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Comment by culi | Hacker News Reader

Not to shit on other people's work, but I can't help to think that all this effort breeding cultivars of (very invasive) European blackberries could've been better spent further domesticating native species that indigenous peoples have often already partially domesticated. In fact some already exist.

Shouldn't we be focusing on plants that aren't a constant threat to native ecosystems?

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Can’t we have both? Refining existing stuff and digging up new stuff are both important ways to further the art.

Usually I'm the one making this argument to naysayers. But we're talking about plants of the same genus so there's definitely competition for market space, policy, funding, agricultural land, etc

You are wrong in so many ways its hard to know where to start but no we 100% are not better off, "further domesticating native species that indigenous peoples have often already partially domesticated" a phrase that barely even makes sense in the context of the need for modern agriculture to feed 8 billion people.

Technically wouldn't any newly bred cultivar pretty much be an invasive species, should it be capable of surviving, competing with, and cross-breeding with its natural kin?

Food crops aren't invasive species, if they were then we wouldn't have to put so much effort into farming them.

Blackberries can choke out entire hillsides and meadows. They're highly invasive in certain environments. There are other delicious invasives you be more familiar with like prickly pears (Mediterranean climates), ice plants (coastal scrublands), amaranth (everywhere), and dandelions (everywhere).

The Himalayan Blackberry (rubus armeniacus, native to Armenia and Iran) is definitely a damaging invasive species. Even if I have picked and eaten at least a quart of its yummy fruits in the last week, I’ve also spent untold hours pulling out its damn roots. It competes with English Ivy for the most murderous in crowding out other plant life around here.

Blackberry is wildly invasive in the Pacific Northwest. It forms dense thickets that choke hillsides and watercourses, and interfere with the movement of wildlife.

It's a small perk that you can head out with a few bowls and fill them up with delicious berries in record time to make pies with. Besides that, they really do suck.

Is temporary. On their native areas they allow trees to grow, then the trees eventually grow over the bramble, take the place and blackberries leave. lots of animals big and small find refuge on those places. Is more a cure than a choke [on their native areas I repeat]. I hate to be attacked by the plant, but their utility for birds, insects and mammals can't be denied.

But If you want 'blackberries' on East USA the correct way is to use the totally equivalent black raspberry Rubus occidentalis that is an USA native, not so tall and has several good selections available. Look for Munger, Jewel or Blackhawk for example in your plant nursery. Easy fix and easier to harvest clean as it detaches from the peduncle.

They do this in here in their natural range as well.

They can be an absolute menace when overgrown in a garden. And there's no way you're going to be able to pick the fruit from most of them when they're bunched up and taking dozens of square meters of land, only the ones on the outside layer.

You'll be able to get the fruit of the inner ones more easily if they don;t have thorns. You'll find pruning them easier also.

> Food crops aren't invasive species

Says who ?

> Rubus armeniacus ("Himalayan" blackberry) is considered a noxious weed and invasive species

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackberry

That's not really how that works. Certain crops are edible but we don't want them to spread too much because they easily overtake other, more fragile species. This applies to blackberries.

Blackberries are definitely an invasive species, at least in Australia - you shouldn't eat wild ones because they're commonly sprayed with herbicides to try and control them.

There's like 5 people saying "blackberries". One example in one region does not make a trend.

But it makes a perfectly fine counterexample.

Blackberry, mustard, mint, oat... I could go on

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