Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post - Propagating Prime-Jan Blackberries

drew51 · February 17, 2015

Yeah I won't buy any UA berries, well except the patent expired ones. No blackberry police here. But I do think one should respect the patent. I do I just don't respect UA! Oregon State University has developed cultivars and not patented them. Just let them out there. They encourage breeders to use them, no charge for using them for breeding. They did patent Columbia Star but still will let breeders use it for free.
Huge respect for them. An agricultural University is supposed to be about helping people grow crops better, obviously UA has different priorities.

None of these plants are GMO's!?? Not sure how that came up? A plant having a patent has nothing to do with how it was developed. I can say for sure that the UA blackberries are non-gmo.
I was thinking of using wild blackberries or the cultivar Nelson, or Darrow (no patents on these, too old) and Columbia Star to try and develop a super hardy blackberry that has the boysenberry/Marion berry raspberry-blackberry hybrid taste (Columbia Star does!). Nelson and Darrow are super hardy blackberry plants. If I could do it, which is highly doubtful, but fun to try you bet I would patent it! In a NY minute!
Yeah I researched Darrow and it was developed about 1940, and Nelson about 1906. If they ever did have patents they are long expired and now public domain. And as stated Oregon doesn't charge. Breeding blackberries though is rather difficult. I'm practicing with my plants now. The raspberry breeder Pete Tallman is helping me out with scarification, stratification and germination techniques.
I'm all for patents as it is incentive to develop new and better cultivars. But usually it costs more to develop than one get's back. Unless you really hit the jackpot and develop a plant everybody has to have.
To market a blackberry plant, my costs would be around 25K. My fee would be 20 cents per plant.
So you can see I would have to sell a lot of plants to break even. Pete told me he has never broken even on any plants he developed. If you could not patent them, i would not bother trying to make a better plant. I at least want the chance to earn money for my hard work. Otherwise why would I spend all that money? I like my fellow man, but I have my own family I'm responible for. I can't take on the world too, not without compensation.
I'm not sure how tomato breeders make money? I never really had an interest in doing it. I know it's a whole different thing. The reason blackberies cost so much is you need to run scientific field testing as no nursery will help you propagate without research to show it is even worth selling. Not to mention the costs of a patent!

February 17, 2015	#10
drew51 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Sterling Heights, MI Zone 6a/5b Posts: 1,302	Yeah I won't buy any UA berries, well except the patent expired ones. No blackberry police here. But I do think one should respect the patent. I do I just don't respect UA! Oregon State University has developed cultivars and not patented them. Just let them out there. They encourage breeders to use them, no charge for using them for breeding. They did patent Columbia Star but still will let breeders use it for free. Huge respect for them. An agricultural University is supposed to be about helping people grow crops better, obviously UA has different priorities. None of these plants are GMO's!?? Not sure how that came up? A plant having a patent has nothing to do with how it was developed. I can say for sure that the UA blackberries are non-gmo. I was thinking of using wild blackberries or the cultivar Nelson, or Darrow (no patents on these, too old) and Columbia Star to try and develop a super hardy blackberry that has the boysenberry/Marion berry raspberry-blackberry hybrid taste (Columbia Star does!). Nelson and Darrow are super hardy blackberry plants. If I could do it, which is highly doubtful, but fun to try you bet I would patent it! In a NY minute! Yeah I researched Darrow and it was developed about 1940, and Nelson about 1906. If they ever did have patents they are long expired and now public domain. And as stated Oregon doesn't charge. Breeding blackberries though is rather difficult. I'm practicing with my plants now. The raspberry breeder Pete Tallman is helping me out with scarification, stratification and germination techniques. I'm all for patents as it is incentive to develop new and better cultivars. But usually it costs more to develop than one get's back. Unless you really hit the jackpot and develop a plant everybody has to have. To market a blackberry plant, my costs would be around 25K. My fee would be 20 cents per plant. So you can see I would have to sell a lot of plants to break even. Pete told me he has never broken even on any plants he developed. If you could not patent them, i would not bother trying to make a better plant. I at least want the chance to earn money for my hard work. Otherwise why would I spend all that money? I like my fellow man, but I have my own family I'm responible for. I can't take on the world too, not without compensation. I'm not sure how tomato breeders make money? I never really had an interest in doing it. I know it's a whole different thing. The reason blackberies cost so much is you need to run scientific field testing as no nursery will help you propagate without research to show it is even worth selling. Not to mention the costs of a patent! Last edited by drew51; February 17, 2015 at 02:03 AM.