Raspberry

Hi, new to the group. I’ve been reading here about raspberry bushes to vine. I bought a house that raspberries had not been prunes for 5 years or more. I prunes them all down as they were not producing much fruit. Now I am getting some good growth. Are they suckers that I should prune? Or are they new growth that I should vine around my fence? How do I know?

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Not sure about where you are, but here we only get 2 types of raspberries. Those that fruit late in the season on the first year canes and those that fruit off their canes in the second year.
For the first type, we cut them all down every year after the hard frost.
For the second, in the spring, I’ll go in and take out the old canes that fruited the year before, ( you can tell them because they have lots of fruiting clusters branching off each cane) and leave only the new canes from the prior year. ( the fresh, smooth ones)
Those 2nd years can be put into supports at the same time, so they are easy to harvest from in the summer.
I should mention too, many of the 2nd year fruiters will set a small amount of late fruit as well, but many people “tip” them or cut the tops off their canes so they keep more vigor for the next years main fruiting.
Other people will probably have better suggestions, specific to your area and raspberry types.

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Tracy… YouTube above shows a good example of how to prune and properly trellis raspberries that fruit on 2nd year canes (floricanes).

That same type of trellis will work well with everbearing raspberry types too.

TNHunter

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In zone 5a.
The new growth are called “suckers” and i should keep them and they will bear fruit next year?

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Different types of raspberries spread in different ways…

Reds… very common for them to send out roots that send up canes some distance from the initial crown. I call those root shoots… but that is just me.

Blacks… often send up new canes very near the orig crown… but they also tip root quite easily.

Do you have Reds ? Blacks ? Yellows ? Purple ?

Also there are so called everbearing raspberry types… I have mostly those…

They bear fruit in the fall on first year canes (primocanes)… and then the next spring/summer will bear another crop.

My heritage reds produced raspberries on first year canes early Sept until Dec 3… and then the next year produced a crop late May until end of June on those same canes. After that 2nd crop they are done and are pruned out.

The fall crop fruit is on the top 1/3 (or so) of the canes and the 2nd crop on everbearing types happens on the bottom 2/3 of the canes the next spring/summer.

Some raspberry types only produce one crop a year on 2nd year canes only.

Is that what you have ?

That YouTube vid above shows exactly how to take care of those… especially if reds.

Step one: determine if you have single crop or all season cropping berry.

Step two: realize that raspberries are like weeds, nearly impossible to get rid of. There is not much you could do would kill them.

Not a step but keep in mind that they will survive with little love but raspberries are voracious eaters, they can eat lots of fertilizer and water for better crops.

Mine are ever bearing. End of season all the old canes are taken out, new grow is thinned so the bush gets lots of space. Overcrowding leads to small fruit. That and lots of compost, water, and the occasional fertilizer.

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“Suckers” is a generally negative term for plant growth.
For caneberries, this suckering habit is normal.

Caneberry growth is referred to as primocanes or floricanes.
Blueberries grow on bushes; grapes grow on vines; raspberries grow on canes.

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Tracy… I have a sister named Tracy… and one named Trudy… so you seem like a sister already :slight_smile:

I wish you well with raspberries… they are one of the best things you can grow… I think. Once you figure them out a little you will do fine.

Below is a pic of some root shoots (what you called suckers) that I captured and forced to stay in a nice compost mix a few weeks… then planted in other places in my food forest… gave some to my daughter, etc.

Most of those are heritage reds (everbearing) and I noticed today that some of those have blossoms on now… going to produce a fall crop. Everbearing type do that… fall crop… and the next spring/ summer another crop… then done.

That small yellowish green one front right is a fall gold… which I gave to my daughter… actually made her a raspberry bed and gave her 4 to start with… and yes… planted them for her.

She sent me a text this week with the pic below…

Those are fall gold raspberries that she just harvested off that plant I gave her this spring.

Raspberries are one of my favorite things to grow now… and i just started growing them recently.

TNHunter

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First you need to know is it a first year fruiting variety or a second. A first year fruiting variety can be pruned after production the first year but everbearing varieties may come again second year. Some varieties only fruit second year. Raspberry canes are biannual so anything that is just dead you can just start pruning. It will stimulate new growth anyway.

Hello Tracy, welcome to the forum :slight_smile:
It would also help if you filled out your profile a bit. (like with USDA climate zone)

There are a few things that would be useful for us to know.

-a photo of the plant.
-does it grow upright vertical shoots?
-does it grow long “climbing” shoots than tend to bend and grow somewhat horizontally?
-did you taste the fruits of it already? what colour where they?
-are you sure it’s a raspberry? "true raspberry’s are Rubus idaeus things where the common name contains raspberry, like “black raspberry” are actually closer to a blackberry than to a raspberry.

Regardles of what rubus sub species or hybrid it is.

We catagorise it as primocane (fruiting on this years shoots (shoots growing from the ground, not side shoots) and floricane , those fruit on last years growth.

To me it sounds like you have a floricane.
i’f written here about the differences

long story short, if your unsure, only prune shoots/branches that have fruited. And you’ll be fine.

I just posted a raspberry question under RASPBERRY PRUNE, so your video was very welcome. I guess I should ask you to back up and to discuss your trellis. In my post, I said that my wife lets her raspberries crawl along the ground (now about 12 feet long)…while I prefer my fruit plants to be ‘military fashion’ (upright and orderly). For two of her raspberries, I did place a metal cage (chicken wire 3 feet high) around each one so the plants would lean again the cage and maybe stand upright… Obviously, since her vines (I will call them vines since the raspberry has a stalk for the first six feet, but then becomes vine-y. I guess I should re-think my ‘cage’ form of trellis…and, instead, produce something like your video. I do have 2 grape trellises that I was going to use (with grapes growing up a vine 6 feet and across a top under which we have a seat), but I don’t think that will work. Any encouragement would be appreciated.