Pruning shears may not sound like the go-to tool for increasing berry yields, but knowing when and how to prune raspberries will go a long way in ensuring that your plants produce plenty of delicious fruit. Pruning raspberries annually can increase berry yields – sometimes double – and help create a lush, healthy berry orchard. Use these tips and tricks to trim wisely at the right time.
1. Learn about berries.
How you prune raspberries depends on the type of raspberry you’re planting and sometimes when you want to harvest the fruit. All purple and black raspberries have a specific pruning schedule. The pruning of red or yellow raspberries depends on the time of fruiting of the plant.
Red and yellow raspberries can bear fruit in the fall and again in the early summer of the following year – these are known as autumn raspberries. They produce a large amount of fruit in the fall and a small amount in the summer of the following year. Red and yellow raspberries can also produce a large number of fruits in late summer to early fall. These are known as summer raspberries. Know your berries before pruning.
2. Seize the best timing.
When to prune raspberries depends on the type of raspberry you are planting. Purple and black raspberries are pruned in the spring, one more after fruiting, and another in the winter. Red and yellow raspberries are pruned after fruiting in the summer and again in the winter.
3. Keep enough space.
Red and yellow raspberries sprout a variety of sprouts from their roots. Within a few years, these thorns form dense clumps of raspberry vines, making it difficult to care for the plants and pick the fruit. Black and purple raspberries are less likely to grow around. No matter what kind of raspberry you grow, you should limit the plant to 2-foot-wide rows, removing any rattan outside the boundary. A sharp shovel or rotary tiller makes it easy to cut unwanted rattan.
4. Keep it clean.
Pick up and carry away all pruned shoots and debris. Removing prunes will help control plant diseases that can affect raspberries, such as anthracnose and branch blight.
5. Cover well.
Mulch doesn’t seem to affect pruning, but spreading 2 inches of mulch on raspberry planting ground each spring can actually help. Mulch will help reduce weeds and create a clean raspberry planting bed. In a raspberry planting bed where there are no weeds, the rattan is visible at a glance, which makes it easier to see what you’re doing when pruning. Wood chips, cocoa shells, or pine needles are all good mulching materials. You can even use a thick layer of grass clippings.
6. Protect yourself.
The raspberry vines are covered with thorns. Long glove-style leather gardening gloves, long sleeves, and long pants help protect your skin. When pruning the ends of vines, pruning shears are sufficient, but long-handled pruning shears are essential to safely reach into the berry field to pull out dead vines.
How to Prune Yellow and Red Raspberries
Autumn bearing
The red and yellow raspberries that bear fruit in the fall bear one batch of fruit in the fall and another batch in late spring or early summer the following year. Start pruning in the winter to remove dead vines (see tips below). Then cut the vines that had borne fruit in the fall of the previous year by a quarter. By cutting the fruiting vines short, you will encourage them to bear more fruit during the summer months.
In early summer, after the rattan bears fruit, each fruiting vine is cut to the ground. These rattans have completed their life cycle; They die in early summer after fruiting. Remove them as soon as they bear fruit in early summer to keep your raspberry fields tidy. Leave the unfruitful young vines in place. They will bear fruit in the fall.
Autumn-fruiting red and yellow raspberries can also be pruned to harvest a stubble in the fall. If only one crop is harvested, and the yield is usually large, simply cut all the wooden rattan to the ground at the end of winter. The plant will grow new canes from the buds at the roots. In early autumn, you can harvest a good harvest of berries.
Tip: When pruning raspberry vines in early spring before the leaves grow, it can be difficult to determine if the raspberry vines are dead or alive. Look for raspberry vines that are white to gray in color. These ayahuasca will feel fragile or light.
Summer-fruiting
The rattan of the summer-fruiting red raspberry grows in the first year, bears fruit in the summer of the second year, and then withers. In winter, trim all weak, broken, and diseased rattans. Trim the remaining rattan so that they are 6 to 8 inches apart. Watch out for vine-growing red raspberries in summer – they can emerge from outside the planting bed. Use a sharp shovel to remove the vines. After the summer fruiting of red raspberries, remove the fruiting rattan. Leave the rattan that does not bear fruit in its place; They will bear fruit next summer.
How to Prune Purple and Black Raspberries
At the end of winter, remove small, fragile, dead or damaged shoots. Try to leave three to five of the largest, most vigorous shoots in each bush. The branches of black and purple raspberries are long and arched. Cut the long shoots short so that they are 2.5 to 3 feet long.
In late spring or early summer, cut the vines of the newly grown black and purple berries by about 4 inches to allow them to grow branches. About a month after pruning in late spring, cut off the newly grown shoots another 4 inches or so. Repeated pruning of newly grown shoots will encourage the plant to grow branches and produce more fruit. Finally, in the summer after harvesting, remove all the vines that bear fruit. These rattans have reached the end of their life cycle. Leave the unfruited canes in their place. They will bear fruit next summer.