Thornless Marionberries reduce liability concerns
Mt. ANGEL, Ore. — Over the course of his four decades in farming, Leonard Heidt has found a half-dozen thornless “sport” canes growing from otherwise thorny Marionberries.
All of those turned out to have undesirable characteristics, such as low berry yields and deformed blooms that rendered the plants unsuitable for commercial farming.
For that reason, Heidt was cautiously optimistic when he came across a sport a decade ago that seemed to produce fruit as well as the thorny varieties of Marionberries.
Years of field testing convinced him that the cultivar would be viable and he applied for a plant patent for the variety in 2012, which is still pending.
The patent application has allowed Heidt to begin selling “Willamette Thornless Marion” variety to other growers and collect a royalty payment of 10 cents per plant.
Since then, Heidt estimates the thornless cultivar has been planted on about 200 acres as growers gain confidence in the variety.
“I do think it’s going to eventually replace the regular Marion, if it proves to have the same durability,” he said.
Thornless Marionberries provide farmers with the benefit of being easier to handle, but they also appear to preserve fruit quality during mechanical harvesting, Heidt said.
“They’re not getting hit with the stickers, so the berries’ cells aren’t as damaged,” he said.
For processors and end users of berries, the main concern is that pieces of thorny stems will be found in pies, jams and other products, Heidt said.
“The liability is the number one concern,” he said.
Because that worry is eliminated with his variety, Heidt has established a deal under which the Willamette Valley Fruit Co. of Salem, Ore., pays growers a premium of five cents per pound for thornless Marionberries.
“We live in an environment where food safety is really critical,” said Dave Dunn, general manager of the Willamette Valley Fruit Co.
Dunn said there’s a “delicate balance” involved in promoting the cultivar’s thornlessness without disparaging the regular thorny Marionberries that are still the predominant variety in the area.
The company processed 1 million pounds of the thornless variety last year and has found strong support for the cultivar among buyers, he said. “The market looks really good for them.”
Willamette Valley Fruit Co. wants to expand acreage of the crop but is doing so warily to ensure the brand isn’t misrepresented, Dunn said.
For example, the company wants to work with trusted growers and processors who won’t mix the cultivar with other thorny berries, but then market them all as thornless, he said.
Heidt hopes to forestall this possibility by certifying fields as thornless and estimating their expected production.
Farmers also need to be sure the new variety will perform well in the field — at this point, the plants have withstood low winter temperatures well, but those in the ground are still relatively young, Dunn said.
“So far, the data looks good,” he said.
Some canes from the cultivar do occasionally revert to growing thorns, and these should be removed, Heidt said. Plants seem particularly prone to this problem if their roots are damaged, he said.