I have Black Raspberries being delivered soon and need to make a trellis. Bought material to do a four wire system. I’m planning on running 2 parallel wires at 2 different heights. Lower one 2 ft wide and top one 3.5 ft wide. How high should the wires be? Guessing 18 inches high for lower set and 40 inches for top set? What do you guys think? Thought I read they should be pruned to 48 inches tall max.
I found this youtube vid the other night… and the trellis system they have in place sounds similar to what you are building. If you watch it until they get to the end, the results look ideal to me.
I don’t remember if they mentioned the height of the wires, but I can see the top one is just above elbow high on that guy.
Good Luck with your raspberries.
I started a patch of reds and yellows last year and pretty sure you have a few months before the trellis will really be needed. Seems like it was early to mid summer when I put mine in place.
TNHunter
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the only thing thats different with black raspberries compared to these is you need to prune the canes at 40in. and the laterals come fall shortened to 2 buds because most of the floricane crop grows on the 1st seasons lateral growth. if you dont trim you will have a very small crop and some very long unruly canes. also because blacks dont send up sprouts everywhere and only sprout from the crown , you should initially plant them closer together. i believe they need to be thinned more than reds as well.
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That video was really good. I had not seen it before. That wire system is the general idea of what I’m planning. Looks like I will put the top wires at 36” so I can top the canes at 40” and they won’t fall through. Thanks.
I ordered 3 heritage reds… and 3 fall gold last spring and planted them… I did a much simpler trellis… TPost on each end and 3 wires with top at 48.
They were all supposed to be everbearing type…but one was mislabeled and ended up being a black June bearer… not sure what variety.
I topped them all when they crossed that 48 inch wire a bit. The three reds and 2 golds gave us lots of fruit for over 2 months…early sept until dec 3.
The mystery black nothing… but will hopefully get to try those this june.
TNHunter.
There is a pic of my little patch. The black is on the left end.
Next time I plan to trellis like the example in that video… but so far this has worked fine for me.
TNHunter
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Here is what I ended up with. Four 45’ rows. Top two wires at 36”± spaced 3’ apart, and bottom two wires 18”± spaced 2 feet apart.
A row of each:
Munger: seedling.
Bristol: bare root.
Allen: bare root.
Jewel: bare root.
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nice neat rows.
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Thanks for posting the pictures. I need to get one made and am thinking about doing something very similar to what you did. How high off the ground is the top wire?
The top wire is about 36 inches, I’m planning on pruning the canes to 40 inches or so.
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So in year 1 of plants in ground, let them get to 40" then prune tips. Year 2 cut the ones that bore fruit to the ground?
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Impressive… I should have hired you to do mine 
New to raspberries here… started Heritage and Fall Gold last spring…
Had one mix up in the order, actually got a Mystery Black (june bearer) in my mix.
Last fall we got quite a few raspberries from early Sept to Dec 3. Loved it.
Right now the floricans are looking good with blooms showing up, but not open yet. soon I think…
I don’t know for sure when they will ripen here (early crop) but with blooms starting to show in early April, I would expect early June fruit. Not sure how long the first crop produces either… but I have figured out that I really like raspberries…
So easy to propagate, and spread them around.
I would say when you establish a bed and plant it in the spring… sometime that summer or fall, you need to make a new bed or two… for all the ones you will be able to propagate the next spring.
I bought 3 red heritage last year and propagated 8 more this spring, propagated 1 of the golds and 1 black (tip rooted). Gave some to my daughter, and planted 7 more in my food forest bed.
I noticed yesterday evening there are 8-10 more heritage root shoots up now, a good 2 foot out from my bed. If I had a bed ready for them to go into, I would take those up and plant them somewhere else.
Good Luck with yours. It looks like you are going to have plenty !
TNHunter
How ok are they with having their roots split while dormant? Is there some other way to propagate aside from root tipping?
you cant do anything wrong with raspberries. theyre like weeds and will spread like them. i dig sprouts while growing and most survive transplant if kept watered well. even black rasp. ive transplanted tip rooted while growing and still had a good survival rate.
stay up on your shoots as they can quickly overwhelm you. heritage esp . are cane producing machines! i only give mine some compost occsionally.
I started my Red Heritage last spring… and by last fall… and this spring… (on the sunny side) the 3 plants I had started… had sent up 20+ (what I call root shoots). Some were near 3’ tall, some smaller.
Some came up right in my row, which I expected, and I left the best of those… but some came up a good foot or even two outside my row… especially on the sunny side. To a lesser extent, several also cam up on the shady side, and some of those were a foot tall or more. The ones on the sunny side were larger.
Earlier this spring, I just dug some of those up… as you do that you will separate the root shoot from the main plant (cut that root)… but your root shoot will have roots established already too. Mine had plenty and I just put them in a nice planter pot with a nice compost mix, and put them in indirect light location for a week or so then moved them to my compost pile and healed them in … they get plenty of sun there.
Here is a pic that I took just after doing that…
The 8 in the back were heritage reds… front right a fall gold, and the two on the left were mystery black that tip rooted.
These have all been planted now, and those reds… you can see little buds on them… so that is where they were at when I took them from the patch…
Now they are full of growth, leaves, fruiting - blossom clusters on now.
Since they came up last summer/fall… suppose that makes them floricanes this year (just small one)… but they are going to fruit a little, and I am sure send up primocanes this summer that will produce a fall crop.
Raspberries are SWEET…
TNHunter
Here is a pic that shows how that mystery black raspberry tip rooted.
That tip just sort of worked it’s way into my deep hay mulch and rooted, and when I pulled the hay back, it was sending up shoots already… it had a nice root system and I just took it out, and potted it up… then planted somewhere else.
TNHunter
I agree with @steveb4 ---- like weeds… a bit overwhelming if you are like me and feel like you need to take care of and prosper everything
I hate just cutting their heads off… would much rather dig them up and plant them somewhere else…
But with Heritage Reds… you may just have to off with their heads… unless you plan ahead and prepare more beds.
TNHunter
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my raspberry bed is 12’ by 20ft. what i do to control them is till in between the rows a couple times in the summer. this way i only need to prune whats in the row. other wise controling them becomes your new full time job. 