If you want a hearty crop of raspberries, you should prune your raspberries regularly. Pruning makes a vast difference in the quantity and quality of your harvest. It also ensures you have a healthy, thriving raspberry farm.
That is why, in this guide, we will discuss how and when to prune raspberries. You will learn about the best methods and tips to maximize your yield.
Once you master these pruning strategies, you can enjoy a more abundant and delicious raspberry harvest.
Types of Raspberries
Before you dive head-on into pruning raspberries, you should understand what type of raspberry is growing in your garden. Raspberries are divided into summer and fall-bearing raspberries.
Summer-Bearing Raspberries
Summer-bearing raspberries produce one large crop annually in late summer to early fall. They grow on canes that grew last summer, also known as floricanes.
To identify them, look for some bracts and little remnants on the cane. These canes are dry and look somewhat dead. These raspberries require careful timing for pruning to ensure a bountiful crop.
Ever-bearing raspberries differ from summer-bearing varieties by producing fruit on first-year (primocanes) and second-year (floricanes) canes. This cropping characteristic allows for longer harvesting seasons.
Ever-bearing canes do not look dry and dead. You will instead see signs of life, like leaves, swelling leaf buds, or flowers. The pruning strategy for ever-bearing raspberries can vary based on whether you aim for one or two harvests per year.
Black Raspberries
Black raspberries, or blackcaps, should be pruned differently than red and yellow ones.
These berries fruit on second-year canes and need to be managed and pruned carefully to maintain plant vigor and maximize fruit quality. Proper pruning ensures that black raspberries remain healthy and productive.
Purple Raspberries
Purple raspberries are a hybrid of red and black, with the best characteristics of both types.
They require pruning techniques that balance their unique growth patterns to ensure optimal fruit production and plant health. Understanding the hybrid nature of purple raspberries helps in adopting appropriate pruning methods.
Before starting, gather the necessary tools to make pruning efficient and effective:
Pruning Shears: To cut useless canes up to 1 inch in diameter.
Loppers: For canes larger than 1 inch and up to two inches
Pruning Saw: Required when canes are too large and woody for loopers and pruning shears.
Gloves: Raspberries are thorny and prickly, and gloves minimize cuts, scratches, and blisters.
Long Sleeves and Pants: Same reason as gloves.
Safety Glasses: To protect eyes from flying debris and dirt.
Sturdy Shoes: To keep your feet dry and protect it from injury.
Timing Your Pruning
You cannot prune your raspberries whenever you feel like it. There is a certain science to it, so you should only prune at an appropriate time.
If not, you might have to focus more on saving your plant than producing high-quality and quantity of raspberries,
Pruning Times for Different Raspberry Types
Black Raspberries
Prune in early spring before new growth begins. This timing ensures plants are pruned while dormant, promoting vigorous growth and optimal fruit production on second-year canes.
Purple Raspberries
Follow pruning techniques similar to black raspberries, focusing on maintaining a balanced structure and encouraging lateral growth for improved fruiting.
Summer-Bearing Raspberries
Pruning this variety at the right time can be tricky because new canes grow as the second-year canes produce the berries. You have to distinguish the two and prune them appropriately.
Second-year canes should be pruned after harvest in August, while new and growing canes should be pruned in spring after the dormancy period ends.
Ever-bearing Raspberries
Ever-bearing raspberries can produce berries twice in one season. However, some prefer a single large batch of berries. If you are one of them, prune the plant in late winter or early spring to sacrifice the summer crop.
But if you want an early summer and later fall crop, prune the raspberries in early spring. After the fall harvest, remove only the fruited canes, leaving the new primocanes for the next season's crop.
Step-by-Step Pruning Techniques
1. Harvest Ripe Berries
Harvest all the ripe berries before you prune your raspberry plant. Pluck the berries off the stem gently and place them in a shallow container.
Berries are fragile and can get squashed, so avoid throwing them roughly. If you are unsure about the ripeness, leave them on the vine for another day or two.
Unfortunately, the only way to tell whether a berry is ripe is by tasting them, which means you have to take a chance and pluck them.
Once you have harvested all the berries, remove the dead canes or the floricanes. These canes have peeling grayish-brown barks and branches that look like there were berries before.
These floricanes no longer produce fruit and will spread disease from overwintering. They might also spread the disease to new canes. Using the shears or loopers, cut all of these dead canes to the ground.
Thin Out Remaining Canes
After removing the dead canes, you should thin out the canes by cutting out canes that appear weak, spindly, or short or show symptoms of pest and disease problems.
These stems are gray or brown and less than 1/4 inch in diameter. They will snap with the slightest bending.
The final cuts should be made on the healthy canes. Healthy canes are vibrant green and do not break at the slightest bend. They are thick and robust, with abundant leaf production.
These canes should be trimmed to 5-6 feet and spaced appropriately. If they are crowded, they will not produce the desired harvest. You can stop pruning once there are three to five canes per linear foot.
For Everbearing Raspberries:
Single Crop
If you want a single and large berry crop, wait until the plant is dormant and cut down all canes to the ground during late winter.
Although you are forgoing the summer crop, this is simpler and more convenient. It eliminates winter damage and pest problems in a single session.
Double Crop
The double-crop method is ideal for enjoying your berry harvest longer. For two crops a year, prune the berries like summer-bearing ones.
Cut off the dead, weak, spindly canes to the ground to be left with the healthy ones. Hack these canes by about a third till they are 5-6 feet. Make sure they are spaced appropriately.
Black and Purple Raspberries
Prune them like summer-bearing raspberries and maintain a manageable height to encourage lateral growth. This approach ensures balanced fruit production and healthier plants.
3. Training Raspberry Canes with Trellis
Your raspberry plants could be blown to the ground if you live in a windy region. To avoid that, you can build a trellis to provide support for your plant.
Even if there is no wind, canes five feet or longer will benefit from the trellis.
Gather 6-foot tall stakes or posts (quantity depends on the size of your raspberry patch), 10 or 12-gauge galvanized wire, mallet, cardboard
Outline the size of your patch and lay down strips of cardboard around the outline to create a border.
After outlining, drive a stake into the soil at 4 corners of your bed with a mallet. The stakes should be a foot in the ground and ensure they are firm and tight.
You will need additional stakes at the center of the corners if your patch is longer.
Now add wire supports. Measure 18 inches up from the ground, and wrap the wire around the stake a few times.
With the same wire, wrap the next stake and repeat this until you have wrapped all four corners of the stake and reach the original stake.
Repeat this process with a second wire at the top of the stake.
Tuck your raspberry canes inside the wired-outlined bed.
4. Disposing of Pruned Material
After you pruning, collect and dispose of the debris properly. This practice reduces the spread of diseases on healthy plants and keeps your garden aesthetically pleasing.
You can burn or compost the pruned materials if local regulations permit. You can make mulch with it using a wood chipper that turns twigs into organic material.
Now that you have pruned your raspberry plant, you should focus on keeping the plant healthy. One way is by mulching. Mulching helps maintain soil moisture, suppress weeds, and protect the roots during temperature fluctuations.
To mulch, apply 2-3 inches of organic mulch around the raspberry plant base. It should not touch the canes directly to prevent moisture-related diseases.You should also incorporate maintenance tasks into your gardening routine.
The tasks include thinning new canes, removing suckers, monitoring for pests and diseases regularly, and taking action as needed. These tasks promote plant vigor and prevent overcrowding, leading to higher fruit yields.
Other Important Considerations for Maximum Harvest
As important as pruning is for maximum raspberry harvest, there are several other important considerations to ensure a good harvest.
Monitoring Plant Health
This applies to all plants. You need to care for your plants once you have planted it. The first step to caring is to look after your plant health.
You should inspect your plant for common raspberry pests and diseases, such as raspberry beetles or fungal infections. If you spot these problems early, you can treat them early and avoid serious issues that are difficult to deal with.
Raspberries need plenty of water to produce high-quality and quantity of raspberries. When the plants establish themselves, they need water throughout the growing season. When watering the plant, do not water overhead or wet the leaves.
Aim for the roots or the soil instead. Water can make the plants susceptible to fungal diseases. A drip irrigation system or leaky hose is the best way to water.
Once the plants are mature, rainwater is enough to sustain them. You do not need to water the plants. But this is only if your region has plenty of rainwater. However, if you live in a dry area, you can provide 1 to 2 inches of water weekly.
Fertilization
Knowing when and how to fertilize your raspberry plants guarantees a great harvest. Raspberries are heavy feeders, meaning they need to be fertilized annually and once during initial planting.
Before planting raspberries, supplement the soil with homemade compost or well-rotted manure. You can also add balanced slow-release fertilizer for extra nutrients that support the plants as they grow.
If you are using synthetic fertilizers, use a balanced feed that contains an equal amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, such as 10-10-10 or 20-20-20.
When you apply the fertilizer, place it 3 to 4 inches away from the stems to prevent plant burn. After the initial fertilization, apply fertilizer once a year after the plants have established in the spring.
Sunlight Requirements
We mentioned above that pruning raspberries involves removing weak and spindly stems. These stems arise from a lack of sunlight. When the raspberry does not receive enough sunlight, it cannot make enough food for growth.
This leads to weak and spindly stems that do not bear fruits. The plants are also at higher risk of pests and diseases. Raspberries need 6 to 8 hours of sunlight and partial shade during the hottest time of the day when the sun is directly above ground.
Failing to provide shade might scorch the plants. If the plants are indoors, indirect, bright light of 10 to 12 hours should do the job.
