Pruning raspberries in the fall - detailed instructions for young gardeners

Pruning raspberries in the fall is an important part of caring for raspberries that are growing too fast. If you give free rein to the bushes, in a couple of years they will turn into impenetrable thickets with dense foliage instead of sweet berries. No, you will have a harvest, but it will not please you either in size or quantity. But the plantings cleared in the fall will winter better, and they will hurt less, and they will tie more berries. In order for pruning to really benefit, it is important to know how to properly implement it and when it is best to do it. By preparing your raspberries for wintering, in the spring you will get a healthy and abundantly fruiting raspberry tree.

Why autumn raspberry pruning is important

You can often hear, especially from novice gardeners, that berry bushes are best pruned in the spring. Yes, after the end of fruiting, you can see which shoots have yielded and need to be removed, and it is difficult to confuse them with young ones. And unsuccessfully overwintered and frozen stems are also visible to the naked eye.

Together with uncut raspberries, both pests and fungi successfully winter on it. And with the arrival of heat, they begin to actively multiply, affecting new areas. This is precisely the main goal of autumn pruning: to remove unnecessary plants in time, along with the insects living on them. Affects the choice of when to prune and the nature of the winter. The colder it is and the less snow it is, the more sense it makes to carry out work in the fall. An unkempt raspberry tree with young stems not covered by a snow cover will simply freeze out.

In addition, autumn work in the raspberry tree allows you to improve its development and increase fruiting, namely:

1. Removing the sprouted shoots makes it possible to get adequate nutrition for the young growth. As a result, it winters better and does not freeze out.
2. Pruning helps regulate growth, as raspberries form a lot of growth over the season. This leads to a thickening of the plantings, moreover, they begin to go beyond the allotted area. Root shoots may appear up to 3 m from the planting site. In crimson thickets, plants do not receive enough food and light. The ovary becomes smaller, the berries become smaller. Needless to say, it becomes difficult to harvest at least such a crop. We have to wade through the thickets and each trip to the raspberry tree ends with scratched hands and not only. And in such wilds various insects and diseases quickly appear.

Non-remontant varieties of raspberries yield a crop only on last year's shoots. In the third year, most of them dry out, and if they survive, they give few berries, while taking food from the fruiting second years.

Therefore, when carrying out autumn work, it is recommended to cut them out in order to preserve the yield of the raspberry tree. Also, it is in the fall that the formation of bushes occurs - the replacement of some of the old shoots with young ones.

When to prune raspberries in the fall

Pruning time depends on two factors: the type of raspberry and the region where it is grown. In the latter case, the timing varies from mid-summer to mid-autumn. You can start pruning after the end of fruiting and the last harvest. If the moment was missed, it does not matter - it is quite possible to do it a month later.

But the main rule says: work in the raspberry tree must be completed 3 weeks before the arrival of frost.

Estimated pruning times for different regions:

• the southern strip - from the second decade of July to the second decade of October;
• middle band - from the second half of August to the second half of September;
• northern regions - month of August.

Yet again, remontant raspberries cut on a different principle. Since it bears fruit until autumn, pruning is not started in summer, but only after leaf fall. Moreover, autumn pruning of this crop variety is carried out only in the south. In cooler regions, trimming work is carried out in the spring.

Timing of pruning raspberries according to the lunar calendar

Many gardeners carefully plan all garden work, including pruning, guided by the lunar calendar. Regarding pruning, the waning phase of the moon is more suitable for this procedure. It is characterized by "reverse sap flow" in all plants. That is, all nutrients literally go to the root.

For autumn pruning in 2019, the following days are favorable:

• September - 2, all odd numbers from 5 to 9 and 28 September;
• October - 1, 4 - 5, 10, 29;
• November - 3, 7 - 8, 11, 30.

Do not prune raspberries on October 1 and November 1, as well as on the 28th and 26th of the respective month.

Pruning raspberries in the fall - general recommendations

Regardless of what type of raspberry grows on the site, there are general rules for the procedure.

The following stems are subject to complete removal at the root:

• sick;
• damaged by pests;
• dry;
• broken ones (even if they are simply shortened, they will still give a weak crop, and they will take away food from the rest);
• grown in the second half of summer (they are too weak and will freeze in winter);
• rubbing against each other (leave a more even and correctly growing shoot).

The tops of young shoots are shortened. How high to cut depends on the degree of development of the stems:

• highly developed tall shoots are shortened to at least 1.2 m;
• underdeveloped - up to 1 m.

If the young growth has weak tops, they are cut to the first good (healthy) kidney. On average, each stem of the bush becomes 20 - 25 cm lower.

At the same time, young growth is also subject to partial complete removal in order to thin out the shrub. To avoid thickening and to provide good lighting, the remaining stems should be fanned out.

Pruning regular raspberries in the fall

Cultivars that bear fruit only in summer are easy and simple to prune, even for novice gardeners. The first step is sanitary pruningdescribed in the first paragraph above. Then two-year-old shoots are also removed - these are those that have yielded a crop. As you know, simple raspberries give ovary only in the second year, and by the third season, most of such stems die off. Therefore, a new bush is formed due to a young growth. He will replace the fruiting branches.

However, raspberries give a very strong growth and a lot of young stems grow during the season. Therefore, some of the branches are also cut out for thinning. If you leave regular raspberries as they are, such a bush will be too thick, and numerous stems will need more nutrition. This will affect the harvest - there will be fewer berries and they themselves will not please with large sizes. Moreover, thickened raspberries increase the risk of diseases and the appearance insect pests.

The nuances of pruning fast-growing raspberry varieties in the fall

Carrying out pruning of those varieties of culture that are distinguished by the rapid growth of shoots has its own characteristics. One of the brightest representatives of vigorous varieties is the Cumberland black raspberry. With regard to her and other similar varieties, it will not be possible to use the cutting method for simple raspberries and limit themselves to a single holding. In this case, by the middle of summer, due to too active growth, the bush will become too thick. Pruning once only encourages more branches to appear. The thickened raspberry tree will start to hurt, and the yield will drop.

Both Cumberland and all fast growing raspberry varieties need to be pruned twice:

1. In summer.At the end of June, young stems are shortened, the height of which has reached and exceeded 2 m. After the procedure, shoots with a height of no more than 1.7 m should remain. By next summer, they will grow many lateral fruiting branches. Accordingly, the harvest will be greater.
2. Autumn. Since October, the raspberry can be prepared for wintering. Now it's time to do sanitary pruning: remove thin, broken and diseased stems. Also, branches older than 2 - 3 years are completely cut out (matured). Last year's lateral growth is shortened by 20 cm (it will have a future harvest). And too tall young stems are cut to the height of the trellis.

If summer pruning is carried out to increase yields, then autumn pruning is sanitary and forming.

Features and methods of autumn pruning remontant raspberries step by step

Regular raspberry varieties give only one harvest, do not take care of them. But remontant types of culture are capable of bearing fruit several times in one season. In addition, unlike the former, sweet berries ripen not only on two-year-old stems, but also on one-year-old shoots. Therefore, the pruning of such varieties is fundamentally different in both the method and the timing. Since the procedure is carried out after the last harvest, it does not fall in the summer, but in the autumn. And only in the southern regions, otherwise the bushes will freeze in winter.

The general rules for pruning remontant raspberries in autumn are as follows:

• complete removal of biennial stems under the root;
• shortening annual shoots by 20 - 30 cm.

As already mentioned, remontant varieties tie berries until autumn. However, some gardeners prefer to harvest one crop, but a larger one.

When growing this type of plant, two pruning methods are used to choose from:

1. Cardinal pruning for one crop. After the first frost, the entire raspberry tree is cut completely into a stump. Previously, this cannot be done, otherwise the young shoots that have appeared will freeze out in winter. In the spring, they are simply thinned out.
2. Pruning twice for two crops. After the first wave of fruiting, two-year-old shoots are cut out. The remaining stems are pruned, like a simple raspberry, after the second, autumn, fruiting.

When using the second method, each of the crops individually will not be very large. But together they will give as many berries as ordinary varieties, but in terms of keeping quality they will surpass them.

Double pruning raspberries in the fall according to the Sobolev method

In the 1980s, one of the gardeners named Sobolev proposed his own method of pruning remontant raspberries. It is aimed at a significant increase in the yield of the berry and makes it possible to collect up to 6 kg of yield from each bush. The basis of the procedure is also the double pruning, characteristic of this plant variety, but improved.

The formation of a young bush itself takes several years:

1. In the first season, no more than 10 shoots are left in raspberries.
2. In the second year, those branches that bear fruit are removed. They are replaced with young growth, while reducing the number of stems to 8 per bush.
3. This is how the replacement is carried out annually, reducing the amount by 2 stems. As a result, at the final stage, the shrub will have 4 young branches.

To ensure that all the plants in the raspberry plant have enough light, and the air circulates freely between the stems, keep distances. Saplings are planted at a distance of at least 1 m from each other.

In the future, they make sure that young shoots do not creep beyond these boundaries. When planting raspberries in rows, a row spacing of at least 2 m is left.

Despite the huge advantage of the relatively high yield method, it also has disadvantages. As a result of intensive cutting, the bushes quickly give rise to young growth and thicken. To prevent this, excess growth is regularly removed during the season.

The advantages of pruning raspberries according to Sobolev

Sobolev pruning is used mainly in warm regions and is carried out in the spring:

1. In the first decade of May, the stems are shortened, leaving no more than 1 m. Such a height will not take away much nutrition from the roots. In this case, the shoots grow strong and do not break in the wind.
2. In the second year, trimmed branches have lateral branches. They are also pruned in the spring, removing the tops. At the same time, straight young stems are also shortened, also up to 1 m. By the middle of summer, the bush, cut according to Sobolev, has: branching second-years with many ovaries, flowering annuals, young growth.
3. In the fall of the second year, two-year-old branched stems that have yielded a crop are removed.
4. In the third spring, the lateral branches of the last year's cut growth are again shortened and the young are pruned. The stems of the current year are necessarily thinned out, forming a bush further.

In the fourth season, the procedure is repeated from the beginning. As you can see, as a result of frequent pruning, raspberries branch strongly and give a lot of growth. On the one hand, this is good: the more stems, the higher the yield. All this is due to the ability of remontant raspberries to bear fruit on both young and last year's shoots.

And to avoid the main drawback - the thickening of the bushes, frequent thinning of the raspberry tree will help.

How to trim raspberries in the fall is described in detail in the video.

Caring for raspberries in the fall after pruning

Undoubtedly, pruning is an important procedure and helps to prepare the raspberry tree for a safe winter.

However, this is not all, because after cutting the plants need this kind of care:

1. Autumn feeding. Potassium sulfate and superphosphate will increase the winter hardiness of crops and will contribute to the establishment of fruit buds. Suitable for autumn fertilization of bushes and solution of poultry manure for watering at the root.
2. Moisture-charging irrigation. It is especially important if the autumn was dry, without rain. One adult bush requires at least 5 buckets of water.
3. Preventive treatment. Spraying with Bordeaux liquid will save raspberries from diseases. Common varieties are cultivated in spring.
4. Mulching the trunk circle will protect the roots from rodents and frost.

As for whether it is necessary to cover remontant raspberries, it winters well only in the southern regions. In the rest of the territory, where winters are cold and often with little snow, the raspberry tree needs additional protection. Covering is easier by first tying the stems into bunches and bending them to the ground. From above, the raspberries are covered with plant residues or foil, making ventilation holes.

How is raspberry pruning carried out in the fall - video