DIY Network

Pests and Pruning More tips for keeping your raspberries healthy From "Fresh From the Orchard" episode DFFO-103

Raspberries rarely have many disease or pest problems, and in this segment you'll learn how to make sure that your raspberries stay as healthy as can be. You'll also learn the proper way to prune raspberries, and get some special cultivation tips on preventing so-called "nuisance canes."

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Diseases and Pests

Always purchase certified disease-free plants.

Raspberries rarely need spraying in the home garden, although they are sometimes affected by anthracnose, cane blight, leaf spot or (in the southeastern U.S.) "double blossom" (a fungal disease). The best control mechanism against almost all raspberry diseases is good sanitation practices. Cut out floricanes immediately after harvest and burn or destroy. Old floricanes--even pieces of them--can let diseases overwinter.

To prevent disease infection, cultivated raspberries should not be planted within 1,000 feet of either wild raspberries or wild blackberries. Also avoid planting in an area where potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant or strawberries have been grown in the past three or four years.

Pruning

Raspberries are pruned differently according to whether they are summer-bearing or everbearing and according to what climate they are grown in.

	Figure A
	Figure B

Summer fruiting raspberries bear fruit on floricanes (second-year wood) only. The primocanes can be thinned out in either the spring or fall. Remove the weak looking canes (figure A) and leave six to eight study canes. The floricanes are all removed immediately after fruiting in the late summer.

Everbearing raspberries naturally produce two crops a year: they develop fruits on the tips of their primocanes in the summer and on the lower part of the floricanes in the fall. If you want two crops, prune as you would for summer-fruiting berries by removing all floricanes after they fruit. In hot climates, you can prune everbearing raspberries so as to produce only one crop. In late fall or early spring, simply cut down all the canes to several inches from the ground (figure B), then prune them again when the canes are about 1' tall.

Purple and black raspberries benefit from tip pruning during the summer, but red raspberries do not need tip-pruning.

When pruning thorny raspberries, always wear gloves, long sleeves and long pants to avoid scratches.

Figure C

Harvesting

Berries ripen over a several-week period. Check the plants every other day and harvest the berries when they are at their peak of ripeness.

Pick raspberries when they are plump and separate easily from the core (figure C). They should practically fall off the cane when you touch them.

Raspberries bruise and squash easily, so as you pick them, put them in a shallow container, and put only a few layers of berries in the container. If you put them in a deep dish and load the berries in, the bottom berries will get smashed.

RESOURCES :

Kilns
L & L Kilns
Website: www.hotkilns.com

Clay
Highwater Clays
Website: www.highwaterclays.com

Extruders
American Art Clay Co. Inc. (AMACO)
Website: www.amaco.com