Bill, Good idea, maybe late- winter early spring. To avoid any possible winter damage.It's when I plan to shape mine. Last year I was forced to prune early as laterals tip rooted by themselves all over the place! Yikes! It's not doing that this year.As soon as I saw them I cut the laterals back. This year laterals are really not growing crazy wild. Go figure... I have two more I added this year. Too small to prune at all. Jewel and Niwot. Niwot is a primocane fruiting black raspberry. the first commercial cultivar. The primocanes have flowers and will fruit in about a month. Barely making it before first frost. In the description it mentions late fruiting the first year, so hopefully it will fruit earlier next year. I will treat it like an everbearing red. I will remove top 1/3 after fruiting and take the summer harvest too, next year. Here is some important info. This year my reds over produced primocanes. Both the summer bearing and everbearing. probably in response to the harsh winter. I asked MSU about pruning them out early instead of the usual late winter pruning. I usually also prune weak and crowded canes out late winter. I was worried about the competition for light weakening all canes.They said wait till 3 feet tall then you can. So I did. And few came back, and the ones left grew very large, 6 to 7 feet! Now the fall fruiting primocanes are giant and producing loads of fruit. Best fall crop on the everbearing I ever had. And the summer bearing are huge too. Starting to form laterals without any pruning. Pretty cool! So thinning of new primocanes once 3 feet is really a good idea as surviving canes appreciate the chance to reach full potential. I did this with Allen black too. it produce 15 primocanes, that's a crazy amount. I thinned them to 9 canes. Last year I only had 3 canes and got hundreds of berries. I expect thousands next summer!

This happened to me too. I had a thick patch of red raspberries, and no blacks. Two years ago I transplanted a lot of them 5-10 feet away to spread them out. When the berries showed up, about half of the plants had black raspberries. This year they are all growing black raspberries, except one plant with reds. I don't buy any cross-pollination theories, for the reasons given above. Maybe the red plants were all displaced by incoming black plants - doesn't seem very likely. My Mom suggests this possibility, without any real justification: the red plants are actually black raspberry plants at the roots, which have had red branches grafted onto them for some botanical reason. If they die back too far, the red grafting is gone and when they grow up again they show their true biologic colors. If that's not it, then I have some good conspiracy theories which would make an excellent sci-fi movie.

Hi, This is from The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook by Rachel Saunders 1 lb plus 2 1/2 lbs black raspberries 2 lbs white sugar 5 oz freshly squeezed lemon juice Combine 1 lb of the berries with sugar and lemon juice in a pan. Place the pan over medium low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the juice begins to run from the berries. Increase the heat to high and continue to cook, stirring very frequently, until mixture boils. Boil the mixture vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring every few seconds or so. Add the remaining 2 1/2 lbs of berries, stirring well to combine. Over high heat, bring the mixture back up to a boil, cook it for 10 to 12 minutes more, stirring frequently. Begin testing for doneness after 10 minutes. Pour jam into sterilized jars and process according to manufacturers instructions. I recommend the cookbook to anyone who prefers to use pectin free jam. There are only 2 recipes in the cookbook I have found using pectin. A lot of good recipes. There is also good instruction on jam making with lovely photos. She prefers the oven method for processing, which I do not use. All the recipes can be used for the more traditional hot water boiling method. MJ

I had the same problem last year. You need to prune top growth when plants are 3-4' growth stage and then you will need to stay on top of cane regrowth or longer canes are going to be a problem. I have more issues with aphids than mites. Not sure which is worse but you need to be proactive in controlling any pest. Rewards are good for these grown in tunnels but there are issues too. Most responses I've.gotten are to use bio controls, predatory mites or lady bugs in my case.