Pruning and Training Raspberries: Essential Techniques for Healthy Plants
Pruning stimulates the growth of new, productive canes, increases berry size, and reduces disease risk by improving airflow and removing dead wood. Combined with proper training, these practices make harvesting easier and boost overall fruit yield. While these are general guidelines, adapting them to specific varieties and local conditions will further enhance results.
Before you start pruning, you must gather the tools you will need. Get a good set of gardening shears, secateurs, or loppers, a pair of thick gardening gloves because some varieties are thorny, and safety goggles or sunglasses.
Training Raspberries
Training raspberry plants on a trellis supports their upright growth, increases sunlight penetration, and makes harvesting easier. For most varieties, a two-wire trellis system is ideal. Secure wires 60-76 cm (24–30 inches) apart on sturdy posts spaced about 4.5-6 m (15–20 feet) apart. Canes should be tied to these wires with soft materials like cloth or twine. Spacing canes 10-15 cm (4–6 inches) apart along the wire allows better air circulation, reducing humidity and preventing fungal diseases (6).
A V-shaped trellis is particularly effective. Half the canes are tied on one side of the wire and the other half on the opposite side, forming a "V" that enhances air movement and light exposure. This setup simplifies pruning, keeps fruit cleaner, and prevents canes from sprawling onto the ground. Properly trained plants are healthier, easier to manage, and produce higher-quality berries. Regardless of the system used, regular adjustments to tie and position canes throughout the growing season are key to maintaining an efficient and fruitful raspberry patch.
Pruning Raspberries
Pruning raspberries is essential if you want healthy plants and a good yield. Pruning helps raspberries grow new canes, produces bigger harvests, and decreases the chance of diseases from old or dead canes. To achieve the best results with pruning, learning a few things about the Raspberry plant is recommended.
Raspberries have a perennial root system, meaning the roots live year after year, and biennial canes, which live for two years. In the first year, new canes (primocanes) grow. These either remain vegetative or, for fall-bearing varieties, produce a fall crop. In their second year, these primocanes become floricanes, bearing fruit in summer before dying. There are two basic raspberry varieties: the summer-bearers and ever-bearers (fall-bearers).
The summer-bearing raspberries are cultivars that grow for one year, go through the winter, and they will produce fruit on the same cane next year. After they give fruit, the canes die. These are last year`s fruiting canes (also called spent floricanes) and must be removed. Just cut off the dead canes from the base (also called cane out). You can easily spot the dead canes from the alive ones. Spent floricanes are greyish and have shooting laterals (little thin branches) that we call fruiting laterals.
You can prune the dying floricanes anytime after harvest or wait and prune them during winter when the cane will be completely dead. Accelerate the process if you spot any disease symptoms at the canes. Do not prune or tip the floricanes (fruiting canes) growing in an acceptable position during spring and summer because this will create lateral branches (not desirable for raspberries) (1). Finally, the farmer can thin some of the remaining canes that are weak and short and do not produce any fruit. You can leave 3–4 canes per square foot (2). The goal is to have one fruiting cane about every 6 inches (15 cm). You want to keep the fruiting canes with buds on them instead of little branches in spent floricanes, which will give fruits in the spring. You do not have to cut the tips off the canes unless they are too tall for you to reach them. In this case, you can trim them during the end of winter to a bud about 4 inches (10cm) above the top wire (3, 4).
Also, you can keep the row narrow up to 1-2.0 feet (30.5-60 cm) and remove any canes (also called suckers) outside your row so that it will be easier to walk between the rows and harvest later on. If the suckers are disease free, you can plant them separately and get new plants later.
Pruning is an even more straightforward process in everbearing compared to summer-bearers. The fall-bearing raspberries are cultivars that grow two crops in one year. The first year, they grow and produce fruits in the fall instead of going through the winter, and with proper pruning, they can produce another crop in the following summer. The fall crop is larger than the summer crop. There are two methods of pruning fall-bearing varieties.
One method gives two crops a year, and the other only one large crop in the fall. Follow this method if you want one summer crop and one fall crop in one year. You will notice that the cane will produce fruits starting from the top in the fall until it gets too cold, and it will produce again at the bottom the next June. First, the top part will die, and the bottom part will die later in June. You can cut off the top dead part of the cane in the fall and the rest in June. Leave the first-year canes or primocanes unpruned.
On the other hand, if you desire to have only one large crop in the fall or to avoid confusion about what to prune, you can mow all the raspberries off at the ground level after the fall harvest (2). Do not do that with the summer-bearing raspberries, as they will grow canes and not produce any fruits ever. You can dispose of all the dead canes to prevent the spread of disease and insects. Finally, you want to keep the plants supported by a trellis. You can make a V-shaped trellis using a rubber band or a rope to tie the canes on the wire. Tie half of the canes on one side and the other half on the other, making a V-shaped crop. The V shape allows the sunlight to come through the plants, and the air can circulate easily, preventing any humidity between the plants that can attract various fungi. You should have no more than one cane every 4 inches (10 cm) of wire.
These are general guidelines, but you are advised to check the specific requirements for different varieties and production systems (raised beds, etc.) (1, 5).
References
- https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/catalog/files/project/pdf/ec1306.pdf
- https://web.extension.illinois.edu/raspberries/pruning.cfm
- https://www.rhs.org.uk/fruit/raspberries/grow-your-own
- https://extension.umn.edu/raspberry-farming/pruning-and-training-raspberries
- https://extension.tennessee.edu/publications/documents/SP284-G.pdf
- https://extension.umn.edu/raspberry-farming/pruning-and-training-raspberries
Further reading
10 Health Benefits of Raspberries
Interesting facts about Raspberries
Raspberry Plant Information and Variety Selection
How to Cultivate Raspberries Commercially
Raspberry Soil Requirements, Site Preparation and Planting
How to Grow Raspberries from Seed
How to Grow Raspberries in Containers
Raspberries Propagation and Pollination
Raspberry Irrigation: Best Practices for Healthy Growth and High Yields
How to Train and Prune Raspberries