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Remontant raspberry is a real breakthrough in the breeding work of scientists. Its popularity has not subsided for several decades, despite the fact that among gardeners there are still ongoing disputes about the suitability of this or that pruning or methods of growing remontant raspberry varieties. And caring for it cannot be called too simple, although in many ways it is much simpler than caring for ordinary raspberries. In general, novice gardeners are most interested in how to care for remontant raspberries, since opinions sometimes differ here, because each gardener has his own unique experience. And it greatly depends both on the climatic characteristics of the region where raspberries are grown, and on the characteristics of a particular raspberry variety.
Remontant raspberry and its features
If we compare it with ordinary raspberries, then the latter is characterized by two-year cultivation, when flowers and ovaries form on the shoots of the previous year, and all annuals go into winter green. Naturally, it takes time for flowers and ovaries to form, so remontant raspberries bear fruit closer to autumn.
If you give it the opportunity to go into the winter untouched, then in the spring these fruit-bearing branches will behave like ordinary two-year-old raspberry shoots. That is, in the summer they will have flowers, and then berries. At the same time, the next young annual shoots will develop. Thus, in the middle of summer, a remontant raspberry bush will consist of two parts: two-year-old shoots with berries and one-year-old shoots just preparing to bear fruit.
But such an ideal picture is only possible in the south. In most regions of Russia, it is usually impossible to collect two harvests. Because due to the heavy load, the second fruiting is often postponed until autumn, when frosts often occur and the crop generally does not have time to ripen. That is why it is recommended to grow remontant raspberries in the so-called annual crop. In this case, the raspberry bushes are cut out at ground level in the fall after fruiting, and in the spring new annual growths appear, which develop over the summer and by the fall produce a good harvest of large and tasty berries.
But growing and caring for remontant raspberries, as well as pruning them, are still the subject of heated discussions among gardeners. Since most of them find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that the harvest can be obtained only once a year, although not in the traditional raspberry season. Therefore, many, despite all the recommendations, experiment with pruning remontant raspberries and sometimes get very interesting results.
Different types of pruning
So, pruning remontant raspberries has a clear relationship with the number of harvests.
- If you want one large and high-quality harvest, then cut off all the shoots at the root in late autumn.
- If you want to get two harvests, then don’t touch anything in the fall.
But it’s not for nothing that growing remontant raspberries causes so much discussion.
- This is necessary for the southern regions, where mild winters with many thaws can make pruning remontant raspberries in autumn cause premature awakening of the kidneys.
- This is also useful for northern and low-snow regions, where raspberry shoots left before winter will help retain snow and prevent the root system from freezing. In addition, the breeder himself, who developed all the latest varieties of remontant raspberries, recommended pruning them in early spring.
But besides this, remontant raspberries, like all ordinary varieties, must be rationed.
Rationing is carried out so that the raspberries have exactly as many shoots as they can feed. And so that each shoot can receive a sufficient amount of light and nutrition for full fruiting. Regular raspberry varieties are very susceptible to thickening. Remontant raspberries have an advantage here too - most of their varieties do not form a very large number of shoots.
However, rationing is also necessary for remontant raspberries. Actually, caring for remontant raspberries in the spring begins with the procedure for rationing the bush, if drastic pruning was done in the fall.To do this, you need to wait for young annual shoots to grow from the ground, and carefully cut out all thin, weakened or simply unnecessary ones. Each bush should have no more than 4-7 (depending on the variety) strong and strong raspberry shoots. This procedure can be combined with raspberry propagation.
In the video below you can see one of the options for thinning and pruning remontant raspberries in the spring:
As for pruning, there is another agrotechnical technique that can significantly increase the productivity of bushes. Around the beginning of summer, when young raspberry shoots reach a height of about one meter, they need to be cut back to half their height. The bushes must be additionally fed and watered. Quite quickly, pruned shoots are covered with a large number of branched fruit branches, from which a good harvest can be harvested in August-September.
Landing
You can plant remontant raspberries both in autumn and spring. In the southern regions, it is better to plant in the fall, since at this time the most favorable conditions are created for the survival of the bushes. Moreover, due to mild winters, there is no danger of the root system freezing in the first months after planting.
This opportunity is often used by gardeners in temperate latitudes.
For planting raspberries choose the sunniest and most wind-protected areas. This is especially true for the northern regions.Even slight shading can lead to a decrease in its yield.
Planting and caring for raspberries in the future requires a very thoughtful approach, since remontant raspberries can grow in one place for up to 10-13 years and all this time are quite capable of producing significant yields. Groundwater should not be located higher than 1.5 m from the ground surface. Future plantations cannot be placed in the place where nightshade crops previously grew: tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, potatoes. Raspberry plantings are returned to the site of the former raspberry field no earlier than after 6-7 years.
The soil for planting raspberries must be fertile and loose. When preparing a site for planting raspberries, about three buckets of decomposed humus or compost are added per square meter. Additions of peat and wood ash would also be good.
Choosing a scheme planting remontant raspberries, thickening of plantings should not be allowed. On average, there can be about 3-4 raspberry bushes per square meter. The most common landing scheme is an ordinary plant, with a distance between plants of about 60-80 cm. At least 2-2.5 m are left between the rows.
At the same time, the distance between plants is reduced to 50 cm. This planting method creates ideal lighting conditions for the bushes.
The planting technique itself is not fundamentally different from planting ordinary raspberries. You can plant bushes either in trenches or holes. It is important that the planting depth is exactly the same at which the plant grew before. Both deepening and high planting adversely affect the further development of seedlings.After planting, the seedlings must be watered well, using about 10 liters of water per bush.
The video below shows the process of planting seedlings of remontant raspberries of the Firebird variety:
In many sources you can find a recommendation to trim off the entire above-ground part of raspberry bushes after planting. This is done mainly to prevent the spread of foci of infection, which can persist on the shoots. But this operation also has adverse consequences. In this part of the plant, the maximum number of nutrients necessary for its development is concentrated in the first time after planting. Therefore, you should consider whether to use this technique, especially in areas with harsh climates where the absorption of nutrients from the external environment is difficult.
Care
When answering the question of how to grow remontant raspberries, one cannot fail to mention the actions that are mandatory for all temperate latitudes, which allow you to speed up the ripening time of raspberries. In early spring, it is necessary to carry out a number of procedures to improve soil warming.
- It is necessary to clear the snow from the places where raspberries grow.
- Cover the plantings with non-woven material or film.
- In the spring, you can even build a frame using covering materials before the onset of permanently warm weather.
- Initially, plant raspberries on high, warm beds with a lot of organic matter inside them.
Raspberry feeding
Growing remontant raspberries, as well as caring for them, should, first of all, be aimed at obtaining an abundant and high-quality harvest. Therefore, regular feeding is one of the main ways to care for raspberry plantings.It is possible to use mineral fertilizers - in this case, in the first half of summer, mainly nitrogen fertilizers are applied, and starting from mid-summer, phosphorus, potassium and a full range of microelements are fed every week, preferably in chelated form.
An excellent way to maintain optimal humidity in raspberry plantings is to mulch the bushes. In the fall, after pruning the shoots and planting, you can mulch with a layer of humus or rotted sawdust, 10 cm high. In the spring, this layer of mulch will serve as a source of additional nutrition for the raspberries. Moreover, by summer the layer of mulch must be increased; on hot days it will help retain moisture at the roots of the plants.
What else does remontant raspberry need?
Caring for remontant raspberries is made easier by the fact that most varieties do not grow very tall. The average height of the bushes is from one to one and a half meters. Therefore, labor-intensive operations of installing trellises and tying up bushes when caring for remontant varieties can be eliminated. But watering must be taken with great responsibility. After all, without a sufficient amount of water, raspberry bushes will not be able to develop well, which will certainly affect the yield. On the other hand, excess moisture can also destroy raspberries. If you have a fairly large raspberry plantation, then it is advisable to build a drip irrigation system.
The best option would be to mulch with straw or sawdust both the plantings themselves and the row spacing.
Reproduction
No matter how you care for the bushes, after 10-12 years, remontant raspberries need to be replanted. The easiest way to propagate raspberry bushes is by root layering. Although, unlike ordinary raspberry varieties, remontant varieties do not produce as many shoots. But remontant raspberries also propagate well from root cuttings. It just takes a little more time. In autumn, in cloudy weather, it is necessary to dig up several fruit-bearing raspberry bushes and carefully separate 1/5-1/6 of it from each bush. The rhizomes are divided into pieces about 10 cm long, while the thickness of the cuttings should be at least 3 mm. In order to grow full-fledged seedlings from these cuttings, you can go in two ways:
- The cuttings are immediately planted horizontally in a prepared bed with loose, fertile soil and covered with a 5-10 cm layer of organic mulch.
- Cuttings are stored until spring in a cellar in damp sawdust or moss. In spring they germinate in the warmth and are also planted in beds.
By autumn, these cuttings produce seedlings that can be transplanted to a permanent location.
In an interesting way propagation of remontant raspberries is the cutting of shoots pruned in autumn. Instead of throwing them away, they can be cut into small pieces 20-30 cm long and immediately stuck into a small nursery with loose soil. For the winter, the cuttings are well insulated with a layer of straw, and in the spring they are already covered with buds. By autumn, the rooted cuttings from the nursery are transplanted to a permanent place. Transplanted bushes should not be allowed to flower or form ovaries this season, otherwise the plants may be greatly weakened.
Of course, growing remontant raspberries cannot be called easy, but you will definitely be rewarded for your efforts with a large harvest of tasty and aromatic berries, especially at a time when all the other berries have already died.
