It's National Berry Month. Here's What 60 Years of Blackberry Research Looks Like.

The nation's largest public-sector blackberry breeding program just held its 10th annual field day—and the results of six decades of research were on full display.

By the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture — summarized for agInnovation

Margaret Worthington, director of the Fruit Breeding Program, explains variety traits of promising new blackberry cultivars from the breeding program during the Blackberry Field Day on June 9, 2026, at the Arkansas Fruit Research Station in Clarksville. (UADA photo)

July is National Berry Month, and few institutions have done more to shape what that means for American growers than the University of Arkansas Fruit Breeding Program. Since 1964, the program has developed 43 blackberry varieties bred for early, mid, and late season harvesting, generating about $1.5 million in annual royalties that go straight back into funding the research. Arkansas-developed varieties like Sweet-Ark Caddo are now grown across the country, and the program developed the world's first primocane-fruiting blackberries, which flower and fruit on first-year canes.

At this year's field day in Clarksville, more than 100 growers and researchers from land-grant universities across the Southeast gathered to hear the latest on insect control, heat stress management, cultivar trials, and two particularly exciting frontiers: a robot blackberry picker currently in development, and a "long-cane" container system that allows growers to time harvests for more profitable out-of-season production. It's a reminder that land-grant research doesn't just develop new varieties—it continuously reinvents how those varieties are grown, protected, and brought to market.

Read the full story from the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

Read the full story: Arkansas Blackberry Field Day Brings Research Together From Across the Southeast

Behind every berry in a U.S. grocery store is decades of public investment in agricultural research. Subscribe to the agInnovation newsletter to follow the work that keeps American agriculture competitive.