Spring - it's time for intensive work on household plots and cottages. Timely pruning and proper measures for caring for fruit and berry crops are the key to obtaining a large crop.
In the article you will find out whether it is possible to trim raspberries in spring and how to do it correctly.
Raspberry belongs to berry semishrubs. Its bush consists of one-year and two-year above-ground shoots. Raspberry fructifies on two-year-old shoots, which die in autumn. In the first year, the stems grow and thicken, and in the axils of the leaves 1-2 flower buds are laid, of which the next year grow fruit branches with inflorescences. Inflorescences forming in the middle part of the stem give the bulk of the berries ripening in July. In the repair raspberry varieties, in addition to the main crop, a small number of berries ripens on the tops of annual shoots in autumn.
Knowing these features of the development of raspberry, you can start spring pruning shrubs.
Timing and rules of pruning
We start pruning raspberries early in the spring, when the snow comes down, but the earth will not have time to warm up. The exact time depends on the weather conditions of the growing region. When pruning shrubs, it is necessary to consider what kind of variety they belong to, that is, how many times in a season they bear fruit: one or several.
For varieties that yield one crop, when pruning it is necessary to adhere to such rules:
- dry, weak and diseased branches are removed, the frozen ones are shortened to a healthy kidney;
- the annual shoots are pruned, leaving 5-8 pieces per bush or 10-15 cm between them with the trellis method of cultivation;
- we shorten all the stems by a quarter of their length, the remaining part is about 120-150 cm.
This allows raspberry plantings to gain access to light, prevents the appearance of diseases and pests, and shortening slows the growth of plants, directing all the released nutrients to the development of the lateral kidneys.
To organize a longer harvest time, you can cut the usual raspberry in spring in the following way:
- the first part of the shoots is shortened by 10-15 cm;
- the second - by 20-30 cm;
- the third - by 50%;
- the fourth - leave 3 cm.
Thus, the poorly cropped shoots will be the first to yield, and the cuts to the stump will bear fruit in August.
Now the gardeners are very popular double spring pruning according to Sobolev, which is as follows:
- In the first year at the end of May, 10-15 cm are pruned with a pruner of shoots with a height of more than 0.5 m.
- In the spring of the following year, after bud blossoming, the tips and shoots and side branches are shortened by 5-15 cm.
This technology allows you to get more berries and extend the fruiting till October. With such pruning, care should be taken to ensure that the planting is not thickened, and that more intensive care is required.
Pruning Raspberry Raspberry
Pruning raspberry raspberry , due to the peculiarities of fruiting, in spring is carried out according to other rules. Since the plant spends a lot of effort on the maturing of the first crop on annual shoots and on the formation of stems of substitution for the second crop, then such varieties are grown by annual shoots.
In the first year, young annual shoots, from which they harvested a crop in August, cut up all three centimeters of hemp in autumn and then cover for the winter. In the spring in April, sanitized and pruned to the first living kidney. In May, the tips of the shoots are shortened further, so that the fruiting was a little later and more prolonged.
Caring for raspberries
In addition to pruning, caring for raspberries in spring is as follows:
- garter stems to the support;
- loosening and weeding from weeds;
- regular watering;
- mulching inter-rows;
- in the spring to feed complex fertilizers, and before flowering and after the termination of fruiting - superphosphate and potassium sulfate;
- preventive treatment of plants from pests and diseases (in the spring - Bordeaux liquid, and during flowering - biological products);
- cutting of old breeding shoots under the root and sanitary trim in the autumn period.
By applying efforts to care and the correct formation of a raspberry plantation, you can even from a small plot be able to harvest a good harvest of this tasty and healthy berry.