BUENA PARK : Knott’s Is Root of All Boysenberries

All of those plump, juicy, dark red boysenberries in the world can be traced to their roots in Knott’s Berry Farm.

More than 60 years ago, theme park founder and farmer Walter Knott was always looking for crops he could grow better than other farmers, said Patsy Marshall, Knott’s historian.

And the boysenberry, a cross between a loganberry, red raspberry and blackberry, became Knott’s Berry Farm’s claim to fame--in pies, jams and jellies.

Knott became associated with the boysenberry back in 1932 after Rudolph Boysen, who was parks superintendent for Anaheim, had experimented with a new type of berry.

But the berries weren’t growing well and were dying on the vine, Marshall said. Knott was intrigued with the new strain of berry and offered to take in the scraggly plants, nursing them back to health, she said.

As a tribute to the berry’s originator, Knott named it after Boysen.

Boysenberries are the largest of all berries, averaging 1 1/2 to 2 inches in length and 1 inch in diameter.