Taking a summer crop on fall bearing raspberries

General Fruit Growing
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I take a 2nd, summer crop on my everbearing raspberries. I just wanted to show why. I have a patch of all everbearing against an eastern wall. The plants only get morning sun till about 1PM and direct sun is gone. So the plants never really green up very well, all the same they still produce like crazy.
Here is Anne, note the lateral branching. All these canes, the top 1/3 was removed from the primocane crop last fall. Some still are 6 feet tall.

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Here is Fall Gold. Some of the laterals are 15 inches, All will produce flowers.
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Some of the shorter canes form a bush like structure for the summer crop. All canes pictured are everbearing floricanes.

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I have often read the summer crop is small. Well not in my experience! Many would have removed these canes, but I just can’t sacrifice the hundreds of berries these will produce. 2/3 of the plant is left with multiple short laterals. I just thought I would show what everbearing types look like when bearing a summer crop. These do block a lot of light, but in 2 months in July they will be removed and the primocanes will get the light to recover. All of these were primocanes blocked by last years floricanes, they look fine to me!

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I like it, Drew. you have so much more growth on those than I do on the sticks I planted this spring. It actually surprised me because your growing weather starts considerably later. I can only hope that ours make it through the summer and chill enough next winter for us to get anything even close to that good looking.

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I have noticed some do not respond well to a summer crop. I still need to evaluate. It seems location plays a role. Maybe because the canes are more protected by the wall. I have found the above pictured patch out produces the patch with a full southern exposure. The canes suffered some form the last two winters. The southern patch is more in the open. I need a mild winter to see if that is what is making a difference or is it cultivar? The fall crops are better on the southern patch. The plants green up better too.

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