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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Kearneysville, West Virginia » Appalachian Fruit Research Laboratory » Innovative Fruit Production, Improvement, and Protection » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #347830
Title: Alternative method of primocane management for primocane-fruiting blackberry and raspberry

Author
item Takeda, Fumiomi
item Rose, Ann

Submitted to: New England Vegetable and Fruit Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/21/2017
Publication Date: 12/10/2017
Citation: Takeda, F., Rose, A.K. 2017. Alternative method of primocane management for primocane-fruiting blackberry and raspberry. New England Vegetable and Fruit Conference Proceedings. p. 199-201.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: In most northern areas, blackberries cannot be commercially grown unless the canes are protected from severe winter conditions. This limitation can be overcome by: 1) protecting floricane-fruiting varieties from winter conditions in heated tunnels; 2) growing plants on the Rotating Cross-Arm (RCA) trellis and covering them with heavy rowcover in winter, or 3) growing new primocane-fruiting (PF) blackberries. To date, pruning and tipping practices have been used to increase yield in PF blackberries. Typically, unpruned or untipped primocanes produce a single inflorescence (flower cluster). Growers have used a combination of pruning back the primocanes and then tipping the lateral shoots prior to bloom to increase branching and plant yield. We thought that primocane-fruiting (PF) blackberries can be manipulated by other means to enhance their cropping potential, thus, eliminating the need for hard pruning and soft tipping. Lateral shoot numbers increased by bending the primocane as previously shown with floricane-fruiting blackberries which enabled more fruit production on each primocane.