Pruning & Training Raspberries

Primocane Fruiting Types

• Produces fruits at the top of the first year canes in late summer and in the lower portions of the same canes in early summer of the second year.

• Fruit quality of early summer crop is low.

• For a single late season crop harvest, canes are cut very close to the ground in December to February. Remove the canes and destroy.

• Berry number per lateral and the number of canes can influence the yield; hence, maximize the number of canes per acre in the fall crop.

• Use a T- trellis system with strings to support the cane-bearing fruits.
  

Floricane Fruiting Types

• Fruits produced from buds on second year canes (Red, Yellow, and Purple types).

• Canes (primocanes) left intact in winter until the end of summer harvest. Flowering and fruiting canes (floricanes) occurs in second year while canes that will bear fruits next year start growing. Cut the floricanes after harvest.

• Pruning is necessary to minimize interference.

• The following year, top and thin remaining canes to 3-4 canes per square feet. Thinning can continue in spring and early summer.
  

Care for Black Raspberries

• Pinch primocanes in early summer at a height of 28 inches to stimulate branching by removing about four inches of the tip.

• Support laterals by trellis wire in fall.

• Black raspberries need more care and are less winter hardy (cover with soil or mulch during winter).

Raspberry with primocanes and floricanes (primocanes are first year growth and in second year they grow into floricanes which bear fruits).