too late to cut my blackberrys ?

[the big lebowski]

hi all i have 2 thornless blackberrys plants the are tied to horizotal wires but the have a few branches that are not tied to the wires and really should have been taken off by now i was just wondering if its too late to cut these off ? any thoughts welcome cheers

[Scarlet]

You can't do much harm to a blackberry - they grow like weeds. Did you prune out the spent canes?
The canes that fruited last year need to be removed.

[Thelma Sanders]

You can't do much harm to a blackberry

My thoughts exactly, but I never manage to prune mine without it getting its own back, despite wearing the gardening equivalent of body armour

[TrixC]

I can't really fathom the idea of deliberately planting a blackberry, I'm forever trying to stop them encroaching on my plot. Do the cultivated varieties taste different to the wild ones?

[the big lebowski]

i only had a small crop from them last years as it was my 1st season growing them but yes i can say they taste alot better than the hedgerow types that i also picked

[fishpond]

Thornless Blackberries are not the thugs that their thorned cousins are, even so, I think that removing old stems will do more good than harm, but if you are a bit short on fruiting laterals for this year you could leave them alone(make sure there are no new canes below them).

[the big lebowski]

ah that might be a problem the tallest / longest is on the highest of the 4 wires and this years new/shorter growth is on the lower 3 ,what happens to the lower ones if i leave it like this ?

[fishpond]

Never have the oldest on top, as when it rains it may drop fungal spores on to the new canes, this will infect the new canes with cane spot---That seriously reduces the amount of fruit and eventually will kill the cane stool.
Always feed new canes to the top and when the older canes are then waiting to crop lower them underneath---also, as the older canes are lower the sap hasn't got as much of a struggle to get along the cane so you do get a little more fruit.

Remember:- New canes at the top, older canes underneath.