Blackberries Bushes but no Berries?

Adjacent to my property is a small meadow tucked into a draw (probably 50-100 ft wide) that has four giant blackberry bushes in the middle of it. The bushes are well over 8 ft tall. The draw is oriented North > South and there is a small creek that runs year around from a spring at the south end of the meadow. It was running along the east side of the meadow but a tree fell and redirected it. Now it runs into the meadow and then disappears into the ground. This meadow is low lying and it is not used for anything (surrounded and included into a large tract of forest land).  

The problem is the blackberry bushes do not appear to produce blackberries for some reason and I'm wondering why. They get plenty of sun during the summer. On my property I have a few blackberry vines on the dock that naturally seeded off my wave breaker log and they have blackberries each year. Plus there is a few blackberry bushes up on the ridge (growing in the middle of an old logging road) that get a ton of blackberries. But, the bushes down in the meadow are 4 or 5 times the size of the ones on the ridge, but no berries.

The meadow does become quite saturated in the winter. Some spots flood with 1-2 ft of water during storms. The meadow rises in elevation from the North end to the South end.

Can anyone venture a guess why there are no berries on these blackberry bushes?

Old growth blackberry branches are less likely to fruit than new growth. Perhaps if you hacked away some of the denser growth, it would encourage fruiting.

Malek Beitinjan wrote:Old growth blackberry branches are less likely to fruit than new growth. Perhaps if you hacked away some of the denser growth, it would encourage fruiting.

Yeah, these are definitely old. Probably older than I am. I might do some pruning down the road. I don't eat the berries off of the vines down on the dock simply because the otters and beaver criss cross down there and I don't want to take the chance of catching e-coli or giardia. I do partake of the large bush up on the ridge whenever I go for a hike, though I'm always looking over my shoulder for neighborhood bears. I've never come across one face to face when out and about like that, but I've heard them down in the brush tearing up a log when I was hiking on the ridge road, that was close enough (too close to be honest).

If I get some free time this spring I'll hack some test spots and see what comes of it. Thanks for the info.

IH

From your description, I am assuming these are wild blackberries.  Do the plants get flowers?

Are these plants on land where you can cut them back as Malek suggests?

The plants may have reached an age where they no longer produce fruit if that is such a thing.

Anne Miller wrote:From your description, I am assuming these are wild blackberries.  Do the plants get flowers?

Are these plants on land where you can cut them back as Malek suggests?

The plants may have reached an age where they no longer produce fruit if that is such a thing.

I can only assume they are wild. Blackberries grow everywhere here. In ditches. Backyards. Fields. The "field" or meadow in question is not used and has not been really touched for 20+ years since the surrounding timber was logged. The meadow area is not planted with trees. It's considered to be in the flood plane and so it's just left unused, abandoned. I think there was an old homestead long ago at the back of the main valley as there is an old telephone or electric pole back there (no cables to it anymore). Then again it's possible that the old homestead is the one around the corner at the end of the main section of the lake. They could have used electricity back there for a barn or something back in the 60's.

My property has an old electrical pole (no wires) that was used for a cabin that was on the lot back in the 60's. But they tried to move the cabin to a pier and the cabin basically disintegrated as they tried. So the power like was pulled.  

I didn't realize that blackberries could get so old that they would no longer produce. I thought maybe the ground was too wet since it's in a flood zone and there is a natural creek/spring that runs directly into the ground maybe 10-15 years above the bushes. I imagine the ground is constantly saturated even through the summer.  

I'll have to make a decision if I want to try and get new berries or just leave it as it is. There are black bears here but they seem to just travel through the area rather than stop for meals. I would hate to revitalize the berry patch only to draw in all the bears in the area.

IH

Fruit production of wild blackberries is highly variable - some produce little fruit under any circumstances. Others produce fruit that is small, hard, bland, and lacking sweetness. Know what the fruit produced is like should be a factor before deciding to invest significant time in rejuvenating these plants.

If they are worth attempting to salvage:

1) If they have never been cut back, I would probably cut the whole area back to ground level now. This will remove the dead and over crowded stems, and encourage new vigorous growth.

2) Your canes will shoot prolifically, and can make very thick, very long stems that sprawl a long way. Fruit tends to set on side shoots in the last few feet of each long stem.

3) Cut back these leading stems to around 3ft long. They should stand fairly vertical at that length without additional support. Trimming these early in the season at an appropriate height will encourage each one to send out multiple fruiting side branches, which should set fruit in summer.

Cutting these back is super easy to do, if you do it early in the year when the stems are soft. You can just pinch the tips off with your fingers.

4) Some blackberries fruit more heavily on second year wood. I would follow the same strategy outlines above, but expect to see more fruit the following year from the same canes.

Access is also worth considering. If these are large patches the middle may be essentially inaccessible once they are growing strongly. You can cut paths through during the early season with a hedge trimmer, then maintain it easily with hand tools. Then when the fruit sets you can walk into the middle of the patch easily.

Should have added to my post above: blackberry needs warm weather, moist soil, and plenty of daily direct sunlight to fruit well. If they are heavily shaded by surrounding trees that would definitely restrict fruiting.

I walked past a patch on my way home today. Not my property, just beside the path. It is massive and overgrown, but sets great fruit. Large juicy and tasty.

I have a routine in spring/early summer of pinching growing tips off the canes to encourage them to set side shoots.

In this photo you can see fruiting side shoots, with residual flowers. You can also the massive long canes in the middle of the patch that I can’t reach and never get pruned.

Most of the total fruit set by the patch is on the edge by the path where I casually trim it.