Blackberry varieties /

Onyx blackberry variety

Rating [ 4 ]

Trailing thorny blackberry cultivar with nice-looking fruit

Rubus subgenus Rubus 'Onyx'

Originated from a cross of OSC 1466 x ORUS 1177-11

Variety denomination - 'Onyx', tested as ORUS 1523-4

Plants are thorny

Bushes have trailing canes

Fruit weight is 6 g

Berries have a conical shape

Fruiting habit - floricane fruiting (summer-bearing)

Flowering on floricanes starts in the first week of June

Ripening date (regular) - third week of July

Productivity is 14 kg per plant

Soluble solids - 13.7%

Acidity - 0.96%

Cold hardiness is moderate

Heat tolerance is moderate

Patent US PP22,358 P2 dated December 17, 2011

Current status - modern or widely used

Country of origin - United States

Agawam Amanda Anastasia Wyeberry Apache Arapaho Babycakes Bailey Big Daddy Black Butte Black Diamond Black Gem Black Jack Black Magic Black Pearl Black Satin Blakely Boysenberry Brazos Caddo Chesapeake Chester Thornless Cheyenne Chickasaw Chief Joseph Choctaw Clark Gold Columbia Giant Columbia Star Columbia Sunrise COX's miracle berry Danna Douglass Doyle's Thornless Eclipse Evergreen Thornless Galaxy Hall’s Beauty Heaven Can Wait Hedrick HJ-6 HJ-7 Hull Thornless Illiny Hardy Kelly Kiowa Kotata Loganberry Lucretia Marion Mary Carmen Metolius MM01 Natchez Navaho Nettleton Creamy White Newberry Nightfall Obsidian Onyx Osage Ouachita Ponca Prime-Ark 45 Prime-Ark Freedom Prime-Ark Horizon Prime-Ark Traveler Prime-Jan Prime-Jim Reuben Schultz Shawnee Siskiyou Smoothstem Sweetie Pie Thornfree Triple Crown Twilight Von Waldo Wild Treasure Willamette Thornless Marion

Onyx is a trailing blackberry variety from the US Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service breeding program.
Onyx is a vigorous, prickly, trailing blackberry that produces good yields of uniform, firm, and sweet high-quality berries with excellent flavor, that are suited for the local and fresh market. The combination of Onyx’s berries size, shape, and firmness makes them well suited for packing in clamshells for the wholesale fresh market.
Onyx variety is later ripening (middle of July) and has medium large berries. Berries are conic with compact uniform drupelets. Onyx berries are bright glossy black. The fruit flavor was rated as excellent. The fruit is medium large, average berry's weight is about 6 g. Onyx cultivar maintains a uniform fruit size throughout the harvest season. Typical cane length is approximately 4 m, canes emerge radially from the plant crown and trail on the soil surface if not trained to a trellis as would be typical. Onyx plants are vigorous, with moderate suckering from crowns, canes are predominantly trailing. Productivity is high, ranged from 12 to 16 kg plant over three weeks (5-95% harvest). The length of the harvest season is about three weeks.
Onyx is not winter-hardy, max to minus 13 C. Canes don't like wind, especially cold winter's wind with frosting. Onyx needs to be covered. We strongly recommend to cut primocanes to 0.5 m and use high-density agrotechnical material for covering.

Table 1. Yield and berry weight comparison table
Cultivar	Berry weight, g	Yield, kg/ha
Cultivar	Berry weight, g	2004	2005	2006
Onyx	6.1	16849	12432	13645
Siskiyou	6.7	11441	12453	6195
Marion	5.2	19527	14967	8851

Table 2. Comparison table of soluble-solid content, titratable acidity and pH parameters of blackberry cultivars (Onyx, Black Diamond, Loch Tay, Marion etc.)
Cultivar	Parameter
Cultivar	Soluble solids, %	Acidity, %	pH
Onyx	12.7	1.1	3.5
Black Diamond	10.1	1.2	3.5
Black Pearl	13.4	1.6	3.3
Evergreen Thornless	15.5	1.2	3.4
Loch Tay	10.7	0.97	3.5
Marion	13.7	1.7	3.3
Navaho	13.9	1.2	3.4
Nightfall	13.8	3.0	3.1
Obsidian	12.4	1.7	3.3
Siskiyou	12.9	1.6	3.3
Waldo	13.5	1.7	3.4

Is blackberry Onyx sweet?

Onyx blackberries mostly have a sweet flavor

How to cultivate blackberry Onyx?

A standard cultural practices for creeping blackberry production:
1. Annual pre- and post-emergent herbicide applications;
2. Spring nitrogen fertilization (78 kg N/ha);
3. Post-harvest removal of floricanes;
4. Training of primocanes to a two-wire trellis;
5. Weekly overhead application of 2.5 to 5.0 cm of irrigation during the growing season depending on rainfall;
6. Dormant applications of liquid lime sulfur and copper hydroxide were made to control leaf and cane spot, purple blotch, orange rust and anthracnose;
7. Timely applications of pesticides during the season;
8. One-time application of ferrous sulphate in late fall.