The message
from "Bob Hobden" contains these words:



"Dave Hill" wrote...
wrote:
I have a couple of strong healthy plants that produce a god crop,
however each year I wonder how to cope with the new shoots for next
years fruit.

They manage to intertwine with this years shhots, making it difficult to
find the ripening fruits (as well as obscuring them) and as they are
quite fragile, they often get broken or damaged.

What is the best thing to do/ some thoughts include:

Using two seprate sets of wires a foot or so apart and direct the new
onea to the opposite set (not really practical for me due to space
considerations)

Tie the new shoots together as they grow and pag them down close to the
ground.

Cut out most of the new shoots as they appear, just leaving the 6-8 I
usually have per plant to develop

Any other ideas please?
In my youth we used to grow around 3/4 of an acre of blackberries, we
used to tie in the new growth in one direction whilst the old fruiting
growth was trained in the opposite direction, then at the end of the
year we just had to cut out the old growth and the space was ready for
the following years new growth.

We do similar with out Loganberry, the flowering shoots are trained to
either side and the new shoots grow straight up and are tied there until
after flowering.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Space (or lack of it) precludes the first suggestion.

A lowish fruit cage (there are redcurrants with the loganberries
precludes the second.

Sorry!

Any thoughts on eliminating all but a few of the new shhots as a way of
keeping things a bit clear?

Roger T