Environmental notebook

Rose Creek Park cleanup Saturday

Keep Little Rock Beautiful is hosting its annual cleanup event kickoff Saturday at Rose Creek Park and Trail.

Rose Creek Park is in Little Rock’s Capitol View neighborhood. Only a small portion of the trail is completed. More development is in the works.

The cleanup begins at 8 a.m. near West Fourth and South Schiller streets, according the Facebook event page. Volunteers will remove debris and fallen trees, according to the nonprofit.

New blackberry variety released

The Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station has released its sixth primocane-fruiting blackberry variety, according to a news release.

Prime-Ark Horizon is noted for high yields and an extended primocane fruiting season.

Blackberry plants produce biennial canes that have 2-year lifespans, professor John R. Clark said in the news release. Clark is a professor of horticulture and fruit breeding for the Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

Most blackberries flower and fruit on the second-year canes. The harvest date is usually in mid-June at the Division of Agriculture’s Fruit Research Station near Clarksville. Primocane-fruiting blackberries flower and bear fruit in the spring or early summer, as well as on the first-year canes — or primocanes — later in the summer.

Prime-Ark Horizon’s first harvest on primocanes begins around Aug. 4 and can extend to mid-October, according to the news release.

“That’s a fruiting period of over 60 days, which is longer than any other primocane-fruiting variety from our breeding program,” Clark said.

Experiment Station fruit breeders have released 21 public blackberry varieties since James N. Moore began the program in 1964.