How To Prune Raspberries

For hearty crops of big berries – prune your raspberries! An annual prune makes the wickedest difference to harvest and health – check out those Clutha raspberries above! And as long as your berry patch isn’t scary wild, its a quick job on a sunny winters day.

Summer fruiters + autumn fruiters

There are two main types of raspberries: summer fruiters and autumn fruiters, and before we prune I’m going to do a quick run down of the growth cycle of each. “Really?!” you may well wonder, “but I just wanna know how to prune my berries. Do I need all this too?”

YES! Yes you do! In the three minutes it’ll take you – you’ll become a raspberry pro and you’ll understand two new (but simple) concepts: floricane and primocane. Knowing these is the key to excellent pruning – huzzah! awesome crops coming your way. Read on!

The growth cycle of summer fruiting raspberries:

Summer fruiting raspberries go through a two year cycle. The fruit comes on two year old canes.

Year 1: Primocane (Primo for first)
The new canes that shoot away from the ground in spring, are smooth and green and are called primocanes. Through the summer, they fatten and lengthen and buds develop along the cane.
In winter the canes go dormant – the leaves fall, the cane is now smooth and brown like the one in the photo above.

Year 2: Floricane (Flori for flowering)
The same cane, in it’s second year is called a floricane.
Little shoots emerge, mostly along the top section of the cane. Flowers grow on the tips of these shoots, becoming raspberries.
In winter the cane goes dormant and the leaves fall. The bark is now grey/light brown, coarse and peeling. Its productive life is over.

The growth cycle of autumn fruiting raspberries

Autumn fruiting raspberries follow a super simple one year cycle, they fruit on first year canes, which you hopefully know by now as primocanes.

Year 1: Primocane
The new canes that shoot away from the ground, in spring are called primocanes. Through the summer, buds develop, mostly along the top section of the cane. These buds sprout little shoots that flower on the tips, and become berries in late summer or autumn.
In winter the canes go dormant – the leaves fall, and the productive life of this cane is over.

And with that, my friends, you are ready to prune.

How to prune floricane bearing/ summer fruiting raspberries

• Remove the floricanes
  Cut all the floricanes off at ground level – they make great kindling!
• Thin the remaining primocanes out
  You want to be left with a stand of the strongest tallest canes – each in its own space for great light penetration and good airflow. With this in mind, start removing all the thin, stunted, twisty canes and continue to thin until the clutter is cleared.
  Remove any canes that are growing outside the edge of the frame/ row. Not only blimmin annoying at harvest time but they block the light and air that is so crucial to berry health.
• Attach the canes to your frame/ trellis
  Use biodegradable tie like jute and a simple hitch knot to tie each cane loosely but firmly to the frame/ trellis/wire. Tying up stops them bending or blowing over under the weight of the crop. It also makes next years pruning super easy – the tied canes are the ones you remove next winter.
  

How to prune primocane bearers/ autumn fruiting raspberries

There are two ways to prune primocane bearing raspberries.

• The simplest, and my fav, focuses only on an autumn crop.
• The other elicits both an autumn crop + a summer crop. This is called double cropping and is handy if you are short on space and don’t have the room to grow a mix of both floricane (summer) and primocane (autumn), bearers. Not all autumn fruiters will double crop – look for varieties called everbearing, or summer + autumn fruiters.

For an autumn crop only:

• Chop all the primocanes back to ground level. Job tidy.

For a summer + autumn crop (double crop):

• Prune out all the weak, spindly canes.
• Prune the strongest canes back by about a third. These are the canes that will give a summer crop.
• Prune the remaining canes to the ground – stagger these throughout the row to create space for your next autumn crop to come through.
• When the summer crop is finished, prune those canes out.

Give this process a few seasons to let the raspberries and the pruner find a rhythm. If they don’t double crop well, its likely because of the variety.

Clearing up the confusion:

Dear Kath, I thought I had an autumn fruiting raspberry but it fruits late summer, does that mean its a summer fruiter? Should I prune it as one? Thanks, Howard

Dear Howard, confusing isn’t it?! It probably is an autumn fruiter – some do indeed begin to fruit mid to late summer. Likewise, some summer fruiters begin to fruit in spring! Take those seasonal names with a grain of salt. The pertinent bit for you to understand is whether your berry fruits on its first year canes, called primocanes, or whether it fruits on its second year canes called floricanes. Here’s my How to prune Raspberries article – it explains all. If, after reading it you figure you do indeed have a primocane bearer, prune as per an autumn fruiter. Or if it turns out to be a floricane bearer, prune as per a summer fruiter. Love K

It’s useful to relate to your raspberries according to whether they fruit on primocanes or floricanes – a more accurate, clear cut description than the terms summer fruiter or autumn fruiter. Those names, quite frankly, aren’t always correct, and sometimes downright confusing.

Taming an overgrown berry patch

I once helped a lady who had let her berry patch get away on her. I’ve seen a few in my time, but this one! A quarter acre or thereabouts of raspberries clambered down a bank and up the other side – that’s the true potential of brambles, neatly side stepped with an annual prune (just saying).

My solution was a small digger to clear all, apart from a selection at the top of the bank near her house. Those ones, she took back to ground with a scrub cutter and began again. An excellent option if your canes have gone wild, and a useful way to figure your raspberries fruiting pattern out, if you don’t know it.

• If flowers + fruits dont turn up on the primocanes in summer, your raspberry is a summer fruiter or, as I prefer, a floricane bearer. Next summer, you’ll be back in the raspberry business.
• If flowers and fruits do turn up on the primocanes – hello to your autumn fruiter or as I prefer, primocane bearer.

And just like that, you’re away! Promise me you’ll prune ever year, ever after.