Raspberries

[Argonaut]

Planted 6 Raspberry canes this year ... Primocane range Autumn Bliss, All Gold and Polka.
Had considerable crops in this first year -which surprised me, and white Raspberry are novel.

Q is what do I do with them once fruit has finished, do I cut back to original cane length, do they need to be cut (trained) to the wire supports ....... any tips ?

[rustylady]

Cut the fruited canes right down to the ground. If the new canes are tall they would benefit from being tied to supporting wires to stop them blowing all over the place.

[Argonaut]

When you mean 'cut to the ground' .. do you mean that literally, or to a bud point above ground (or similar)

I have horizontal wires and have loosely tied canes to these as they grew up .... currently main ones are about 5' high

[WendyC]

Cut right down. That cane is finished with.

[Argonaut]

Thanks .... asked as when they arrived, had to plant and cut back to first bud after 6" above ground.

[Two_Sheds]

I don't do it until end of Feb. Having the canes standing all winter provides roosts for hibernating ladybirds, and protects the soil somewhat from winter gales & rain

[TrialAndError]

There is a difference between autumn fruiting raspberries and summer fruiting ones and that affects how they are pruned. Summer fruiting raspberries produce fruit on stems which grew last year, autumn fruiting raspberries produce fruit on stems grown in the current year.

So, for autumn fruiting raspberries you prune them down to the ground in midwinter - December or January. I always leave an inch or two of the stems left so I know where they are!

Summer fruiting raspberries should be pruned (differently) after they have produced fruit - a bit late in the year now but better late than never. You prune away to ground level all the stems which have produced fruit this year BUT leave the new stems which have not produced fruit this year - they will produce fruit next year. Even at this stage of the year it will be easy to distinguish between the two - new canes will have much greener stems compared to canes which have produced fruit this year.

If you cut down all the stems on summer fruiting raspberries you will in effect force them to act as autumn fruiting raspberries. You will still get a crop next year but not as good as it could be.

Remember it this way, summer fruiting raspberries prefer to be biennials (grow in year 1 and produce fruit in year 2) whereas any given autumn fruiting raspberry cane acts as an annual (grow and produce fruit in the same year). Of course, neither will die after one or two years but the principle is sound.

[TrialAndError]

Just checked the varieties you mentioned and all three are autumn fruiting. Just wanted anyone looking at this thread to know that not all raspberry pruning is the same.

[Scarlet]

I think it was mentioned in the original post. Primocanes are autumn fruiting and produce fruit on the first years growth. Floricanes are summer fruiting varieties and produce fruit in the second year.

[starloc]

I leave all autumn fruiting canes till they fruit a second time early next year (before summer fruiting ones) and then that cane dies back and will just snap if pulled, it doesn't seem to affect number of canes or amount of fruit in the autumn next year,

autumn fruiting ones all crop twice and then the cane dies, then its easy to see what to remove

[Martin H]

Here's a question ... my earliest raspberry Glen Moy gave me a good crop this year and once it was finished I cut the flowered stems back to the ground.
But this month some of the new stems have flowered and started setting fruit. Should I cut the flowers and young fruit off now, or just leave them alone until spring?

[Scarlet]

I cut them off - not sure if there is a right or wrong but there won't be enough time for them to fruit anyway.

[starloc]

I have raspberies flowering in Liverpool at the minute, Im still geting ripe fruit every day, on the Fall gold I often get a few ripe ones in the snow in January they seem to ripen in the winter as well , not quite as nice as ones in sunny weather but still fine to eat