Prime-Ark Freedom
Date: 2020-11-21, updated: 2024-02-02
The first commercial thornless primocane-fruiting early-ripening blackberry with large berries and good flavor
Rubus subgenus Rubus Watson 'Prime-Ark Freedom'
Originated from a cross of A-2301T x APF-49T
Variety denomination 'APF-153T'
Plants are thornless
Bushes have erect canes
Fruit weight is 10 g
Berries have a oblong shape
Soluble solids - 10.2%
Acidity - 0.74%
Fruiting habit primocane-fruiting (everbearing)
Flowering on floricanes starts in the fourth week of April
Ripening date (regular) - second week of June
Blooming on primocanes starts in the third week of June
Ripening date (remontant) - first week of August
Productivity is 2 kg per plant
Cold hardiness is good
Country of origin United States
Patent US PP26,990 P3 dated July 30, 2016
Current status - modern or widely used
This type of blackberry fruits on current-season canes (primocanes) and on second-season canes (floricanes), potentially providing for two cropping seasons, both traditional summer fruits in addition to late summer to fall production. In addition to having thornless canes, this variety produces very large berries with good flavor and is very early ripening on floricanes.
Fruit of Prime-Ark Freedom does not exhibit exceptional postharvest storage potential but it is not recommended for the shipping market due the berries have low firmness.
The average primocanes length is about 2-2.5 m. Primocanes are low vigorous, without thorns, very erect. Prime-Ark Freedom berries are large-sized, average weight of berry is about 9-12 g. Color is glossy black.
Each plant produces groups of berries, like bunch of grapes. The first yield starts forming at primocanes in the beginning of June and continues three to four weeks. During this first harvest season, Prime-Ark Freedom intensively produces floricanes, which soon begin to bloom. Floricanes are thornless. This is the second harvest season, which continues up to the middle of October.
After the end of the second harvest season Prime-Ark Freedom requires winter shelter from winter cold wind and other unfavourable conditions, because the declared cold hardiness of this blackberry variety is moderate, about minus 13..17 C, but the many growers note that real hardiness is about minus 18..20 when using covering.
Plants like sun placement, but it is observed that at high air temperature (over 31..33 C) pollination cardinally reduces.
Cultivar | Yield, kg/ha | ||
---|---|---|---|
2011 | 2012 | 2013 | |
Floricane harvests | |||
Prime-Ark Freedom | 6258 | 10740 | 17529 |
Natchez | 19773 | 19448 | - |
Osage | 13681 | 14461 | - |
Ouachita | 12076 | 15716 | - |
Prime-Ark 45 | 7866 | 13238 | 23501 |
Primocane harvests | |||
Prime-Ark Freedom | - | 911 | 2893 |
Prime-Ark 45 | - | 214 | 3663 |
Cultivar | Berry weight, g/pcs | ||
---|---|---|---|
2011 | 2012 | 2013 | |
Floricane harvests | |||
Prime-Ark Freedom | 9.2 | 8.7 | 12.6 |
Natchez | 7.6 | 7.3 | - |
Osage | 5.0 | 5.1 | - |
Ouachita | 5.5 | 5.8 | - |
Prime-Ark 45 | 5.5 | 5.4 | 6.2 |
Primocane harvests | |||
Prime-Ark Freedom | - | 7.5 | 8.8 |
Prime-Ark 45 | - | 4.8 | 5.8 |
Main features | Cultivar | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
APF-153T | Natchez | Osage | Ouachita | APF-45 | |
2011 | |||||
Flowering date on floricane | |||||
10% bloom | April 13 | April 2 | April 19 | April 27 | April 20 |
50% bloom | April 16 | April 20 | April 25 | May 4 | April 26 |
Floricane harvest date | |||||
First | May 28 | June 6 | June 9 | June 13 | June 6 |
Peak | June 6 | June 13 | June 20 | June 28 | June 18 |
Last | June 20 | July 7 | July 25 | July 25 | July 18 |
2012 | |||||
Flowering date on floricane | |||||
10% bloom | March 26 | April 2 | April 2 | April 5 | March 27 |
50% bloom | April 1 | April 4 | April 5 | April 11 | April 2 |
Floricane harvest date | |||||
First | May 6 | May 17 | May 21 | May 24 | May 17 |
Peak | May 21 | May 29 | May 29 | June 5 | May 29 |
Last | June 8 | June 25 | June 25 | June 28 | June 28 |
Fruit (rating scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the best) | |||||
Firmness | 7.6 | 7.8 | 8.2 | 8.6 | 8.2 |
Flavor | 7.6 | 7.0 | 8.2 | 8.6 | 7.6 |
Soluble solids, % | 9.7 | 11.3 | 11.8 | 11.6 | 10.8 |
How to cultivate blackberry Prime-Ark Freedom?
2. Annual pre-emergence and postemergence herbicide applications;
3. Annual spring nitrogen fertilization (56 kg/ha) using ammonium nitrate;
4. Tipping primocanes at 1.1 m height two times each season usually in mid-June and late July or early August;
5. Dormant pruning of primocane-fruiting plants must include removing dead floricanes and removing primocane tissue to a point below the fruiting (flowering) area on the primocanes;
6. Dormant pruning of floricane-fruiting plants must include removing dead floricanes and pruning lateral branches to ~0.4 m in length;
7. Use drip irrigation;
8. A single application of iron sulfate in late fall and lime sulfur in early spring.
Relevant documents
Useful Growing Guides:
Reviews of the variety Prime-Ark Freedom
What is the best blackberry plant to grow in the south/southeast United States? Prime Ark Freedom blackberry is the answer. This blackberry produces large berries and you get first year growth on first year primocanes. This is the perfect addition to your garden, farm, or homestead.
This is the 3rd and final video of my GROW YOUR BERRIES in a CONTAINER series. We’ll also take a small tour of the different varieties of Berry Bushes/plants that I have already PLANTED in a CONTAINER.
BLACKBERRY featured in this video is a thornless, Prime Arkansas Freedom BLACKBERRY. Is the first thornless BLACKBERRY variety from the University of Arkansas. Berries are medium to large fruit with excellent flavor that ripens in July the first year and again in Fall. Attracts POLLINATORS, including birds and butterflies. (Information from plant addicts).
I found a local big box nursery that had pallets of the Prime Ark Freedom variety and was able to pick through some of the better ones.
I only bought two one gallon containers but was able to pull out 5 individual plants, so a solid buy 2 get 3 free!
I have been experimenting with container Hugelkultur methods for a few years now and applying the system in a half wine barrel seems to work out well for berries. This particular garden is located in San Diego, Ca. zone 10B.
The first video from last year's production can be seen here.
I may be randomly posting more updates from this past summer from video that I recorded but did not post.
Heavy pruning on these seems to force a lot of new blooms/fruit. They actually act a lot like the mulberries in my climate. One thing I’ve learned is that they don’t need support if properly pruned and they can bear fruit as low as you’d like. Once a primocane has finished fruiting, I clip it back to a healthy-looking node. At that time, some of the floricanes will have probably started growing already.
I have very wet and humid weather most of the year. Anthracnose can be a problem in these conditions. My Natchez has been affected many times, and for whatever reason, it has never fruited. I’ve seen it occasionally on my PAF, but so far it seems quite resilient.
I’m no expert, but I believe this variety is a gem. Prime Ark Traveler is very similar, but not quite as prolific. I’m starting a ton of new cuttings to plant a large patch of these for our local market.
2nd the weather is insane. 2016 It rained 3 days non stop during flowering so this reduced the yield.
We had a huge drought at the end of 2016 so that will affect the 2017 yield as many floricanes died.
2016 was the first floricane crop and was 46lb of good quality fruit from 12 plants.
Humans and birds feeding on early ripening fruit was probably another 2lb.
So yield was 4lb per plant.
Observations:
This is a really low chill hour blackberry, my guess is its under 100 chill hours.
So for tropical areas that could never grow blackberries they can grow this variety.
The fruit is large but has large seeds so for processing a lot of the weight is seeds.
Specific to our climate the primacane flowering is just a disease and insect vector and not a benefit.
We are a no spray operation so we are trying to crop the floricanes for early fruit thus missing insect damage.
How many lbs of lower yields is worth having no thorns?
If you are the one working in the crop NO thorns is very very nice.
These are starting to flower now so we may see fruit at the end of April 2017.
Thank you all for your interest, input and feedback on this blackberry variety.
Thanks also to the hard work of Dr. John Clark and University of Arkansas for some interesting fruit varieties.
The primocanes started ripening in July last year and continued until November but I didn’t have many at a time. Enough to munch on. The production on the floricanes has at least tripled this year. Two years ago this May these were two inch root cuttings…
The first pic is of a primocane that slipped up on me and I tipped it last weekend and it’s already sending out laterals…well, straight up laterals. They get top heavy very quick.