How Much Fruit Will A Raspberry Cane Produce? Does The Variety Matter? 

Raspberries are an extremely popular soft fruit that is relatively expensive to purchase so you may be wondering whether it is worth growing the fruit at home in your own garden. Are they easy to grow and do they produce very much per cane?

Raspberries are an extremely easy fruit to grow and they will produce at least 3 kg (6 lbs) of fruit per plant, however, the best-yielding varieties are raspberries can produce up to 14 kg (28 lbs) of fruit according to a trial carried out by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). Generally, summer fruiting varieties produce a higher amount of fruit compared to Autumn fruiting varieties.

The main difference between the two types of raspberries that are grown is that summer fruiting varieties produce fruit on last year’s canes whereas is autumn fruiting varieties produce fruit on the current years’ canes. As a result of this, it means that varieties that already have an established cane fruit first because they do not have to go through the process of growing the cane before flowering which results in an earlier harvest.

In addition to producing an early harvest as mentioned earlier in the article summer fruiting varieties typically produce more fruit in a single season which is advantageous, however, the downside is that summer fruit varieties do require more maintenance than autumn fruit varieties.

How To Grow Summer Fruiting Raspberries

Summer-fruiting raspberries differ from autumn-fruiting raspberries because they produce much larger canes that can be up to 20 feet long. Due to their length, it means that there are more points along the cane where the plants can flower which is one of the main reasons that they yield more than autumn fruit in varieties.

However, in order to enable them to be picked relatively easily, they also need a support structure to tie the canes on to stop them from running all over the ground. These support structures make it easier to pick and maintain raspberries and should be put into place before planting any canes.

To create a support structure it typically needs to be a 6 ft high trellis system of some sort. As the plants are perennial it is advisable to construct something that is relatively permanent. The simplest way to do this is to use something like reo mesh or temporary fencing which is easy to erect and will last a long time.

When selecting a location to put the support structure up it is important to select an area that gets at least 6 hours of sun per day which will encourage the cane to produce the maximum amount of fruit.

In addition to this, it is ideal if the soil where the canes are to be planted is rich moist, and free-draining and has plenty o  nutrients in the soil as this will also help to maximize fruit production.

Once the support structure is in place the next step is to plant the canes which typically you can purchase from a garden center in late winter or early spring as bare-rooted canes. The canes should ideally be planted in the center are the structure to allow canes to go in both directions.

Once the canes are in position is important also to mulch the beds well to ensure that any moisture that they received is retained. In the first year that these plants are put into the garden, you will not get any fruit because they produce on 1-year-old canes. 

So in the first year, you can expect to see prolific growth with extremely long canes being produced which need to be regularly tied to the structure however as the canes are so long you will find that what you will need to do is snake them across the surface of the structure in an s like pattern to ensure that all parts of these very long canes are supported.

When you reach the end of the growing season is it a good idea to make sure that you inspect the plants to ensure that the canes are ready to fruit in the following season which means renewing the layer of mulch adding additional compost and ensure that all parts of the canes are tied back.

In subsequent years the plant will produce new canes as well as beginning to fruit on the existing ones. To ensure continuous supply year on year from this point onwards it is important to tie back the new canes and then remove the old ones once they have fruited.  However, what you will find is that as the plant matures it will produce more canes than you have space for.  

To manage this it is best to not allow the plant to produce more than 4 to 6 canes add any one time and to consistently remove the old canes to allow space on the support structure. If you do this year on year you will end up with a bumper crop of raspberries.

A list of the varieties that were tested by the RHS is provided below for your reference in order of the highest-yielding varieties to the lowest. 

Growing Autumn Fruiting Varieties

Autumn fruiting varieties are significantly less work than summer fruit varieties because they do not require a support structure as they only get around 4 to 5 ft tall in most cases. Additionally, the maintenance associated with these varieties is also significantly easier because all you need to do at the end of each season is to cut the raspberries to the ground.

For autumn fruiting varieties to produce lots of fruit it typically takes a couple of years for the root system to build up and create increasing numbers of canes which will give you the volume required to create a large crop. 

To maximize the period over which autumn pruning varieties produce you can trick the plant into producing fruit earlier in the season by adjusting the way that you pruned the raspberries.

This can be done by pruning half of the canes to the ground as you would normally do and leaving the other half unpruned.  

The advantage of doing this is that the unpruned canes will produce fruit earlier in the season than normal which means that you will end up with two flushes of fruit, one in summer and the other one in autumn. To keep this pattern going you need to alternate the areas of raspberries that you prune each year so that the canes are never older than one year. See the table below for the highest-yielding varieties as tested by the RHS.

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