Narrative
Earlysweet is a vigorous, flavorful, early maturing black raspberry released by the Agricultural Research Service, USDA in 1996. Earlysweet is the first commercial hybrid to contain germplasm from the eastern and western US black raspberry species R. occidentalis and R. leucodermis. Earlysweet, tested as US 1631, was selected by Gene Galletta at Beltsville, Maryland in 1983 from a progeny of Oregon-US 1725 (Haut x R. leucodermis) x open pollinated seed collected for the USDA at Corvallis, Oregon, by Harry J. Swartz in 1980. ORUS 1725 was a superior black raspberry selection bred by F. J. Lawrence of the USDA in Corvallis, Oregon. Earlysweet has been tested in a number of locations in Beltsville and has proven to be hardy, regular bearing, vigorous, attractive, condensed in ripening season, productive, and flavorful. Earlysweet is semi-erect and crown forming in habit. All canes are heavily armed, the prickles being numerous and pointing down at 45 degree angle. Primocanes are glaucous and green, floricanes are a deep purple-brown, and laterals are medium green. The floricanes bear 10 to 12 fruit in compact clusters along the apical two to four notes of lateral branches. The berries are round conic in shape with thick drupelets, and are firm and swewet and medium to large in size. Earlysweet is usually among the first raspberries to ripen at Beltsville; the tendency for early ripening is commonly seen in R. leucodermis derivatives. In unreplicated observation plantings, Earlysweet was as productive or more so than standard black raspberry cultivars. Plants of Earlysweet have not shown symptoms of disease during their evaluation period. Earlysweet was released to nurseries in 1996 and it is expected to be well adapted to the mid-Atlantic and adjoining regions to the Pacific Northwest.
cultivar release by Gene Galletta, John Mass, and John Enns cross by F. J. Lawrence, seed obtained from Oregon in 1980, Tested as US 1631, selected in 1983, introduced in 1998 synonym = Earlisweet
WHY NAMED= for earliness of the fruit