How to grow and care for raspberries

Recommendation points

• The correct planting site is the key to a good harvest
• Harvesting of raspberry seedlings
• Planting seedlings
• Features of caring for a raspberry tree
• Preparing raspberries for winter
• The most common raspberry diseases
• Anthracnose
• Rust
• White spot (septoria)
• Raspberry pests
• Raspberry stem fly
• Shoot and leaf aphids
• Raspberry beetle

Raspberries require constant attention and careful care throughout the year. From this article you will learn: how to choose planting material, how to plant and care for raspberries, how to treat and properly prune bushes to harvest a bountiful raspberry crop.

Choosing the best raspberry variety is difficult. All varieties are good in their own way. It is enough to consider them in the table and make your choice according to the climatic conditions of a particular region:

Early maturing varieties

Variety	Description of berries	Characteristic	Frost resistance	Disease and pest resistance
Scarlet Sails	Rounded, ruby ​​color, berry weight – 1.7 g.	Powerful upright bushes with sloping tops up to 2 m. Inclined to branching.	Frost resistant.	Resistant to fungal diseases. Damaged by spider mites and raspberry mites.
Abundant	Bright red. Weight up to 10 g.	Semi-spreading bush, thornless. Reaches 2 m.	Frost resistant.	Resistant to major pests.
Early sweet	Rounded small berries – 2 g.	Semi-spreading bush. Shoots straight from the base, curved in the upper part, up to 2.5 m.	Frost resistant.	Resistant to major diseases.
Early surprise	Rounded, firm, medium-sized berries – 3 g.	Semi-spreading straight bush, up to 2 m.	Afraid of severe frosts, poorly transported.	Not resistant to purple spot, anthracnose and viral diseases.
Novokitaevskaya	Rounded, firm, medium-sized berries – 3 g.	Slightly spreading bush – 1.5–2 m. Arched shoots.	Afraid of severe frosts, poorly transported.	Not resistant to purple spot, anthracnose and viral diseases.

Medium ripening varieties

Variety	Description of berries	Characteristic	Frost resistance	Disease and pest resistance
The pride of Russia	Berries of various sizes and shapes, 5-12 g.	Medium bush, compressed type, up to 1.8 m.	Resistant to frost, but requires additional maintenance.	Resists all fungal diseases. If affected by a fungus, it continues to bear fruit.
Golden giant	Berries are yellow, oval, up to 14 g.	Bushes tall straight.	Frost-resistant, transportable.	Resists fungal and infectious diseases.
Spark	High-yielding (4 kg per bush).	Bushes are powerful, tall, form many shoots.	Not afraid of frost and drought.	Resistant to all types of mites.
Cleopatra	Berries of different sizes up to 5.2 g, oval.	Medium spreading bush, powerful.	It tolerates frost well.	Disease resistant.
Malakhovka	Berries dark red elongated up to 4 g.	Bushes of medium size, straight with inclined tops up to 2 m.	Requires additional care in cold weather.	Spider mite resistant.

Late varieties

Variety	Description of berries	Characteristic	Frost resistance	Disease and pest resistance
Taganka	Berries are red, large, oblong up to 10 g.	Medium bush.	Frost-resistant, transportable.	Resistant to most diseases.
Stolichnaya	Red berries, up to 8 g.	Medium bush.	Frost-resistant, transportable.	Resistant to fungal diseases and pests.
Biryusinka	Abundant fruiting. Berries up to 15 g.	Vigorous bush.	Frost-resistant, transportable.	Resistant to fungal diseases and pests.
Peresvet	The berries are elongated, pale red, up to 4.2 g.	Medium bush, straight stems.	Frost resistant.	Resistant to fungi and mites.
Samara dense	Small berries, up to 3.3 g.	Slightly spreading bush.	Frost-resistant, transportable.	Resistant to fungal diseases and pests.

In addition to the correctly selected variety, in order to get a generous harvest of raspberries, it is also important to care for the shrubs, the right planting site and other factors. Let’s consider them in more detail.

The correct planting site is the key to a good harvest

Raspberries love warmth, this should be taken into account when choosing a site for planting. Since it bears fruit for more than one year (up to 15 years), then the place must be constant, in an open area, for example, in a vegetable garden.

The site should be cleared of perennial weeds and fertilized before planting. Subsequently, fertilizing the soil under the bushes will be difficult, since their root system is too close to the surface..

It is not for nothing that the people say that “before you taste raspberries from the bush, you will have to stomp on the manure.” The requirements for soil fertilization are very high: humus or compost is applied to the area allocated for raspberries at the rate of 20 kg per 1 sq. m. After that, the soil is cultivated by loosening to a depth of 30-40 cm.

Harvesting of raspberry seedlings

It is better to prepare cuttings from autumn-summer. Dig in for the winter and cover with snow, and plant in early spring. Over the summer they will strengthen and revive.

For planting, take shoots of an annual root sucker. Dig the seedling together with the root. The root collar must be at least 10 mm thick. The plant is pruned, leaving 15 cm in length.

Different varieties are planted at different times of the year, but the most successful is early spring. Thin, annual root suckers are at risk of freezing if planted in late fall.

Planting seedlings

The most convenient way to plant raspberries is in rows. The distance between them should be about 2 m and about 60–70 cm between bushes in the same row. This allows the root system to develop well, from which the plant grows stronger and bears fruit better..

Thickening of plants provokes a decrease in yield from a lack of nutrients. In addition, all conditions are created for the development of diseases and mass reproduction of the pest. It is difficult to notice it due to the thickening of the stems. In addition, it is easier and more convenient to care for raspberries planted in rows..

The volume of the hole for planting should correspond to the size of the root system of the seedling and the height of the root collar. It should be buried 5 cm into the soil. To strengthen the roots, they need to be dipped in clay slurry. After planting, the seedlings must be poured abundantly with water. 2 shoots are planted in one hole.

A spring planting needs to be watered many more times during the summer. For early-autumn plantings, one watering is enough, after which cover the seedlings with mulch / straw or sawdust. Mulch will keep moisture until the onset of cold weather and will not freeze until it is covered with snow.

Features of caring for a raspberry tree

The basic principles of the necessary care for raspberry plantations:

• spring garter shoots:
• timely removal of weeds;
• loosening the soil to a sufficient depth;
• systematic watering, taking into account stretched root plexuses. At least 10 liters of water per 1 sq. m around the bush. But remember, raspberries do not grow in swampy areas, so you do not need to fill them.
• the formation of bushes by cutting the length and cutting out excess root suckers;
• laying the stems remaining in the winter for “wintering”.

In the fall, it is necessary to fertilize the land under the bushes: for one bush about 3 buckets of humus or peat, mixed with 100 g of saltpeter or urea.

Preparing raspberries for winter

Before winter, you need to remove all old, dry and very young (extra) shoots at the root. This will prevent infection or insects from entering the plant..

Only strong, strong spring shoots, cut to 30 cm, should be left. Clear the bushes from dry leaves and branches. After that, bend the stems to the ground so that the first snowfall will cover them and warm them until spring. If the frosts are not strong, then it is still better to bend the stems to the ground for the winter, as they can break from the wind.

Overgrown bushes will not add yield, they must be thinned out, leaving 3–6 sprouts per bush. Distance between bushes up to 1 m.

From the beginning of spring, all the shoots laid to the ground for the winter must be released and tied to a pre-stretched wire along the entire row. After the beginning of the greening and revitalization of the buds, the stems should be pinched 15–20 cm. The upward growth will stop and all forces will be spent on budding and the formation of berries.

The most common raspberry diseases

Anthracnose

It develops in the form of a fungal infection in high humidity. Stems, leaves and fruits are affected. The bark of the shoot turns brown, the stems crack. Fungal spore wounds appear on them..

Affected stems should be removed and removed from the site. In early spring, treat the bushes with 3% Bordeaux liquid or nitrafen. Before flowering, process again (1% solution).

Rust

Leaves and shoots are affected in spring. They appear as dark yellow bumps on the leaves. Later, the lesions darken and affect the entire plant. The reason is high humidity.

Precautions: remove autumn waste from raspberries, process before flowering and after harvesting with Bordeaux liquid and colloidal sulfur.

White spot (septoria)

A fungal disease that affects shoots and leaves with rounded white spots. Affected plantings bear little fruit and die off in winter. But the fungus continues to live on the stems in winter, and in the spring it infects all the shoots.

You can avoid timely pruning of the affected stems. Correctly thinned bushes are less affected. Treatment with Bordeaux liquid and nitrafen.

Raspberry pests

Raspberry stem fly

It affects young plantings in mid-May. Its larvae, deposited in the axils of the upper leaves, penetrate the stem. As the shoot dries up, the insect moves into the soil. If wilting stems with holes extending inside the raspberry tree appear, they must be removed at the root. Remove waste from the site and burn.

Shoot and leaf aphids

They populate at the tops of the shoots and in the inflorescences. The first signs of damage are twisted leaves, curvature of the stem and slow growth. Preferred treatment with karbofos before flowering and after harvest.

Raspberry beetle

It lives mainly in poorly cultivated areas. It hibernates shallowly in the ground; in spring it infects berries. Since all pests hibernate at a shallow depth, loosening the site with the onset of cold weather contributes to the freezing and death of all insects in the soil.

With proper care, you can get a bountiful harvest of juicy berries for 15 years: up to one bucket of raspberries from one bush is a reality!