Thornless Blackberry Navaho - Rubus fruticosus

The Navaho Blackberry is a highly productive and vigorous variety of thornless bramble. It produces beautiful elongated, firm, and tasty blackberries. These fruits are particularly sweet with a slightly different taste, making them almost unique. It is a self-fertile variety, providing an abundant harvest from late July until September-October. Perfect for enjoying fresh in fruit salads or juices, these blackberries can also be used for making jellies or pies. They should be planted in ordinary soil, not too dry but moist, in full sun or partial shade.

The 'Navaho' garden blackberry belongs to the rose family. It is a perennial climbing plant that reaches maturity in two years, with branches that can reach a length of 2.5 to 3 meters (8 to 10 feet) and a stump that can occupy 50 cm (20in) to 1 meter (3 feet) of soil. This variety has been selected for its thornless stems and its tasty and abundant fruits. Each branch lives only to bear fruit (2 years) and is gradually replaced by new shoots emerging from the stump. The abundant and nectar-rich flowering occurs from late June to mid-July, ensuring staggered fruiting and a daily or nearly daily harvest from the end of July until autumn. The fruits are shiny black when ripe and should be picked when fully black for optimal sweetness. Surprisingly, their flavor is slightly different from other blackberries. The fruits can be consumed fresh upon picking, frozen, used in pies, or made into jam.

The Thornless 'Navaho' Blackberry produces long canes that need to be trained and pruned at the base after harvest. The fruits appear on the secondary branches of the previous year's canes, so they need two years to bear fruit. Hardy and easy to cultivate, it thrives in ordinary soil, preferably fertile, well-drained, and moist. It will thrive against a sunny or partially shaded wall, showcasing the bare wood of the flexible canes during winter. Thornless blackberries are hybrids derived from the Thornless Blackberry, Rubus var. inermis, itself obtained through cross-breeding between the blackberry and the raspberry. Extensive improvement and selection work has led to the development of numerous thornless varieties, most of which originate from America.