Prime-Ark 45

Prime-Ark 45 is a primocane-fruiting blackberry from the University of Arkansas fruit breeding programme, listed by the station as a 2011 release and covered by plant patent PP22449. It came from a hand-pollinated cross of the Arkansas primocane-fruiting selections APF-1 x APF-12 made in 2000, with the seedling selected in summer 2002. Unlike ordinary floricane blackberries, it flowers and fruits on current-season canes, giving a summer crop on overwintered floricanes and a second crop on primocanes in late summer and autumn, which is how growers stretch a blackberry season past the traditional window. It was the first Arkansas primocane type bred specifically for firmness and postharvest handling, and the programme credits it with generating more than 1.59 million dollars in royalties. Its one real drawback is that, unlike most modern Arkansas releases, it is thorny.