How to Cut Back Raspberries

Raspberries are delicious and healthy fruits, packed with Vitamin C and containing more fiber than prunes on a calorie-by-calorie basis. Raspberry plants produce two types of canes: primocanes, which are the canes produced during the first year of growth, and floricanes, which are second-year fruiting canes. Once a cane produces fruit, it's no longer needed, and can be pruned. Prune at the end of the harvesting season, or when the plant is dormant, between November and March.

Loppers
Safety glasses
Gardening gloves
Trellising twine

Instructions

- 1
  Wear safety glasses and gardening gloves. Raspberry plants have thorns, and plant fragments may occasionally fly in your direction.
- 2
  Trim raspberry plants to a one-and-half- to two-feet-wide row. Cut all canes outside of this range, regardless of age and condition. Cut the canes at the base, and pull them away from the canes that you leave standing.
- 3
  Identify canes that are gray in color or have long offshoots. Older floricanes have already borne fruit, and will be unable to bear again. Use loppers to remove them at the base. Cut out any damaged canes as well.
- 4
  Identify new canes. New canes will be thicker, and have buds instead of offshoots. If you peel back the bark a bit, you will see a green color, indicating that they're still alive. Leave these canes to produce fruit for the coming year.
- 5
  Tie the remaining raspberry canes to a trellis wire using trellising twine. The trellis wire should be about three-and-one-half feet high. By tying up the canes, more sun will reach the middle of the row, helping the next primocanes to grow. This also allows for easier harvesting.
- 6
  Trim back raspberry canes over five feet tall. However, if you can reach the tops of your raspberry canes, refrain from cutting back, since this will reduce crop yield.

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