misterbaby, veeta's laterals have already run. The only significant new growth on them this year will be fruiting spurs and fruit.

I have never and have never seen commercial growers prune blackberry laterals to 12 inches. It would greatly reduce your fruit. Certain upright varieties may be an exception, but with 10-foot laterals, I would keep any where they are thicker than a pencil.

You could certainly prune your main cane at a low height and get laterals, then prune them to 12" and have laterals on the laterals. But all this has to occur during the growing season, not at this time of year.

It seems that veeta's blackberries are vigorous and may produce more fruit than she wants. If you have dozens of main canes and don't want a jungle of laterals, then you could prune them quite short to intentionally reduce harvest.

There are more ways to prune a blackberries than to skin a cat. Hence the confusion.

I follow the guidance of the agricultural extension service in this matter. Please check out the link below. Misterbaby.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pruning Blackberries

If I had a 10' lateral on a blackberry plant that was healthy and not spindly there is no way I could force myself to cut 9 feet off of it lol. I don't care how bigger or better tasting the berries might be produced from that 12" lol. I can't see justifying sacrificing the amount of berries lost in that 9' length. Especially in a home garden setup where you might have them spaced 6-8 feet apart. Now if you planted them 2-3 feet apart I guess pruning them that much would be okay. Just my 2 cents.

Fantastic--thanks so much everyone! Indeed it is one stocky main cane with vigorous laterals. I may prune some of them that are thin as suggested. And to keep it tidy.
It is all under control for now. I try to keep it neat because it forms a backdrop for my vegetable garden as well as being on a shared fence. Here's hoping that my neighbor won't be upset when it starts coming up on his side of the fence--something I did not consider when I planted.

I can never have too many blackberries! I hope to have a freezer full and make jam. If only I can keep the birds out. Last year I installed hooks on the fence and draped bird netting over the vine, but I was still sharing with the birds. Maybe the service berry and cherry laurel will distract them. I am thinking of installing wooden stakes into the ground a few inches out from the fence and installing the bird netting there to keep the birds from just reaching though the net.

What variety are you growing, veeta? If an erect variety, then I've seen the same recommendation to dormant prune laterals at 12" to 16" from a number of extension agencies, universities, etc. (or "to a degree that the cane can support the crop," to quote from the University of Missouri guide, which I assume is the crux of the matter). I can't offer any practical experience, though -- I'm a novice when it comes to caring for erect varieties (all of my plants are semi-trailing or primocane fruiting varieties). I'll be adding at least one erect variety this spring, so I'm anxious to see this discussion continue...

I checked out the guide misterbaby pointed to. I liked that it was clear, had good pictures, and indicated when to prune what. My problem with the short lateral pruning strategy is that my Triple Crowns seldom, if ever, look like the ones picture in that guide. After heading, my TCs generally sprout 2, 3 or 4 laterals, generally at the top of the cane just below the heading cut. I let those laterals grow strongly and train them back down and across their 3-wire trellis. If I dormant pruned them to 2' there wouldn't be much left. My TCs are 6 feet apart and have between 2 and 4 floracanes each.
My dormant pruning strategy is to allow the strong laterals to fill up the trellis and remove the weaker ones where they would otherwise get crowded. An intuitive if not correct approach.

I have a thornless trailing blackberry. Hope that helps!

Yep, you're doing just fine. With the luxury of a fence for support, you can maintain many 10's of feet of laterals.

In years to come, you will likely have more than one main cane that produces laterals. Just hang on to as many laterals as will result in a full freezer.

The U of T guidelines linked to above show nine protocanes per clump. This seems like a high number for trailing varieties. My berries have put out 2-4 protocanes per clump per year. I am still pruning off over half of the total lateral length of the berry patch as a whole to limit the harvest to 100-150 pounds for 20 feet of trellis.

Birds are another matter--good luck on that. I am only beset by a single local robin every year and only lose a hundred berries or so to pecks.

It is possible the widespread 12-inch advice is not the results of many independent studies, but of one or two initial study results being repeated by multiple sources. Caneberries, unlike fruit trees, can produce fruit early and often. Once the canes show some vigor, let 'em rip.

> 100-150 pounds for 20 feet of trellis

For real, dude? I gotta get over to your place some day and check out what you're doing. I'll bring my own bucket.

Yes, 98 pounds last year in our weird summer, and had to prune off many green berry clusters in 2009 to draw the line at about 150 pounds. One bucket won't be enough.

This is what happens when you keep 10 feet of your laterals, grow productive varieties, and live in the Willamette Valley.
I've seen rows of blackberries at the Research Station near Charbonneau with more pounds per foot than mine.

Here's what my Triple Crowns look like today, March 5th. I headed the vines at different heights to experiment with what their reaction would be. The trellis is 8' high. Notice how some canes don't have laterals except near the top.

Here's what they looked like last summer, 2010:

What is that, a 16-foot long trellis? You should be able to eventually hit 100 pounds (if you need that many berries!).

As requested, here's my patch:

The top bar of the trellis is 5' 2" above ground.
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{{gwi:71891}}
The bowed sheaf of laterals in the left of the lower image alone will bear 4-5 pounds of berries. That's last 4 feet of six bundled laterals.

In summer, it's just a big green chia blob.

Larry, thanks for the pics. It's helpful to do comparisons. My trellis is 24' wide, not 16. You've planted yours closer together it seems, and on a shorter trellis, both of which might account for the increased density of laterals. Your TCs also seem to favor branching higher up instead of lower down, like mine do. I'm thinking I won't restrict the number of canes allowed to grow. As long as they'tr thick and vigorous, I might just them them all grow.

Thanks for the information. The "thicker than a pencil" guideline is a much more logical and adaptable rule of thumb than the "12-18 inch laterals no matter what" that most resources list. I wish I'd seen this thread before I hacked mine back (although I could barely keep up with last year's production). I'm glad I at least couldn't bring myself to go down to 12" and instinctively left a number of large diameter laterals that were as thick as a primary cane as well as longer laterals that extended to open trellis.

It certainly takes longer to tie up all those laterals as opposed to trimming all to 18", but them I don't have canes sprouting from the ground as dense as bamboo, and the extra laterals boost the crop. I use green macrame for ties as it is reusable year after year and is easy to unknot.

Clarifying the "pencil" guideline: If the lateral right at the cane is only pencil-thick, that can be pruned fairly short. Where a vigorous thicker lateral tapers down to less than pencil thick, prune it at that point or at a trellis perimeter, whichever comes first. You may find that occurs at a few feet, or in some cases, it never occurs--the lateral remains thick for 15-20 feet, touches the ground, and wants to take root.

It's not that berries won't form on even thinner laterals, but it becomes more unlikely.

Let me first say, most of my blackberry plants are the erect variety. The art of pruning is not a simple matter and every year I tweek my approach just a little in hopes of getting better.

The first year I topped them at 4-5 feet and just let the laterals grow and flop all over and only tying the main cane to the trellis. Had a bumper crop of blackberries the next year. The second year, the primocanes came up much straighter, for the most part, and I once again pruned them at 4-5 feet. However, this time I did what the NC State guidance said and I pruned the laterals back to 12-18" and lost 20% of my crop the next year. The third year, I let the laterals grow again, but this time I strapped them to the trellis wire in a fan-style way an I had a great crop.

The fourth year I found out what role the terminal bud plays in bud development, not only on the main primocane, but also on the resulting laterals once you cut tip the primocane. Ever notice in the spring, the first bud to bloom is the one on the end of the lateral. I then started cutting those lateral terminal buds off in Nov/Dec once the plant had gone completely dormant. The next spring, all the buds on the laterals thought they were the new "bud in charge" and started developing at the same time.

This year, now, after attending the NARBA conference in January I realized I was giving my plants about 1/3 of the nitrogen they needed to do what they were supposed to when they wake it, so I took another soil sample and increased the amount of fertilizer to make sure they get the nutrients they need to grow big and leafy strong this year. The more leaves, the more photosynthesis. The more photosynthesis, the sweeter the berry. At least, that's my thinking. We'll see how it goes. Bottom line, whatever style of pruning you decide on, take baby steps and then if it doesn't work to your satisfaction, try something else next year.

Hope this helps,

Ken Barber
Millbrook AL

Your nuts-and-bolts description of years 1-3 was excellent.

The blackberry primocane (or first-year cane) wants to produce only stems and leaves. Any pruning method that increases the total feet of stem will result in more blooms and fruit in year 2 (florocane). The practical limit is trellis size and end-user berry demand (assuming your plants are vigorous and the weather cooperates).

Now for your year 4: The trick here is to wait for total dormancy, as you stated, otherwise you will just get more sub-laterals growing on the lateral ends.

What I'm not understanding is the implied advantage of pruning the terminal bud of the lateral (...that may occur in a very inconvenient place, well past the trellis)(...and that is done anyway when the lateral is pruned to x-length when dormant).

What I got from your text was that next spring, all the fruiting buds would bloom and therefore ripen at the same time. Not sure I'd want this for the home garden, but it could have commercial harvest advantages. I am interested in further comments.

For fertilizer, I just add a small amount of "cow compost" every two years (it shows in the above pictures), but this requirement will vary enormously in other gardens.

In good conditions with vigorous plants, blackberry pruning has a wide latitude rather than an experimental nature. Persons posting here are usually looking to bypass the experiments and want to follow successful patterns.

As I mentioned, I stopped cutting my laterals back on my erect-style blackberries all together until the plants have gone completely dormant. However, I noticed in the Spring the first buds to bloom were always a lateral's terminal bud and then it seemed the rest of the lateral buds would start to grow. I didn't think much of it until a well-respected berry grower here in Alabama mentioned to make sure to clip off those lateral terminal buds, thus eliminating the auxin hormone, so the rest of the lateral buds would start to grow earlier. I started doing that and it seemed to make a difference. By the way my laterals at most grow to 2-3 feet. If they are 4 feet or long I'll trim them back to around 3 feet or so. Anyway, this is how I do it and it seems to work for me down here in the deep South.

Hope this clarifies why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Ken Barber
Millbrook AL

Thanks for the clarification. The erect varieties are obviously require different treatment than the sprawling trailing monsters.

Even so, your trial with short laterals did show that more could be milked out of the yield by leaving them longer.

The 12-18" rule is handy for those wanting to use minimal cane support and wanting to have simple cane management of blackberry varieties that will not get huge anyway.

I am so glad I saw this thread. How do you tell whether you have an erect variety or a sprawling variety? I was givin a clump of a berry plant the my friend just hacked off of his plant. when I got it from him it had some roots on it so I buried it in the garden next to my privacy fence. The plant was about 12 inches tall but by the end of summer I had canes that were in excess of 10 ft long. Now that it is the dead of winter should I be pruning this. I have to say that I am berry illiterate and do not even know what kind of berry this is. And is OK to grow this next to the fence? Thanks for your help.

This is going one way down the fence.
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This is going the other way.
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Dale

bump

Piper dude, that looks like a Boysenberry or some other trailing variety, perhaps a Marionberry. The vines are thin and can be arranged as you please and trained into loops and such with no worry about snapping or crimping. That is according to what I see in your pictures. An erect, or semi-erect variety would have stiff, self-supporting canes that could not bend or loop so easily. However, very young plants of erect varieties will flop around on the ground and appear to be a trailing variety. But judging from the size of your plants I would suspect those are trailing. If the new canes next year are still flopping about like in the pictures, then it's a trailer for sure.
But even an erect variety cannot necessarily support itself when the canes are fully grown, not to mention loaded with fruit. Hence the practice of shortening the each primocane and the laterals.
If those are truly trailing vines, you need not prune them ever, but you should arrange them on your fence/trellis to keep the fruit off the ground and get as much sun exposure as possible. If they get too long just loop them like you might hang a garden hose on a wall. That's exactly what I see in the nearby Marionberry fields. Around where I live there are alot of commercial growers of trailing berry types. They generally leave the primocane vines on the ground and only move them up onto the trellis after the floracanes have been removed. That way they don't have to worry about the primocanes and floracanes intertwining. They don't prune or shorten anything, they just wrap them into loops, over one wire and under the other.

I am sure I am wrong, but that doesn't look like BlackBerry to me. It actually seems to resemble Poision Ivy to me. Does your Neighbor like you or does he have a wicked sense of humor? Again I am sure I am wrong, lots of types Blackberries I have never seen, But it did give me a great Idea for great practical joke

1) I assume the donating friend did not know what kind of berry it was. Either Marion or Boysen berries will have thorny canes, yours look pretty smooth.

2) Your plant is a sprawler, and it is not poison ivy. Friends of strudeldog beware!!

3) Also assume it did not climb the fence on its own, nice use of cable ties, BTW.

4) Location. Depends on the direction the berry side of the fence is facing. Blackberries do not need reflected heat. Berries put out fruiting spurs in random directions. That means the fence will cause some berry clusters to touch the fence. Those berries will stain it. If they were my berries, I would wait until after bloom, and the berries are in their tiny green stage (petals have fallen off). Then I would remove any clusters touching the fence, or prop them away from it. It looks like there are some picket extensions of the fence boards above the top rail. Some berry clusters will end up on the neighbor's side there. No reason why your present setup wouldn't work, but I would place the horizontal cane further from the fence top so perching birds don't have such an easy meal.

I'm sitting here in Zone 4a with snow still on the ground and am very jealous that you all can grow blackberries...

I had assumed there were thorns on the canes, but I cannot tell from the pictures. Even so, there are thornless boysenberries available, this could be one of them. PopPiper, are there thorns on those vines or are they smooth?

There are definetly thorns and after doing a search for "berries" I found a thread in which I asked a question about this same berry. I'm losing my memory. Thanks to all for the info. How many different varieties of boysenberries are there? Is there a distinct advantage (other than ease of harvesting) to trellising these boysenberries or would they produce as much just letting it grow like a bush and going wild all over?

Dale

In general, there's only one kind of Boysenberry. The thornless variety is supposedly a bud sport which I guess makes it a separate variety. Cane berry varieties in general are crosses and the two parents are documented. All propagation is done vegetatively so the plant's characteristics are set in stone. Boysenberries have a red raspberry somewhere in their lineage which accounts for the small amount of redness in the berries as well as a distinct taste. I think it tastes superior to Marionberries although the latter are firmer and more suitable for shipment and processing.
They will never grow anything like a bush. They are trellised to support the long vines and to allow you to distribute the vines to prevent too much congestion and get sunshine to the leaves. Allowed to grow wild the vines would flop on the ground or creep thru bushes or whatever. What you have to deal with is the yearly removal of the spent floracanes. You can keep them easily separated by leaving the primocanes on the ground and only put them up after the old floracanes have been removed. Much easier than getting them all wrapped up together and having to unwind the old ones. Although with erect varieties of blackberry you will have to do that since the canes are stiff and unflexible.

If you just let those sprawl around, you will be stepping on a lot of berries; it looks like other vegetable plants are growing nearby making for a tight space. You could keep shoving them near the base of the fence, but that might make the blossoms less noticeable to bees. Birds will readily get berries on or near the ground, but they will have a hard time getting any berries suspended from the side of the fence.

larry & tcstoehr, I see you are both zone 8 in OR.
I am zone 7b/8a in South Carolina.
What is the best Black berry, the up right cane or the trailing (dew berry type).
And which one is best in that group.
What would you spent $100.00 on?
That is fence & plants.
I have 2 prime JIM & a thornless with no name that roots easy when layered.

Your similar zone is not a factor because most caneberries will overwinter fine in zone 7 or 8. All I know about SC is that in our newspaper weather page, Columbia regularly goes over 100 degrees in the summer. Your best blackberry would be local varieties that take the heat and sun well. Perhaps you are in more of a foothills or mountain area with less heat.

Many members of this forum would recommend the Triple Crown blackberry, but the fruit will have a fair percentage of sun damage in hot climates. If you have a spot that is shaded from early afternoon on, the TC variety would do well. It makes large, sweet berries.

There is no best between upright or trailing. Uprights are easier to support and prune. Trailing takes more work to support and train, but you get more pounds of berries per plant.

Members from back East are more qualified than I to recommend specific varieties for your area.

Thanks again for all of the insight to pruning berries, I think I've got it figured out now. From what I have gathered on trellising from this post is it safe to say that the length of your trellis depends on how much you eventually want to harvest? I am going to construct 4 trellises 3 for blackberries and 1 for the boysenberry in the photos above. Are 16 foot trellises plenty long or should they be longer.

Dale

Yes, blackberries are somewhat like bamboo or hard drive capacity--all the available space eventually gets filled.

If 16 x 4 = 64 feet of trellis could potentially yield hundreds of pounds of berries, how much more trellis length could you use?

larry_gene: Regarding the cutting of the my erect varieties' lateral terminal bud (I mentioned above) when they are dormant in Nov-Dec. That method didn't work as well as I anticipated, so I'm back to letting the laterals grow unconditionally (unless they get over 4-5' long) and leaving their terminal buds alone. I'm glad someone rekindled this thread. It was a good one.

larry__gene. If you mean how much more space do i have, I have alot of room and can make the trellis 20, 30 feet or more. I want to have a minimum of 5 varieties so should the trellis for each variety be more than 16ft? In everyones opinions what is the best trellis shape. I put up sign posts and just strung wires but now that i have done more searching on methods of trellising i'm not sure if I want to keep them that style.

Dale

barberry: why did the terminal bud pruning not meet your anticipations over the course of a season?

podpiper: I meant how many more pounds of berries can you use in addition to the hundreds of pounds you can potentially harvest on 64 feet of trellis.

I have 5 varieties of berries on just 30 feet of trellis. Mostly triple crown, one clump of black satin, one clump of black-caps, some black diamond, and one loganberry start. These varieties are distinct enough to tell apart even if they co-mingle. Harvest this year was held to 91 pounds by pruning off at least 1/3 of the berry clusters at the green/red stage.

It would be really easy to maintain 2 varieties per 16-foot trellis.

The purpose of the trellis is to support the canes and allow training to one vertical plane rather than letting the plants grow in three dimensions. Any trellis that does that is fine. The only variables then are height, length, row spacing, cost of materials, and amount of digging per trellis design. My trellis was inexpensive and required no digging.

larry_gene: I'm not sure if it was the pruning of the laterals' terminal buds, the lack of a sufficient amount of nitrogen being applied after harvest the previous summer, the 90+ degree weather that hit Alabama in mid-May (plus 70+ degree humid nights to go along with the daytime heating) that continued through the summer, or all of the above that made this past blackberry season the worst ever for me. However, with the hopes that the El Nino and La Nina weather patterns are behind us for the next few years along with the changes I made to how I take care of my existing and new blackberry plantings, hopefully, I'll never see another season like this past one. It was truly an eye-opening season for me with regards to growing blackberries in the deep South.