My ""guess"" is that you'll have a higher fall yield if you mow them down. I have no idea on the quality. I doubt it would effect that much.

I only had one on mine this year but it's huge! I put apples on the canes last fall and this year the crop is incredible! If you have a bunch of apples throw them on the canes this fall......they love it!

RM

Keepitlow-
What variety do you have? Primocane or floricane?
Depending on your variety, you might not want to mow. We have 'heritage' and I cut the canes @1.5 inches above level. Since they like to spread, I have to 'till a couple passes for the walking spaces to determine my walkinz zone as they like to encroach. Great time to dig though.
I do the goat manuring/azomiting/kelpifying, and mycorhizae inoculation. In our 22'X12' patch we HAVE to pick every other day. We usually net 10quarts everyother day during a 3-4 week peak until 1st hard freeze which might have happened last night. This year the crop arrived later by 2weeks in 1st Sept.

I have Heritage, Caroline, Anne, Autumn Britton.

I'm not a raspberry lover- only like them and don't want to spend too much time managing them. In this context it's much better to keep both crops as it makes plants stronger and more competitive against weeds. It's nice to have the summer crop for foraging and mixing with peaches on cereal and such.

In carefully managed research conditions, the fall crop is enhanced by mowing out the floricanes every fall, winter or early spring but I don't know how much although you might be able to find the data by searching for it. Weather will have a much greater affect on your crop in northeast conditions, however.

I don't have Caroline or Anne. I see they are also 'everbearers'.
Basically we dug up 200+ starters at my mom's and did the mass planting. Within the plot I have no weed issues as they get totally choked out. However is encroachment on the edges, but nothing a weed whacker and heat wont take care of.
By eliminating all of the plant material in the fall I also take care of rabbit hide-outs and keep disease in check.
I burn any prunings.
In my current situatoin it would have been great to have berries in July too, though. As H-man wrote, and I concur, it's nice to have a summer crop for browsing. We'll see what the 30 degrees did later on, but that's half our crop!
Noogy
Noogy