OK, @lordkiwi, I read the linked article; and now I’m sure that there are no rhizomes on red raspberry plants. A rhizome is a thickened horizontal growth from the base of a plant and contains stored nutrients to assist the growth of the vertical shoots that develop from it. There are no such growths at the base of raspberry canes, only ordinary roots and sometimes vertical shoots that develop into new canes. There is nothing like the examples in the article.
The Rubus family is Rhizomes by nature. The amount of expression in R. idaeus cultivars is not going to change the basic morphology of the species and or Rhizomes into rootballs.
Here is the USDA on Raspberries
American red raspberry is capable of vigorous sprouting after disturbance [18]
but also expands in clonal area through vegetative regeneration
[95,100]. Natural vegetative regeneration occurs through root sprouts
or “suckers” [95,100,101], “stolons” [95], “rhizomes” [39,52], and basal
stem buds or root crowns [45,95,101].
No, you are not missing anything. Sticking with training of the main canes rather than forced laterals can result in less time spent and easier harvest. Larger diameter canes will tend to have larger berries. If your canes are well under 1/2" in diameter (near ground level), any forced laterals may be quite spindly. I let my 1/2" canes grow a straight run and can keep them around 6 feet above ground via gentle bending.
Are you getting as many black-caps as you need with your current training method?
I’ve got 3 young kids and a small yard. I don’t think I could ever grow too many raspberries.
Based on the video above saying i might get more smaller berries and the fact that I like this aesthetically, i think I’ll probably do it this way again on this fence.
I planted a bunch at the base of a basketball net post. I was thinking of letting them grow to the top but maybe I’ll try the prune at 5’ approach there. It’ll probably be easier since i need to tie those ones to the post. If they’re all the same height it’ll probably look better there too.
Thanks LarryGene and Sub for the responses.
All of the pictures look great. I wish i could train mine like that/kind of like grape vines.
My canes are pretty stiff.
Im looking forward to pruning them and seeing what happens later this next year and next.