After the first autumn frosts, the last, late varieties of raspberries finish fruiting. At the same time, the already fruiting shoots begin to dry up gradually.It is a signal for us to start nursing work
in raspberry.However, we will trim traditional varieties that bear fruit on two-year-old shoots differently than raspberries that bear fruit repeatedly.
Cutting traditional varieties
The first group of traditional raspberries includes such varieties as 'Beskid', 'Canby', 'Nawojka', from England 'Malling Seedling' and 'Malling Jewel',
and also a very valuable, new variety 'Glen Ample'.All bear fruit on shoots grown in the previous year.After fruiting, these shoots die. So the main purpose of the cut will be to cut out all the shoots that have already been bearing fruit. You may wonder when to prune raspberries. Proper pruning of raspberries will allow us to obtain more abundant crops, facilitate their harvesting, and reduce susceptibility to diseases. All raspberries, including autumn raspberries, can be trimmed to ground level in March or early April.
How to trim raspberries?
We cut them with secateurs quite low above the ground. We also remove some of the weakest annual shoots. We leave the remaining shoots that have grown this year. In a well-kept row of raspberries there should be no more than a dozen such shoots per meter of the row.
When to mow autumn raspberries?
Complete pruning of the raspberries can be done after harvest in late fall and before the start of a new harvest in spring.Thanks to this, you will receive abundant fruit in the next year. When the raspberries stop bearing fruit, it is worth shortening the raspberry shoots below the place where the fruit is growing. This is important to be able to completely remove the remaining shoots next year. Complete mowing can take place after two years, when the raspberries have fully returned to the fruit.
Cutting repeating varieties
Among the most valuable raspberries that repeat fruiting, the following varieties should be mentioned: 'Polka', 'Poranna Rosa', 'Pokusa' and the most popular 'Polana'. They plant flower buds not on biennial but on new year's ones. For this reason, they bear fruit a bit later - at the end of summer and autumn. They are cut slightly differently.The easiest way is to cut all the shoots low to the ground, because in the next season new shoots will grow and they will bear fruit.
We can also leave a few shoots grown in the current year on the bush, but we must remember to cut them by half.In this case, fruiting on the lower part of the shoots will start much earlier than on the ones that will sprout in spring.
