Big Daddy

Big Daddy is the trade name for 'A-2524T', a thornless erect blackberry bred by John R. Clark at the University of Arkansas and protected under US plant patent PP33,701. It came out of a hand-pollinated 2009 cross between two unreleased Arkansas thornless selections, Ark. 2271T and Ark. 2252T, made near Clarksville, Arkansas; the seedlings were germinated in the winter and early spring of 2010 and first fruited in 2012. The Arkansas program selected it for a combination that is hard to get in one plant — long, heavy fruit, good flavour, high productivity, and conspicuously healthy canes. Against its own program's standards the patent records fruit about 3 g heavier than 'Osage' and about 1 g lighter than 'Natchez', while outyielding both. For a home grower it is a floricane-fruiting, self-supporting-erect type that gives a long summer picking window without a single thorn.