Raspberries - lifting, dividing and taking hardwood cuttings

Raspberries (Rubus idaeus) are cane fruits with rhizomatous growth that enables them to be divided. They flower and fruit on sideshoots of long, vigorous canes with a life expectancy of up to 10 years. Most flower and fruit on canes produced in the previous year, although there are some autumn-fruiting cultivars that fruit on canes grown in the same year. The cultivar in this activity was "Lloyd George."

Canes were lifted with a shovel and the surrounding weeds, in particular the rhizomatous agropyron repens (rope twitch), was carefully removed from clumps.

The rootballs of the canes were washed with luke warm water to reveal growth buds arising from their rhizomes.

Foliage was removed with secateurs since most of the canes were suffering from rust disease, which normally shows up as bright orange powdery pustules, but darken to black thick-walled spores as the weather gets colder. "Lloyd George" and "Neka" are particularly prone to serious infections. Control can be achieved by copper oxychloride or a sulphur based spray.

Canes of roughly pencil thickness were selected and prepared for hardwood cuttings. This was achieved by making a horizontal cut below a bud and a diagonal cut above a bud at approximately the same angle the bud is pointing and at roughly the distance of the width of the stem above the bud. The bottom of the cutting does not need to be scored like other hardwood cuttings (this normally helps to induce root formation).

Other thinner canes were potted to be planted out in a permaculture display. Dead canes that contained old buds and revealing dead wood when lightly scraped were pruned out.

The organic mix used for the cuttings and potted canes was made from the following recipe :

40L composted bark (sieved), 5L pasteurised sand, 3.5kg rockdust (dolerite, sieved), 500g BFA pellets (blended), 500g dolomite.

For hardwood cuttings, the mix is lightly tamped down and the base of the cuttings is dabbed in hardwood rooting hormone. An OH&S issue is to prevent this rooting hormone from coming in contact with skin. It should be promptly washed off if this happens.

Hardwood cuttings are lightly pushed into the mix about 1/3 of the way down. Several cuttings can be placed in the same pot. They were placed in the poly house after this.

Ref : RHS propagating plants, pc Marcus Ragus