My raspberry canes are producing what seems to be enormous quantities of new canes, and I'm concerned that this might be at the expense of the eventual crop. They're autumn fruiting type.
Should I reduce the number of canes per plant, and if so what would be a good number? I wondered at six per plant?
Peter
Other than getting rows overgrown and not able to 'fit in' to pick the berries..I haven't found reducing cane numbers making any difference to the crop. If they have energy to make good size canes they will have energy to fruit.
If they do make number of weak canes..I would take those out as they are just waste of energy and hardy produce anything.
If you feel that they do need 'thinning out'..take out the weakest and shortest growth and odd 'good' cane..the number of canes per plant is not the issue but what space they have available.
If they're making canes now then they're not autumn fruiting surely, that's a summer fruiting habit, autumns put up a load of growth in spring and early summer adn then flower on the new canes, summers flower on last years canes earlier in the year adn then put up a load of new growth.... is it possible they're summer fruiters?... Most of the chepa canes frmo Aldi adn Lidl seem to be summer fruiting in my experience....
Some of my autumn ones are producing runners at the moment mostly a foot or more from the mothers. I will move these in the winter to produce a new row.
Our autumn raspberry canes produce new growth throughout the summer. New ones are still coming up and with luck will bear fruit in Sept and October. There's no stopping them! The problem is only finding the fruit in the forest!