Cornell University in New York has announced the release of 2 new raspberry varieties. They look pretty neat! Of course, releasing them right now means that they won’t be available on the market until next spring. But hey – that’s something to look forward to next year! (For the full story, go here.)

The two varieties are Double Gold and Crimson Night. Both varieties are fall-bearing (primocane fruiting) types. Double Gold is a new gold variety with an attractive pink blush. Of particular interest to those of us growing in a clay soil, Double Gold has shown resistance to Phytophthora Root Rot. If you’ve been around the Demo Garden Blog for awhile, you might remember that our raspberries got Phytophthora Root Rot in 2010.

Crimson Night is fairly compact with dark purple canes, making it an interesting possibility for more ornamental plantings or container plantings.

Of course, the challenge with any new fruit variety is that we just don’t know how they will do for us in Kansas. New York is a great place to breed and grow raspberries, but fruit that does great in their breeding program may or may not tolerate a hot Kansas summer. In particular, gold raspberries tend to struggle in the heat. It would be interesting to see if the pink blush in the Double Gold makes the fruit a little more tolerant to sunscald.

So…you have 9 months to plan and prepare for a new raspberry bed if you want to give either of these a try next year!