Blackberry dilemma

I planted my Black Satin Blackberry that had one large cane with flowers in spring, and it's grown another cane and the flowers are just now, slowly but surely, plumping into little green-red berries. Any suggestions for increased fruit production? is there a special way i have to prune it? should i dig out the sucker?

I planted blackberries *last* spring and am only now getting a few blooms and berries. Fruit of most kinds are a long term project and I knew that so am not disappointed. Mine are Triple Crown and just suddenly within the last month have sprouted out much larger new canes. The increase in production will only come with the spread of the bed and canes over time. I have constructed a cage sort of thing with wires to define the area they can fill and to support the canes. I mow around this area. The raspberries I planted at the same time have tried to sprout canes outside the cage so I'd say mowing was a good idea.

I too am growing Black Satin. I was always told to cut the cane back to the ground at planting which I did. You lose the few berries you would have gotton the first year but boy do they make up for it the second year. Instead of putting their energy to making berries, the root system and 1st year canes for next year's fruit get the nutrients. By summer's end last year I had 8-10 1st year canes that I (and the deer) cut off at about 5' high. These filled in this year and below is the results so far.

DO NOT remove the suckers from around the base of the plant, those will be the ones that have the berries next year as the berries come from shoots during the 2nd year. Suckers out away from the plant I dig up, pot in 3 gallon pots and allow to grow after a couple of weeks in the shad to recover and build up their roots. These will be cut back to ground level next spring when they are used to start another row or give to someone else. I could mow them but I just hate to see them go to waste though I may change my mind in a couple of years when we are overrun with berry plants.

I just noticed you are in zone 9b so what I just told you may not hold true where you are. Sorry I didn't see that before.

Here is a close up of the berries we should have around the 4th of July. The large leaves to the left of the pic are from a 1st year cane. After harvest I will cut back the canes that had fruit this year leaving the first year canes for next year.

This message was edited Jun 21, 2005 4:58 PM

Wow, gorgeous plant, Terry. and thanks for the info.

Kerry,
The advice you gave naien is pretty much the same for zone 9b. The only difference may be in the time the blackberries mature.