Raspberries are divided into two main categories based on their fruiting habit: summer-bearing and everbearing. The ‘Heritage’ cultivar is one of the most widely grown red raspberries, and its popularity is directly tied to the way it produces fruit. This particular variety provides a flexible and extended harvest season, making it a favorite for home gardeners.
The Definitive Answer: Yes, Heritage is Everbearing
The ‘Heritage’ is a classic everbearing raspberry variety. This means the plant produces fruit on canes that grew in the current season, unlike summer-bearing types that only fruit on year-old canes. Everbearing is also frequently referred to as fall-bearing because the most significant harvest typically occurs in the late summer or autumn.
‘Heritage’ is a hardy, self-pollinating variety, producing firm, medium-sized berries with a desirable balance of sweetness and tartness. Its reliable nature allows for either one large fall crop or two distinct harvests, depending on the grower’s pruning method.
The Biology Behind the Harvest: Primocane and Floricane Fruiting
The everbearing nature of the ‘Heritage’ raspberry is explained by the two types of canes the plant produces: primocanes and floricanes. Primocanes are the green, first-year canes that grow from the root crown during the current season. In ‘Heritage,’ these primocanes develop flowers and fruit near their tips starting in late summer and continuing until the first hard frost.
After a primocane produces its fall crop, the lower, un-fruited portion of the cane survives the winter and becomes a floricane in the second year. These floricanes will then produce a second, earlier crop lower down on the cane, typically in the mid-summer of the following year. Once the floricane completes its summer fruiting, the entire cane dies back to the ground, completing its two-year life cycle.
Managing the Harvest: Pruning Strategies for Heritage
The plant’s two-year cane cycle allows growers to choose between two pruning strategies for ‘Heritage’ raspberries. The simplest method is to aim for a single, maximized late-season crop, valued for its ease of maintenance. To achieve this, all canes—both old floricanes and new primocanes—should be cut down completely to the ground in late winter or early spring before new growth begins. This approach eliminates the summer crop but directs the plant’s energy into producing a heavy yield on the new primocanes in the fall.
The second strategy involves managing the canes for a double crop, providing two smaller harvests per year. After the summer harvest in July, the floricanes that just finished fruiting must be cut out at ground level, as they will not produce again. The remaining primocanes should be left standing to produce the fall crop on their tips. After the fall harvest, only the tips of these canes that fruited should be removed, leaving the lower portions to become the floricanes for the next summer’s yield.