Ponca blackberry variety

Didn’t expect to see any fruit in the first year!
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We plant a row of blackberries on our 5 acres in SC Zone 8a. Ouachita, Ponca, Prime Ark-Freedom, Prime Ark-Traveler
A dream that has grown for generations. Our families have farmed or gardened in SC since the 1700’s. Dean Family Acres was established in 2013 and expanded in 2016, we strive to be “Real People, Real Homesteading.” We are on 5 acres in the Upstate of SC, zone 8a where we garden, feed chickens, cats, dogs, rabbits and Boer meat goats. We also enjoy landscaping projects and trips off the farm with our family of 6. Thanks for following our journey as we post a new video every Sunday.

I found a few Ponca on one of my first year plants today. I planted these in a row, but also put in a bunch of determinate paste tomatoes, peppers and some cucamelons between them that have now grown up so it is crowded and a bit hard to see all of the Ponca’s growth. I’ll let the Poncas have all the space next year, but thought they could share this year while they’re small. These tasted very good, but not quite as sweet as I had hoped, maybe from being shaded by the other plants. But the flavor was definitely a bit richer or fuller than other thornless I’ve tasted. I look forward to seeing what they do next year.

The Ponca blackberries I planted in the spring are coming along nicely. A few of the plants flowered on the old growth bareroot stalk. I had a nice big juicy one that was to be ready today. Unfortunately when I got home from work it seems one of the local birds needed it more than me. There was a runt of a berry on the same bush that was black as well that the birds so graciously left me. I was not expecting much but to my delight the berry was very sweet with a very slight twang at the end. It was only one so not much of a sample size but I’m optimistic these plants will be winners next year. My sweetie pies have been getting destroyed by the birds and squirrels even with netting up. It’s so frustrating. If it’s war they want, it shall be war they get.

THERE IS A NEW BLACKBERRY VARIETY...! And it looks like it's going to be one of the BEST EVER.
Take a trip with me to Bob Wells Nursery at Sorelle Farms to get some new PONCA blackberries!
I think this is going to be a great new variety for the Homesteader/Backyard Gardener.
 

AAES Research Recap: Ponca Blackberry
 

The Ponca blackberry is the latest variety developed by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Fruit Research Station near Clarksville. Coming on the heels of other successful varieties developed there like Ouachita and Caddo, Ponca is a thornless, sweet variety that should prove successful with farmers and consumers. UA Distinguished Professor John Clark describes this new blackberry.
 

Ponca blackberry. In my years in fruit breeding at the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, this is one of the most exciting discoveries I've had a part in. Why is it so exciting? It is a good blackberry, berry after berry after berry. Difficult to get blackberries to be consistently good and sweet, and Ponca, it shines in that characteristic.
Ponca ripens early. It's very near Natchez season, one of our earliest varieties, and so it'll get into the market in the early season. Ponca's characteristics include: a berry size of about seven grams, which is comparable to Ouachita, a very important Arkansas variety, and larger than Osage, one of our most popular high flavored varieties. The berry chemistry is one of the best I've seen for a blackberry. Anywhere from 10 to 13 percent average soluble solids for the season, the sweetest one we've released. It has a sub-acid flavor which always complements the sweetness, and it has a tremendous aromatic profile.
The storage of Ponca is very good. It retains its black color very good with very limited reversion or reddening of the cells in storage. It maintains its shiny appearance, that sweetness carries through on flavor. I think for a storage berry and for shipping, it has great potential. And for local markets, your customers are going to come back and ask for Ponca.
Yield is very important in our blackberry breeding program because we want to have productive plants year in and year out. The yield for Ponca is approximately 15 to 20 thousand pounds per acre in our test plots, and is equal to that of Ouachita and Osage, two of our successful varieties that have been stable yield plants in the commercial market.
Ponca has a couple of unique plant characteristics that are new to our blackberry variety profile, and that includes the ability to produce the primary crop which ripens early very similar to Natchez in season, and the secondary crop which ripens anywhere from 14 to 20 days later. When we have a frost, we have a little bit of recovery crop potential because these buds break a little later. A unique aspect of Ponca is its plant type. It has a shortened internodes, and that's the space between leaves and shoots and flower clusters, and it allows a more compact type plant. This is the fruiting area which is about shoulder heigh to slightly lower, where the canes have been tipped to train them the prior year. However the primocanes on Ponca emerge above the fruiting canopy later, which is an added benefit in that tipping is not required early or during harvest in our trials, and it also allows the tipping to be done after harvest. This is a labor saving technique and reduces some management costs, which probably will be beneficial to growers of commercial blackberries.
In the berry category, blackberries have the greatest growth potential, and the only thing holding back is marketing and better varieties. Often times people say, "I don't like blackberries because they're tart or sour." Ponca is sweet. Berry to berry to berry consistency is better than any blackberry I've ever experienced. Give Ponca a try. I think it can expand your blackberry sales, and put smiles on customer faces.