Boysenberry, Rubus ursinus x idaeus, is a a bramble bush with large purple-red raspberry like fruit with a rich sweet tart flavor. Growing berry fruit such as boysenberries can be uncomplicated and gratifying, and although the first year is perhaps the most laborious, once the vines are established, care takes little time and fuss.


A boysenberry is a crossbreed between a blackberry, a raspberry, and a loganberry. It is a member of the Rosaceae family, genus Rubus. It was developed in the early 1920s by Rudolph Boysen (1895 – 1950) of Napa, California, where people still favor them.

On a well established Boysenberry bush, the vines measure up to seven meters in length. The Boysenberry bushes / vines have very prickly small spines. It is always best to put on gloves when picking the fruit. Leaves begin coming along in early spring and the vine flowers more or less a month later.

Boysenberry, Rubus ursinus x idaeus

The Boysenberry fruit generally ripens two months after flowering or mid summer and roughly for a period of a month. Boysenberries should be picked every four to five days. The large, 8.0g, 3 cm long and to 3 cm wide, luscious, dark wine-red to almost black berries, when mature, have a rich sweet-tart taste, suggestive of raspberries. The berries are consumed fresh during their short growing season or integrated into jams, syrups and preserves.

There is as well a thorn-less variety of boysenberry, a trailing type of bush, that never produces the typically deep black fruit color when ripe, but rather has an medium size, burgundy colored fruit and produces a goo size, earlier crop. It’s highly resistant to disease and will grow well in most areas. It is self-pollinating and bears fruit in the second year.

Boysenberries contain high levels of anthocyanins, up to 160 mg/ 100g, that operate as antioxidants to help combat free radical harm in the body and give Boysenberries their rich, dark color. The antioxidant level of foods can be assessed as ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity). The ORAC measure of Boysenberries is 42 ?moles/TE/g nearly twice that of blueberries, a well-known rich in antioxidant fruit.

Boysenberry Propagation Methods

Plant propagation is from cuttings of current year canes, that have flowered and produced berries and place them on the ground and bury them in a thick layer of mulch to protect them through the winter.

Boysenberries, Rubus ursinus x idaeus

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