Identifying Raspberries

[cully_c]

I need some advice on identifying my raspberry canes. I know I have both summer and autumn canes in my fruit cage but I don't know which are which. I know that I am supposed to prune the summer ones' old canes and completely cut back the autumn ones but I don't want to do the wrong thing to the wrong ones!

Does anyone have any tips on identifying which are which by looking?

Some of the plants are now turning red and the leaves are dying and some plants are still green and seem taller. I was guessing that the ones that were dying completely where the autumn ones and the others were the summer ones.. could that be correct?

Any help would be great...

[zazen999]

The greener ones are next year's!

However this year's are usually peeling and brown by now....even my green ones for next summer are losing leaves so don't go by that.

A photo might help...

[cully_c]

thanks, i'll get a photo tomorrow. It's a bit of a mess, they aren't tied up or anything - one reason I want to get in there and tidy the whole thing up!

[FB.]

If in doubt, leave them until next year and see which fruit and when.
One year's lapse of pruning won't hurt them, so long as you get back into the correct pruning routine in following years.

Alternatively, if they're all a bit of a mess, you could just cut them all down to the ground and start fresh with next year's young shoots. However, only the autumn-fruiting one's bear fruits on one-year-old stems: the summer fruiting varieties bear fruit on two-year-old stems.

[gojiberry]

Just to add to the confusion it is possible to leave a few of the autumn fruiting canes and they will give any early crop next year. Some pointers, autumn fruiting canes will be putting up new canes in the next 5/6 weeks so any showing signs of new shoots now are likely to be autumn fruiting. Also a lot of autumn fruiting also have spines and summer ones don't but then there are exceptions to that rule. Any brown and brittle canes are definitely finished and should be cut back. Autumn canes tend to be very vigorous.

Ian