	6.9	6.0	6.1
Texture	5.9	5.1	5.5
Flavor	7.3	5.2	7.2
Toughness	8.4	8.3	5.5
Glossiness	8.8	7.8	7.9

Table 3. Soluble solids, pH and titratable acidity of fruit for several blackberry varieties (2011 - 2017 years, avg.)

Cultivar	Soluble solids, %	Titratable acidity, %	pH
Eclipse	13.5	0.97	3.41
Black Diamond	11.29	1.27	3.36
Čačanska bestrna	9.72	1.15	3.29
Chester Thornless	12.43	1.07	3.28
Columbia Giant	11.40	1.87	3.17
Columbia Star	12.32	1.40	3.23
Columbia Sunrise	13.61	0.75	3.64
Galaxy	12.26	1.08	3.45
Hall's Beauty	13.46	1.31	3.35
Marion	13.45	1.60	3.20
Navaho	14.41	1.03	3.36
Osage	12.01	0.89	3.70
Triple Crown	14.95	0.93	3.53
Tupy	12.86	0.86	3.66
Von	12.35	0.70	3.56

Table 4. Harvest season (avg. from 2015 - 2017, planted in 2013)

Cultivar	Ripening
	First (5%)	Peak (50%)	Last (95%)
Eclipse	July 12	July 17	August 7
Columbia Star	June 20	June 26	July 7
Hall's Beauty	June 22	June 26	July 10
Black Diamond	June 20	June 30	July 17
Marion	June 24	June 30	July 15
Von	July 10	July 17	August 4
Triple Crown	July 17	July 31	August 9
Chester Thornless	July 17	August 2	August 21
Prime-Ark 45 (prim.)	August 25	Sept. 13	Sept. 29