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As a rule, raspberries do not cause special hassle to gardeners and is a fairly unpretentious berry bush, but still needs some attention. With proper care, which implies knowledge of how to properly cut raspberries in spring or after fruiting, you can not only ensure a stable crop, but also increase it several times. When is it better to trim the bushes, and what needs to be considered when choosing a particular method?
To ensure effective growth and reproduction of raspberries, the first pruning should be done when planting seedlings, which should be shortened to 50 cm. Both at the initial stage, and in the future, pruning should be performed with a special tool - a pruner.
Features of pruning raspberries in spring
Pruning raspberries in spring should be carried out at the very beginning of the season immediately after melting snow until the time when the soil warms up completely. The choice of the month for pruning (March-April) depends on the weather in which the raspberries are grown. Choosing a version of spring pruning raspberries, you should take into account the characteristics and varieties, namely, the number of fruit during the season (one or more).
Pruning varieties that yield one crop
The procedure is as follows:
- Removing with the help of a garden pruner weak, sick and dried branches. In the presence of frozen stems, they are shortened to a healthy kidney;
- Thinning annual shoots up to 5-8 per bush. When spring pruning is carried out on the bushes grown by the trellis method, free spacing of at least 10-15 cm is left between the shoots;
- The remaining stems are shortened by a quarter of the length, so that in the end the length of the shoot is 120-150 cm.
With this variant of cutting, full coverage of bushes is provided, pests and diseases are prevented. Also, the growth of the remaining shoots slows down, due to which the lateral buds begin to develop actively.
Considering the options how to properly cut raspberries in spring, it should be noted and the way in which ordinary raspberries will bear fruit for a longer period. Pruning is carried out according to the following rules:
- All shoots are divided into four parts;
- the first is shortened by 10-15 cm (they will bear fruit at the beginning of the season);
- the following shoots are cut to 20-30 cm;
- shoots of the third part are shortened by half;
- the remaining stems are cut almost to the stump, leaving 3 cm of height (they will complete the fruiting).
Features of pruning raspberries in autumn
If you do not have time to trim raspberries before the beginning of the fruiting season, you should familiarize yourself with how to trim raspberries for the winter. The procedure should be no later than a couple of weeks before the cold snap. Before pruning, the bushes are carefully scanned to determine the shoots to be removed and the choice of stems that will yield the crop in the next year.
Pruning raspberries for the winter involves removing the following shoots:
- Fertilized, infected by pests and diseased stems;
- Young enough to gain strength of shoots, which can not overwinter;
- Two-year-old shoots, which yielded the last couple of years, so that they do not disturb the nutrition of young stems;
- Hacked and superfluous shoots, which overstrain the bush.
Pruning raspberries in the autumn of these shoots is done without leaving the hemp near the base. When forming bushes between them leave a free distance of at least 60 cm, cutting out excess stems with the help of shovels (retreating 20 cm from the main bush, in a circle dig out the raspberries themselves, after which they process the soil outside circle).
Pruning raspberries for the winter contributes to the rapid growth of raspberries, so on the running meter you need to leave about 10 shoots. At the same time, trimmed raspberry raspberries, cutting each shoot to 10 cm.
Features of pruning raspberries by Sobolev
Today, the most popular option for pruning raspberry bushes is pruning raspberries according to Sobolev, named after the Russian gardener who is the founder of raspberry. For this method is characterized by a combination of simplicity and efficiency, while high-quality pruning can even inexperienced gardeners.
According to the technology of double pruning raspberries, the formation of bushes is carried out both in the spring and in the autumn period. The date of the first trimming is the end of May or the beginning of June, when young stems reach a height of 80-100 cm, depending on the type of raspberry. Later, pruning is extremely undesirable, since shoots may not have time to gain strength and in the end will not suffer the winter cold. At this stage, the tops of the stems are cleaved, removing 15 cm of height.
After pruning, the bush practically does not grow in height, since lateral branches begin to develop actively. After just a couple of days after pruning, the first shoots are already visible in the upper sinuses, and by the beginning of autumn, instead of a single shoot, a powerful stem with five or six sprouts, each 50 cm in length, This year, no pruning activities are carried out anymore.
Next spring, when the first leaves appear on the shoots, they proceed to the next stage of double pruning of raspberries. The procedure is to shorten safely survived the winter shoots by 10-15 cm. This is done in order to form many new branches on the main trunk, the number of which increases tenfold before the beginning of fruiting.
According to Sobolev, the guarantee of the effectiveness of double pruning is the correct implementation of the second stage. With the observance of the rules, the results exceed all expectations - instead of the single-stemmed habitual look for a single stalk, the bush becomes in completely covered with flowers, buds, ovary and mature berries shoots, while the fruiting ends only with the onset cold weather.
Pruning raspberries according to Sobolev makes it possible to make a repair raspberry from ordinary raspberry, essentially increasing the yield of raspberry.
Along with the advantages of double pruning has disadvantages. It is a question of too active overgrowing of crimson bushes, which leads to excessive thickening of raspberries. As a result, the ventilation of shoots deteriorates, their shading increases, and as a result pests and diseases become affected. If you do not take timely measures, you can lose not only the harvest, but also the bushes themselves.
In order to avoid such problems with a double trimming method, the distance between rows of crimson bushes should increase to a minimum of 2 meters, and bushes located next to each other in the row should be removed from each other minimum per meter.
The maximum number of shoots for one bush should not exceed 10. If desired, significantly increase the yield of raspberries, double pruning of raspberries can be carried out with a gradual decrease in the number of substitution stems and fruiting shoots. First out of 10 leave 8, after - 6 and in the last stage - 4 young shoots formed.
