I think it's interesting that this topic came up, because I have the same thing going on with my Heritage patch (I say patch because I have yet to get it trained into a row) I cut all my Heritage canes down to the ground last winter, and so this is the first time I'm attempting to get a fall only crop. Still, I have maybe 5 different clusters of berries setting right now. One berry that'll be ready to pick probably tomorrow is very large. The biggest I've seen on my Heritage, so I'm hoping that all the info on cutting them down to produce a bigger/heavier crop is true. But yeah, I was confused too because I thought I would not even begin to see anything until quite a bit later on. (I hope this isn't all I'm going to see!!!)

Blackberries and Raspberries are difficult to root from tip cuttings. They are easy to propigate by tip layering or digging up root cuttings. If you want to propigate these plants, take a rock with you on your next walk and pull one of the canes down the ground and put a rock on top of it about 6 inches from the tip. When you go back in a few months, roots will have formed where it touched the ground and you can cut this daughter plant from the parent cane. If you look around the outside edge of the area where they are growing, you will probably find some canes that have already fallen on the ground and taken root. If they have just a few roots, that is normally enough to get them started off. Greg

This is advice below from google for our area. Do you know if yours are June bearers or everbearers? If you know the variety name you can look that up. The answer from below would be no either way, you will lose your fruit next year if you prune a cane that has not borne fruit yet this year. On the fruit forum on GW, people in other parts of the country prune differently because their weather is different. Nancy "What Should I Do with Raspberry Plants after Harvest? This Is My First Year of Growing Them. Growing small fruits offers lots of pleasure for the home gardener --raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries produce tasty crops without requiring much space. To take care of the raspberry bushes, learn their growth habits. June-bearing, or early-season bearing raspberries (and other cane berries such as blackberries and black raspberries) bear fruit on canes which die after fruiting. The canes for the 1997 crop, for instance, grow during the summer of 1996. In looking at your early-season raspberries, you will note two types of canes. One type will look green and fresh, and be growing actively. These canes will produce the 1997 crop. The others will have dead leaves, remnants of bloom and fruit, and will show overall browning. Prune these canes out and discard all canes that produced fruit during summer 1996. The raspberry patch then goes over winter with only canes for the 1997 crop. If your raspberries are "ever-bearers," producing fall crops, the situation is a bit more complex. Everbearers produce fruit in fall 1996 on canes which grow early in the 1996 season. This set of canes produces fruit during the first season -- 1996 --on the top 1/3 of the cane in late summer or fall. Cut off the fruiting top of the cane after production. The cane then will often winter over, and produce fruit for 1997 on the remaining bottom 2/3 of the 1996 cane in late June or early July of 1997. For everbearers, canes are removed from the plant after they have produced crops for two consecutive years. It's necessary to observe everbearing raspberries a bit more carefully to understand this rhythm but the plants are easy to care for once it's understood." Here is a link that might be useful: raspberry pruning

Unfortunately I have no access to the original patch of raspberries now. I am a newbie. I have been gardening and winter sowing since three years but this is the first time I am trying propagation. Hence it is a learning experience for me. Still, it is heart - breaking to see plants which had been thriving so well being suddenly on the verge of extinction. I had almost started treating them like my children keeping an eye on every "social"(biological) mile-stone that they achieved! This is how I made my propagation chamber: In a large transparent storage container I put 3-4" of all purpose coarse sand in the bottom.Then I mixed sphagnum moss, perlite and vermiculite in the ratio of 5:4:1. I mixed it well and wetted the medium to moist(not soggy). Then I dumped 4" of this mix over the sand. I cut each cutting agin under water, just under a node in a slant fashion. Then I stripped all leaves leaving just top 4 leaves on each plant cutting. then with a sharp knife I removed 1" bark on both sides of the node( a little above the node). Then I dipped the cuttinge in a rooting hormone . I made a hole with a pencil and stuck them 2" apart in the medium burying them 1/3-1/2 of the length.I firmed the medium around each cutting as I planted. I then covered it air-tight with a tranparent plastic sheet to maintain 80-100% humidity and put the chamber in light shade. At times I would remove the cover at night only to put it back in the morning. I lightly misted during the day as often as I could. the cuttings were always turgid, medium never soggy- just moist. The cuttings delighted me with a burst of clusters of tiny leaves at most of the nodes. The plants couldn`t have looked healthier, believe me. Then one day I wake up to see black spots at the ends which spread fast and engulfed the whole cutting including the tiny bunches of leaves. I saw no roots when i threw the cuttings away one by one. It had only been a little over 2 weeks, I guess, when I started. They rotted away in just 3 days.I used a solution of dish-soap and baking soda, but it was useless. I did keep the chamber air -tight, because that was what I thought I was supposed to do. How can you maintain good air-circulation while keeping humidity high??? To me it seems like a paradox. Now tell me where did I go wrong. I am ready to learn from my mistakes so that I do not repeat them in future.I had no holes or slits anywhere in the system- not in the box , not in the plastic sheet. But I did lift up the plastic sheet to mist every now and then- so, I thought they got enough air. Now can anybody please tell me the following things: 1. How can I improve upon my propagation system. 2. What can I do to save the rest of the cuttings that are still surviving and some going downhill fast. 3. How to use Daconil that I bought today.What concentration, How often and at what time of the day/night. All suggestions would be highly welcome. Ranjana