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Remontant raspberry It’s not for nothing that it enjoys so much attention and love from gardeners. When choosing the right agricultural cultivation technology, it will gain a fairly large number of advantages compared to ordinary raspberries. But if, due to inexperience, you choose the wrong method of pruning or care, then growing it can cause a lot of hassle and trouble. In any case, you need to understand that, like most garden crops, raspberries have a limited lifespan. No matter how well you take care of it, after 10-12 years of planting it will still need to be renewed. On the other hand, seedlings remontant raspberries not cheap at all. If you want to plant a decent-sized raspberry tree, the initial investment in purchasing seedlings will be very significant. All this suggests that remontant raspberries need to be learned multiply.
The fact is that most varieties of remontant raspberries form a small number of replacement shoots, and some varieties do not form them at all.Nevertheless, this feature can even be considered an advantage, since caring for raspberry bushes is much easier - there is no need for endless thinning. And using some unconventional techniques, it is quite possible to propagate even several raspberry bushes in a few years so that there are enough seedlings both for sale and for planting your own raspberry garden.
Various ways to propagate raspberries
How to propagate remontant raspberries? There are quite a few methods and they are all quite reliable. Some of them allow you to obtain ready-made seedlings within one season. Others will force you to arm yourself with patience, since ready-made, full-fledged raspberry bushes can only be obtained a year after the start of the propagation process.
Root layering
This propagation method is the most traditional for raspberries. As mentioned above, due to the low shoot-forming ability of most varieties of remontant raspberries, its use is somewhat limited and one cannot count on a large number of seedlings.
Nevertheless, it is completely unsuitable to neglect it completely, because:
- Firstly, there are a sufficient number of varieties of remontant raspberries that form a large number of shoots, for example, Atlant, Firebird, Crane, Ruby necklace, Orange miracle. Raspberry variety Yellow giant forms a huge amount of shoots, but it is semi-remontant, that is, it is not subject to mandatory autumn pruning, since the second harvest is formed only at the very tops of the shoots.
- Secondly, you can use a special agrotechnical technique that allows you to increase the number of shoots formed.It consists of the fact that in the second or third year after planting the seedling, in early spring, the central part of the bush is carefully cut out with a sharp knife. The diameter of the cut part can be approximately 10-20 cm. Of course, this procedure must be carried out very carefully.
The central part is transplanted to a separate place and grows further. The essence of the technique is that from the roots that remain in the soil, about 20 new shoots can develop, which can later be planted on seedlings. - Thirdly, if in the spring you cut out or plant at least half of all the formed shoots from the bush, then the next year the number of shoots will increase. Thus, by regularly propagating bushes by separating layering, you only increase their ability to reproduce.
Green layering
Spring is the best time to propagate remontant raspberries using this method. When, with the onset of warm weather, new shoots begin to grow intensively from the ground, you need to arm yourself with a shovel, a sharp garden knife and a container with a clay mash so that you can immediately protect the roots from drying out.
When you carefully examine the growing shoots, you can see the center of the bush, from where the largest number of shoots grows. From 4 to 6 of the strongest and most powerful shoots are left per bush. The rest must be carefully separated from the mother plant using a shovel and knife. It is best to separate those that grow at a considerable distance from the center. This way, the mother bush will receive the least damage and the work will be easier.
The separated shoots with a piece of rhizome are immediately placed in a clay mash to prevent the roots from drying out. Upon completion of the process, the shoots are planted in a special bed with loose fertile soil and watered. By the fall of this year, they will become full-fledged seedlings.
Watch the video below, illustrating in detail this process of propagation of remontant raspberries:
Mature root layers
A similar procedure for propagating remontant raspberries can be carried out in the fall. If for some reason you did not have time to thin out your plantings in the spring, then this must be done in the fall. Moreover, autumn shoots usually take root better, since they usually have a more mature and powerful root system. There is only one drawback - all summer they take away nutrients from the mother bush, which cannot but affect the yield.
When digging up root suckers, they can be immediately divided according to the number of bushes.
Root cuttings
Reproduction of remontant raspberries is also possible using root cuttings. To do this, in the fall, in cloudy weather, one of the bushes of already bearing raspberries is selected and carefully dug up using a garden fork so as not to damage the root system. Usually in the top layer of soil from the mother bush there are many roots with branches in all directions.It is necessary to cut off a certain amount of them, approximately one fifth - one sixth. The main thing is not to overdo it, so as not to greatly weaken the mother bush.
Then these root segments are either buried in the soil of a pre-prepared nursery, or placed one at a time in plastic pots with soil and sent to the cellar for the winter. In the spring, placed in a warm place, they very quickly sprout, which in warm weather can already be planted in a permanent place. By autumn, these sprouts will grow into good and strong seedlings.
Watch a video describing this method of reproduction:
Stem cuttings
You can propagate remontant raspberries in a very simple way. When you're late in the fall trim If all the shoots are at ground level, then the shoots themselves can not be thrown away, but cut into cuttings for propagation. Of course, the main condition for this method of propagation is that the bushes must be absolutely healthy, otherwise all diseases will spread to the resulting seedlings.
Immediately after pruning, the cuttings are planted in a bed with loose soil and compacted at the base. In the northern regions, the garden bed can be covered with non-woven material for the winter.
In spring, from 50 to 90% of cuttings take root and bud. Since initially they are usually planted quite densely for mature bushes, by autumn they can be transplanted to a permanent place.
Propagation by seeds
When talking about the propagation of remontant raspberries, we cannot fail to mention propagation by seeds.This method has two disadvantages: you need to wait a very long time for planting material and plants obtained from seeds, as a rule, are only 60% identical to the mother variety. Nevertheless, for those who like to experiment, the seed method of propagation is quite worthy of existence.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are quite enough ways to propagate remontant raspberries so that you can use the resulting seedlings for any purpose at your discretion. Choose those that seem most accessible to you and enjoy the sweet taste of your favorite raspberry varieties.
