Blackberry fruit often exhibit an unattractive discoloration following harvest and storage. This redness appears at random on the berry and has been associated with sunburn or high temperature damage, or with fruit harvested less than fully ripe. We began a study to separate and identify causes of red drupe. Black (fully ripe) berries, free of sunburn, of six blackberry cultivars were harvested in the morning and subjected to conditioning treatments of 20 hours at 2 or at 20°C, followed by 7 days storage at 2°C. Strong cultivar differences and effects of conditioning treatment were found. `Navaho', `Arapaho' and `Chester' had little or no red drupe, regardless of conditioning treatment. As much as 50% of `Shawnee' and `Choctaw' berries exhibited red drupe, with more appearing in fruit conditioned at 2°C. Development of red drupe in berries conditioned at 2°C was quadratically related to total anthocyanin and juice pH, while that of fruit conditioned at 20°C was quadratically related to percent titratable acidity. The red drupe disorder in blackberries is exacerbated by low temperature storage and may be due to decreased cellular pH and subsequent anthocyanin glycosylation in individual drupelets.