USDA Blackberry 'Columbia Giant'

Technology Description
The most outstanding characteristics of ‘Columbia Giant’ are its good yields of extremely large well- formed fruit. The fruit quality is excellent for fresh due to its visual appeal. The extremely large size, over 12 g, can make packaging in clam shells for fresh market problematic but the size is very positive for local retail sales or if specialized packaging is used. ‘Columbia Giant’, is thornless and can be machine harvested for a high quality processed product.

Features & Benefits

• Obscenely large, attractive fruit
• Uniformly sized, conical shaped, firm fruit
• Full flavor that is slightly tart but has a good sweet with acidic balance and blackberry/raspberry aromatic notes
• Thornless
• Machine harvestable with very good yields

Applications

• Fresh Fruit Market
• Processed Fruit Market

Background of Invention
Oregon State University is seeking to commercialize ‘Columbia Giant’ thornless trailing blackberry. The USDA-Agricultural Research Service in collaboration with the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station Centers developed Columbia Star blackberry that in addition to being thornless has extremely large fruit that are machine harvestable with outstanding fruit quality that is expected to be useful particularly in fresh but also in processing markets.

Status
Plant Patent PP28,369 issued and available for non-exclusive licensing.