Everbearing raspberries, also called fall-bearing or primocane-fruiting varieties, offer a rewarding harvest when managed correctly. Pruning is necessary for maintaining the health of the plant patch and directing the plant’s energy toward producing high-quality fruit. Understanding the distinct growth pattern of these plants is the first step toward deciding the best pruning strategy for your desired yield.
Understanding Everbearing Growth Cycles
Everbearing raspberry plants fruit on two types of canes, each representing a different year of growth. The first-year cane is known as a primocane, which emerges in the spring and produces fruit on its tips in the late summer or fall of that same year. Primocanes are the foundation for the plant’s fall production.
After a primocane fruits, it enters its second year and is renamed a floricane. Floricanes produce a second, often smaller, crop lower down on the cane during the early summer, typically in June or July. Once the floricane finishes producing this summer crop, the entire cane dies back naturally, completing its two-year life cycle. This dual-fruiting cycle allows for two potential harvests, but it also dictates the different pruning methods growers can choose.
Pruning for a Single Annual Crop
The simplest method for managing everbearing raspberries is to focus solely on the robust fall harvest. This approach eliminates the smaller summer crop in favor of a larger, concentrated yield later in the season. The ideal time to prune is during the dormant season, specifically in late winter or early spring, before any new growth begins.
The process involves cutting every cane in the patch down to the ground level, often called the “mow down” method. Canes should be cut to within one to two inches of the soil line using sharp clippers or pruning shears. This complete removal clears all of the previous year’s growth, ensuring the plant’s energy is channeled entirely into producing new, vigorous primocanes.
These new primocanes emerge and grow throughout the spring and summer, culminating in a heavy crop of berries on their tips from late August until the first hard frost. While this method sacrifices the early summer fruit, the resulting fall crop is typically denser and much easier to manage, as it removes the need to differentiate between cane types. This simplifies maintenance, promotes better air circulation, and reduces disease potential.
Pruning for Two Crops Annually
For growers who prefer to maximize their harvest window by obtaining both a summer and a fall crop, a more selective two-step pruning process is required. This method begins immediately following the fall harvest, where you must identify and remove only the spent portions of the primocanes that just finished fruiting. Trim only the top third of the cane, cutting back to a point just below where the fruit was produced. The remaining lower section of the cane is left intact to develop into a floricane for the following summer’s yield.
The second, and more substantial, pruning step occurs in late winter or early spring, concurrently with the single-crop pruning window. During this time, the true floricanes—the canes that produced the summer crop the previous year—must be removed entirely. These spent canes appear woody, brittle, and brown, indicating they are dead and will not fruit again. Cut these dead floricanes down to the soil line to make way for new growth.
The final part of this late-winter pruning involves thinning the remaining live canes, which are the saved sections of the previous year’s primocanes now destined to become floricanes. Remove weak, spindly, or crowded canes to ensure the strongest canes are spaced approximately six to eight inches apart. This selective removal improves light penetration and air flow, allowing the new primocanes to grow unhindered for the next fall harvest.