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Hi I am looking after a rather neglected allotment for a friend and the rasberry canes have just been left to their own devices for the last few years ---is it too late to prune them back and if not how much pruning should I do.....

Thanks

MEL78 wrote:Hi I am looking after a rather neglected allotment for a friend and the rasberry canes have just been left to their own devices for the last few years ---is it too late to prune them back and if not how much pruning should I do.....

Thanks

Raspberries are fairly indestructable, so whatever pruning you do is unlikely to kill them.

But if you want fruit remember that most types - the summer fruiting ones - will fruit on last year's growth. If you look carefully the buds on these canes should be starting to swell and the canes shoulf have a greyish hue about them. The other canes will be those that fruited last year and they are dead. On these others the "buds" will be shrivelled and the canes will have a redish-brown hue. As a final test, they snap easily and are dry inside. These can be cut away anytime.

For future pruning, cut back fruiting stems as soon as they have finished: this encourages new growth that will fruit the following year.

For the autumn fruiting type the fruit come on this years growth, so anything above the ground and can be removed, though make sure that they are autumn fruiting or you will get nothing this year.

Thanks for the advice any idea how I can tell if they are autumn or summer fruiting....there are dead berries on them now of last season so maybe they are autumn fruiting......

I believe that the autumn fruiting ones actually fruit twice in a year if you don't prune them back, but the general advice is to cut the canes back to near ground level in March, thus having a single but better crop in the autumn on the new year's growth (and to be honest it is so much easier doing this). How that works is that I think the canes that are in place at the moment (last year's canes) will produce a small crop this summer then die off, whilst new canes will sprout up which will fruit better in the autumn (leaving you with a huge tangled mess to contend with).

So I would imagine that if they are autumn fruiting ones then all the canes will still be 'alive', whereas if they are summer fruiting ones then they should be a mix of dead and live canes (as described by TRRE above).

Having said that, in your position I would be tempted not to do any drastic pruning JUST IN CASE! If you get a small crop in the summer followed by a bigger crop in the autumn then you will know what kind they are, and can then follow the normal advice for pruning from next year onwards.

So for now take out any canes that are obviously dead, give them a dose of fertiliser and mulch then wait and see what happens.

If there are the remains of fruit still on the canes then I would guess they are the autumn fruiting type.

But MMMs advice is sound - if you cut back anything that is oviously dead you will get some fruit whjatever and you will get a better idea for next year.

If you have too many and want to reduce the area a bit, just cut around the bit you want to save with a sharp spade to sever the roots then dig up the canes you don't need. You may find some grateful receipients for the surplus canes.