Wild Blackberries

It is the time of year blackberries are blooming here in central Missouri and the fruits are just beginning to develop where the flowers have been pollinated. Blackberries have very attractive flower clusters and their habit of suckering everywhere means they make excellent hedges.

Blackberries beginning to bloom 2+ weeks ago

On our farm we have some large stands of native wild blackberries in overgrown pastures. We have left almost all of them and now actively manage them for berry production. Combined they are approximately 1/3 of an acre, which is about all the blackberries we can pick during the period they are ripening. To manage wild patches we took a narrow bushhog (4ft) and cut paths through the patches in the fall, then cut those same spots in the spring, then we will mow them again right before harvest. In the fall we also seeded the paths with a mix of crimson and white Ladino clover just to add some nitrogen to the areas and to give us a groundcover. We left the rows where the blackberries are growing uncut and we left them approximately 3 feet wide, since these have thorns on them we don't want to have to reach very far into them to get berries. This left us with aisles cut through the patch that are 4 ft, followed by a row of berries that is 3 ft wide, followed by another 4ft aisle, and then another 3ft wide berry row, and on and on. The length of the rows and aisles is simply based on whatever the length of the wild patches are, some are 20 feet long, others are 40+. After the summer harvest we will let the back berries grow back into the rows we cut last fall and we will cut the areas down that we harvested from this summer. This is to eliminate old canes, encourage new growth, and make harvesting easier.

Wild blackberries leave a lot to be desired in terms of size, consistency, etc, but since they take almost no time to manage, if you have a market for them and you have the time to pick them, then go for it.