Pruning brambles

By Eric Barrett

OSU Extension

This is a great time of year to work on understanding your berry plants.

This is because the two different types of canes are easily distinguished when the fruit is ready for harvest.

Pruning your brambles (black berries and raspberries) can even start this time of year.

There are two types of canes in brambles. First is the floricanes. These are the canes that have fruit on them right now. After the fruit is picked, these canes are no longer needed or required by the bramble plant. You can prune them out a few weeks after harvest, or wait until fall. The choice is yours.

Next is primocanes. These are the canes that emerged this spring. They are lush with green growth, still have bright green canes and do not have a woody appearance. If you think “prime” as meaning one, you’ll remember these are first year canes. These canes are actively growing. They will grow all year this year to bear fruit next year.

These primocanes do need some pruning this time of year. You need to “tip them.” This means you need to prune them off the top at about 5 feet tall. You can go a little shorter, depending on your trellis.

The plants should not be more than about 6 inches above the top of your trellis.

Tipping them will encourage the growth of laterals (horizontal branches). This is where the fruit will develop next year.

In March next year, you can then select the best canes to leave for production (five to eight). This will be easy, as in the month of March these will be the only canes present. These canes soon will become floricanes.

Basically, if you can remember that a cane can be pruned at the ground level after you pick the fruit from it, you’ll be ok.

I get many questions about transplanting wild brambles and caring for them in the home landscape or small berry patch. While you can do this, you will be jeopardizing all other brambles in your yard or on your farm. This is due to disease pressure of these wild plants, including viruses.

Additionally, these plants tend to be invasive.

Purchasing updated cultivars will increase production and reduce the need for disease control in the patch.

The other bramble question I get relates to thornless blackberries.

While these are an awesome plant and they produce good berries, they are not as winter-hardy in our area as they are in southern Ohio.

The plants will survive and make berries, but we lose production here in the Mahoning Valley in the coldest of winters.

Recommended cultivars include Apache, Chester, Navaho, Ouachita and Triple Crown.

To learn more, go to http://go.osu.edu/prunebrambles.

To get a list of recommended cultivars of all kinds brambles and all other fruits for the home garden, go to http://go.osu.edu/homefruitguide.