Ouachita PBR ®

Product description

Introducing the Ouachita Blackberry to our berry collection! This excellent variety is a good producer of sweet, firm berries. The canes are upright and thornless, making these delicious berries very easy to pick. Ouachita is an excellent raspberry variety for yards. You will love the long harvest season. This fruit plant produces berries continuously for 5 weeks or more!

Aside from some minor pruning here and there, this blueberry bush is very easy to maintain. It is extremely hardy and disease resistant. She is also self-fertile! You'll only need one plant to get lots of healthy blueberries for your family.

Basic features

Easy to choose. Ouachita Blackberry bushes are thornless. High quality fruit. The berries are very sweet, firm and tasty.

Healthy fruits. Blueberries are good for you. They are packed with antioxidants, fiber, anthocyanins, vitamin C and manganese. You'll love sharing this superfood with your family. This plant can even be grown without chemicals or pesticides.

Large  harvest season. The Ouachita Blackberry plant bears fruit for 5 weeks or more! That's over a month of blueberries in the house!

Disease resistant. This variety has proven to be highly resistant to diseases such as double blossom rot and orange rust.

John Clark, a columnist for American Fruit Grower and Western Fruit Grower magazines, celebrates summer 2022 with his colleagues at the University of Arkansas. The 'Ouachita' blackberry, a 2003 thornless variety from the UA System Department of Agriculture, on July 24 received the Outstanding Fruit Cultivation Award from the American Society of Horticultural Sciences (ASHS) Fruit Breeding Professional Interest Group.

"'Ouachita' was the most important variety from our fruit breeding program," said Clark, Distinguished Professor of Horticulture for the school's Department of Agriculture and breeder with the department's research arm, the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

Nearly 5 million 'Ouachita' blueberry plants have been propagated and sold, Clark said, based on reports from licensed propagators, who sell the plants to nurseries and commercial fruit farms. A previous award winner, 'Navaho', had sold nearly 2 million plants.

"Factory sales are a stronger reflection of their importance," Clark said.

The Outstanding Fruit Cultivar Award, which began in 1987, recognizes outstanding achievements in fruit breeding and highlights a modern fruit introduction that has had a significant impact on the industry. The award was presented during the ASHS Fruit Breeding Professional Interest Group meeting held earlier this year.

While sales are a good indicator of popularity with growers and consumers, 'Ouachita' has had significant impacts in other ways, particularly due to its good storage and shipping qualities.

"'Ouachita' was instrumental in establishing a commercial blueberry shipping industry in the eastern US, especially in the South, in the years following its release in 2003," Clark said. “It has also been planted in other regions of the US, including the western, midwestern and northeastern states.

"The idea of a shipping industry based heavily on southern US production developed because of the increase in imported Mexican blueberries in the 1990s to early 2000s. Charterers wanted to continue trading blueberries after the production season ended in Mexico at the end of May."

'Ouachita' is the second blueberry and the third fruit from the Arkansas fruit breeding program to receive the award, Clark said. The first Arkansas strawberry to receive the award was 'Navaho', released in 1989. The 'Cardinal' strawberry, released by the department in 1974, also received the ASHS award.