Blackerries - some questions
 

Hi

I planted some blackberry plants last year. I got a small crop this year
and the plants have grown aggresivley.

Coupel of questions

1) For pruning I should just prune the original stem fro mthe ground right?
That one has gone a browny colour and gone hard hwilst the one ones are
greener and fresher.


2) If too many new stems have come out can/shall I just cut down to how
many I need for next year? Presumably they will all fruit somehow or shall
I keep certain ones?

3) The new shoots are growing VERY tall - some look like they are over 6
feet. The wire thing I made for them only goes upto about 5ft - shall I let
them grow naturally as long as they will go - is there any reason to? or
can I just restrict the height to a certain length and hope I get as much
fruit that way

4) Would I be better of wit hfew taller stems or lots of shorter ones for
maximum fruit?

Thanks

Blackerries - some questions
 

On Aug 27, 7:15*pm, mo wrote:
Hi

I planted some blackberry plants last year. I got a small crop this year
and the plants have grown aggresivley.

Coupel of questions

1) For pruning I should just prune the original stem fro mthe ground right?
That one has gone a browny colour and gone hard hwilst the one ones are
greener and fresher.

2) If too many new stems have come out can/shall I just cut down to how
many I need for next year? Presumably they will all fruit somehow or shall
I keep certain ones?

3) The new shoots are growing VERY tall - some look like they are over 6
feet. The wire thing I made for them only goes upto about 5ft - shall I let
them grow naturally as long as they will go - is there any reason to? or
can I just restrict the height to a certain length and hope I get as much
fruit that way

4) Would I be better of wit hfew taller stems or lots of shorter ones for
maximum fruit?

Thanks

Firstly blackberries fruit on the previous seasons growth, so this
years new stems give next years fruit.
6ft doesn't sound like much growth, but as it's their first
season.........
Depending on the variety you can get up to 15ft of growth on new
stems.
We used to grow them 18 ft appart, the new growth was trained to the
left one year and to the right next year, this made pruning much
easier as we were not trying to sort out old growth from the new.
If growth was to long then we just bent it round and brought it back
towards the plant.
The plants were fead with a high nitrogen feed in early spring, and
then a high potash feed in July to set the new growth and to promote
the following years fruiting.
You can cut out any unwanted stens. but dont do it till thw winter
otherwise they may well throw up some new growt this year.
Hope that helps.
David Hill

Yes. It's quite convenient once you've got more stems as you can easily see which are to be pruned out by the colour at the base, rather than having to track them down from above.

They're all the same. I usually cut out the weaker ones

Coil them round in a big circle

No idea. But I'd go for a few longer stems. More natural for the plant.

An alternative is to train the fruiting stems to left and right, and to gather the new stems in a bundle going straight up. Then at pruning time you cut out all the old stems, loosen the bundle of new stems and train them to left and right in the places vacated by the old stems.