Hi All!
Im new here.
If tou dont mind i have a question about my rasperries.
These are about 2-3 years old.
Last year they were bushy and had lots of green leaves also raspberries late fall.
This year they look like this.
I am not certain if i need to prune them. I do not know the variety.
Half of the bushes are dead as you can see in the picture.
But some dead stalks have green leave on them, so are they last years and should i remove them?
Thanks!
Canes that are entirely brown, including the leaves, may be from 2 years ago and had the berries on them last year. These can be removed.
Canes that are (not dead) and have green leaves on them may bloom and fruit this year, leave those alone.
It appears there are a few sprouts coming up some distance from the original planting, leave or pull these depending on if they get in your way.
Any new sprouts coming up near the originals should be left alone this year.
Cut them down close to the ground except any that have green new growth and flower buds. New shoots should grow from the ground. If they are primocane they should have fruit at the end of the season but if they are floricane those new shoots will fruit next year.
Raspberries are biannual. The roots are perennial but the canes are not.
This years new shoots are called primocanes. Some cultivars produce a small crop on this years primocanes. All Blackberries and Raspberies produce their major crop on shoots in the second year when they are called floricanes. After the floricanes produce remove them. When your primocanes reach 6ft tall cut them at the head to 5ft.
Thank you for all the great feedback everyone.
I was hesitant on pruning what i thought were old “done” shoots (floricane). Because i did not know the life cycle of my particular raspberry.
Now that i know a new cane will produce 2 years, primocane season and floricane season, and hopefully alternate so that there is no missed season.
So all the small shoots that have popped up this year near the ground around the mother plants are in their primocane year this year?
I have stopped trimming around them so that a large bush can be created over the years. This is the correct way to controllably spread them right?
Thanks again!
In the future I will most likely have more questions regarding other fruits i have as well.
Your never going to have a bush. You keep 2-3 primocanes each year. They should all be marker thick going foward and not spendly.
You can have a bushes if you want. Just be prepared for the work involved…which to me is enjoyable.
is that not a dense planting of rizomes? You still have around 3 primocanes per rizome.
Wow thsts alot of prunings
Its enjoyable for me too. I want a bigger area.
What do you mean a dense planting of rizomes? Those were just the rizomes that have spread underground. I did not purposefully plant them.
But i am purposefully trying to keep them.
When should pruning be done, spring or fall?
Or should i say when is the best time to be able to tell the difference between floicane and primicane?
In agricultural terms, raspberries grow as canes (caneberries), blueberries grow as bushes (high-bush, low-bush).
A close grouping of raspberry canes can be bushy, but are better described as a thicket.
Pruning methods for a cane are different than pruning methods for a bush.
When the new green cane’s reach 6ft, head them to 5ft. It should be clear which cane’s had berries on them with the little calexs hanging about. Maybe a month after fruiting is done would be fine. The leaves had some extra time to feed the rizomes. You may Kickstart a few more primocanes, if your season is relatively long that’s great, but if it’s short then waiting to spring is best.
I don’t think that raspberry plants have rhizomes, which are different from normal roots. In my experience any raspberry root can develop new canes; specialized rhizomes are not required.
Raspberries do not tend to spread a quickly but they absolutely have horizontal underground shoots eg rhizomes like there kin.
Perhaps you can call the underground shoot that branches off the base of the plant to produce a new adjacent cane a rhizome, but that doesn’t result in any spreading. All of the new canes that arise away from the base come from ordinary roots. I’ve seen a new cane shoot developing from an isolated thin piece of root only a couple of inches long.
I’ve seen the 5’ rule several places but not an explanation of why. Is that to maximize the number of horizontal branches where flowers and fruit will form next year?
I’ve got a metal fence that’s just under 5’ tall that i grow black cap raspberries under.
Rather than trim the canes, last year I let them grow as long as they wanted and weaved them through the fence. I like how it looks and it keeps them easy to pick from (no reaching into a wild ticket). Some of the canes are over 8’ long but they’re running horizontal under 5’. Seems like there are plenty of flowers this spring… am i missing anything?
Pictures below from front and back.
here’s your answer
