why no BlackBerry fruit?!

I've never had fruit on my blackberries!  Maybe 1 or 2 with 3 seeds.  These have spread out over the last 6 to 9 years. Look healthy to me. Mulched with leaves, grass clippings, wood chips. Raised bed. amended the central Texas limestone soil. Morning shade. Day/Evening hot sun. Drip irrigated. But I never get berries.  I transplanted these from vines that were producing since the great depression (I've been told).
I looked for thripes, but see none.  Help!!

Looks like the flowers don't get pollinated properly.
Have you ever noticed any bees or other pollinators on them? In my garden, they are very popular with my bees and also bumble bees.

I get bees and butterflies on them.  One of the pics has a single seed, on the "berry".

I feel your pain, Chris. I planted 200ft of blackberries five years ago, and I only get a handful of blackberries *total* from all that.

I have plenty of pollinators (though I haven't particularly noticed them on the blackberries?), and I tried fertilizing them last year with something blackberry-specific but it didn't help. It seems to be more a lack of *blossoms* - can't get much fruit if I don't get many blossoms. I never pruned them in prior years, so I'm hoping that was the cause, so a few weeks ago I pruned them in the hope they produce more lateral shoots with more flowers, and also cut out all the bad canes.
Have you ever tried pruning yours?


I wonder what the issue is with our blackberries? Blackberries are supposed to be easy!

Yes, I prune the tips to encourage side growth and it worked ( more side growth with flowers).

But still no fruit, even with flowers.

did you ever see the fruit on the parent plant, I'm just guessing but maybe they need a few more years of growth.
I've never seen black berries quite like that before the only ones I'm familiar with have thorny stalks and grow wild and spread like crazy.

Are the blackberries you get shiny or do they look coated?

Blackberries love a loamy soil, even with some clay, and they need a bit of lime. They don't need humus. Maybe you are overfeeding them?

Are they a named variety or random wild plants? I’ve seen wild patches that never really produced anything.

I seem to have the opposite problem.  Dewberries everywhere!  Between late evening yesterday and again today, 3.5 pints so far.  All wild.  Trying to decide what to do with them now.

Ive never encountered or heard of non producing blackberry plants. Where are you located geographically?

I'm in tn, i've got acres of wild blackberries and cant possibly harvest them all. So the bears show up to help bring in the harvest.

But mine are thorny wild berries. Maybe introduce a few wild ones for genetic variety / cross pollination.

So, looking closer at your pics, I dont see any canes. My blackberries are 5 to 7 ft high. Even the Logan berries and dew berries have some canes.

Your pics look more like strawberries. (?)

Please help me my blackberry leaves are browning and crispy I reported them after buying them from the store they were already grown with only leaves on them but ever since I repotted them the started turning brown and are crispy and crunch when touched. I can post a picture if needed, also when I move the pot I see little bugs crawling fast in and out the soil when I move the top layer of soil they start all spreading and I am able to see more of it I only pot about a week ago

Dan Scheltema wrote:I seem to have the opposite problem.  Dewberries everywhere!  Between late evening yesterday and again today, 3.5 pints so far.  All wild.  Trying to decide what to do with them now.

Sounds like you are in quite a jam!

Hopefully things have worked out for you. I thought I’d share my thoughts in case it helps anyone having the same problem.
I ran into this exact same issue for the first time this year. It seems to be damage from a late frost. The majority of my blackberries are Prime Ark Freedom, which blossom in late March here in Virginia. In past years, I’ve waited until the end of May to fertilize. But looking at the weather, I thought we were free and clear of any frost. So I fertilized with a high phosphorus (miracle grow’s blossom fertilizer) to flush out a bunch of buds. Then along came a random 29 degree night, and now all my buds have that black, dry center instead of the green little ball that grows into a blackberry.
I wasn’t 100% sure first was the cause, but now I have a few fresh buds that are normal, as well as all the flowers on my Apache - a later blooming blackberry.
My suggestion would be to try a later blooming variety and see how that goes. It sounds like you’re doing everything else right. And, as someone always suggests, check your soil PH and shoot for around 5.0. I haven’t needed to amend my soil, but everything I’ve read says that peat moss is the best way to actually lower your soil PH. Other amendments only last 1 season, and you’ll have to reapply them.