I have red, black, yellow, and purple raspberries. I use wire to keep the raspberry plants from falling into the rows but not to support their own weight. Most of my raspberries will stand freely if they are pruned and not holding fruit. Once they have a full load of fruit on the canes, the canes typically need some support to keep them from tipping over. The taller you let the primocanes grow, the more you will need to support them.

I have my raspberries in rows with wire at 3ft height on both sides of the rows. This works for me. I use a trellis for trailing and semi-errect blackberries and grapes. There may be other, different approaches that may work as well.

My black Allen needed support. It is still producing fruit. The fruit ripened over a month, pretty cool. Also one primocane has fruit, I should clone that one.
Most need support in my experience.. All can benefit from it.
I just used electrical conduit steel poles 10 feet long. Buried them 3 feet with a post hole digger. Works great! They will never fail, you could cement them in and they would really be strong, but not really needed. Two steel grades exist, I'm using the cheaper grade, works fine, bends a touch but so what? Wires are tight!
Here you can see the poles. I used two each side, with two wires each. These run 24 feet and are tight. The poles are strong enough to hold a 24 foot wire tight.

I took a look at my raspberries today and would group them as follows:

Not needed:
Autumn Britten

Helpful, at least sometimes:
Caroline
Wineberries
Anne
Prelude

Needed:
Royalty

But, this could vary based on how well they grow for you. My Autumn Britten have short canes and light crops, so most of the canes aren't even touching the supports. Royalty on the other hand has quite a heavy load and most of the canes are leaning over the wire.

Anne has grown pretty well for me, with tall sturdy canes...at least the plants that didn't die (it seems to be all or nothing). I actually have 2 patches- one with and one without a trellis. Without a trellis, a few canes are leaning over, but most are self supporting.

The same can be said for Wineberries, as most of mine are growing wild and the only ones I've had to tie up are near my house (they grow leaning away from it, then fall once the berries come).

Thanx for the feedback, i just redid my Trellis system, i use green coated rebar 5/8" thick, spaced at 21 feet for a total of 42....i bought some high strength plastic clothes line and tied it tight as i could at 24 inches height and 48 inches height by 24 inches wide at bottom and 36 inches at top....i think this will work for me

Here's a pic of the setup

Her's a close up of my Josephine and Double Gold plant's inside the new trellis.....Josephine is 5 foot tall now and was ground level in April after pruning, Double Gold i planted last Fall it was a 2 inch plug, how big this thing got is amazing....all these plants will fill up this trellis this year

Your setup is similar to mine. I used T-posts for my poles and high gauge wire with distances between posts at around 10-12 ft. One thing I added after my trials and errors was at every 4-6ft, I used short lengths of high gauge wire to link both sides of the upper wire, forming rectangular sections. This keeps the plants better organized when they grow taller and keeps them from falling sideways when they have a full fruit load.

Greenhorn,

You have a huge patch starting, you have seen my harvests, well yours is twice as long. I do have a 2nd patch, also, and now sort of a third with blacks. Anyways you are going to have raspberries up the wazoo when they all take. See where your hose is on the lawn? They will sucker about that far out. Your plants look good, coming along nicely!

Hey Drew...i don't know if you remember but i have another patch on the fenceline with Fall & Kiwi Gold which i planted this Spring, so far only dribs and drabs of both, but they are suckering now for the Fall lineup....her's a pic

Oh and i forgot to say that in total i have almost 60 foot of Raspberry beds in total along my fence !

Here's another pic

You're going to have bigger harvests than me eventually! I must say I think next year I'm going to hire a migrant worker! It takes me about an hour to go through the patch. Harvest is slowing down, but the ground cherries are picking up, and the blueberries are soon to be ripe, well the first of three bearing plants. I have 7 blueberry plants now, but 4 are young. No crops till 2016. Here's today's harvest. I'll pick more this evening.

My raspberries are currently out of production until probably mid-August. My second round of Caroline and Anne are flowering now, with berries already on the Caroline.

I'm finally getting a good harvest from my triple crowns which went into a nice blackberry pie today.

That looks good! I hope next year to get a decent amount from TC. I'm going to try besides covering them an anti desiccant spray.
Yesterday I tasted my first boysenberry ever. it turned from red to a dark purple. Man what flavor! I don't see how that could be dull in anyway. I know some were not happy with 2nd year berries, but man what a complex flavor. you can taste both blackberry and raspberry heritage. The rest are going for jam. I have a few tayberries too, all going for jam. Wyeberries too, man that plant produces huge berries. It's not a super grower staying well within bounds. Seems most others are crazy spreading beasts, trailing or not. The longest cane on the wyeberry is about 4 feet. It is a young plant. It was 6 inches tall last year, so next year it may be like the others. The longest cane on the boysenberry is a good 12 feet! Yikes! I need to tip that beast! It is outgrowing all others even TC.
Next year is going to be interesting, Columbia Star, Loch Ness, Black Diamond. Out of new plantings this year Loch Ness has grown the most with 6 foot canes the first year, impressive! The floricane bare root has 3 berries on it too, so I'll get a taste this year.
Both Jewell, and Niwot black raspberries are growing strong, nice!
Also most definite that Allen threw a primocane fruiting cane. Once it fruits, I'll tip it, and try to tip root a lateral. See if I can get a primocane fruiting line. The floricanes are just about done, and this lone primocane still has green berries. It is not some lateral or offshoot of a floricane. But it has few berries, so not really a big deal, even if I establish a primocane fruiting line, it is not productive. Only maybe 10 berries are on the cane.
The floricanes produced hundreds this year.
But the trait may be useful in breeding.

I tasted boysenberries from red to dark purple this year trying to find that "great" taste and finally found it once the berries were almost falling apart. I canâÂÂt wait until next year when I have some more to try. If you think the boysenberry plant it is large now wait until next year, it will double in size.

If you are going to prune your boysen (or any other trailing variety), prune the whole cane off or none at all. If you remove just the tip, it will grow several replacements from the location of the cut, creating a mess of smaller canes to manage. Boysenberry grows so many primocanes though, that it might not be a bad idea to remove a few to keep the plant from getting fungal infections due to the overgrowth. I had severe leaf spot problems with my first bunch, so much so that I had to dig them up this year. I had two boysen plants from another vendor that had not been infected and so far have been more resistant to leaf fungus.

IâÂÂd like to try the wyeberry if you end up with any extras from tip layering. I have extra Siskiyou and Marion that I can trade. Both have a great tasting berries; Siskiyou is a lot hardier. Both Marion and Siskiyou are larger plants than Boysen.

JT,

Yes, I'm trying to tip root one for you. It has been in the dirt a few days now. I'll leave it a couple weeks, and check for roots. it should work!
I noticed with Allen black raspberry to tip root, one best just stick the tip in the soil, as the plant did that 4 or 5 times last year on it's own. All the ends had massive roots by the time I discovered them. It was not that long, so it is the boysenberry of black raspberries!
Anyway this technique might work well for all black raspberries. Not sure?
Usually (I guess?) one sinks part of the cane near the end into the ground, leaving the tip still exposed.

Thanks so much for the tip on boysenberry, before I did cut it! I was going to do that today. This is the 2nd year for me, and it is pretty big. Really thanks to my dog I got to taste it. All canes were damaged except the first foot. My dog after doing his business on the plant, kicked up the grass, as dogs do. Well that grass protected the first foot and it survived! it's producing about 15 berries.
Of course this year I will bury it in leaves. It is staying very low to the ground, so not a problem at all. So yeah I'm liking the trailing type, but man those thorns! At least now I have columbia Star and Black Diamond which are thornless and trailing. Loch Ness is supposed to be semi-trailing, but it is hugging the ground this first year and also will be easy to protect.

OK, as you noted many of these need to be dead ripe, and they are very soft. it's hard finding a decent berry that is firm. Triple Crown is one, and maybe others you reported on too.
The wyeberry is sort of soft too, but no where like tayberry or boysenberry. It stays together. The berry is huge!
These soft berries will be used for jam, so I'm OK with them, but I have enough for jam, need cultivars for fresh eating. With jam I may pick them slightly early too, you want the kick to offset the sugar.

jtburton, your pie looks fabulous!!! I will have my first blackberry harvest that is decent this summer. I hope to make jam, so it lasts longer! At least a little longer. Mrs. G

Josephine is vigorous and needs support. In the second year I removed a few canes from a single plant leaving 5. The most vigorous cane had its tip removed at 5 feet and has since grown to 7 feet with two laterals. Buds will be flowering soon. Planted in sandy soil with 5 to 6 hous of sun.

When first planted I was concerned it would not get enough sun but it is doing fine.

Drew51,

Did you ever get any tayberries and wyeberries this year? If so, what was your opinion on their flavor? I have several Tayberry plants on order and one I ordered earlier in the year in a pot awaiting to be planted. I'm just thinking about adding some different flavors to my berry patch.

JT,

Was it you who wanted a wyeberry plant? I tip rooted one, but I'm not sure it took? It's a tangled mess, and one cane died. Not sure if it was the tip rooted one? If so, sorry. I will soon dig in there. The thorns are crazy, so I have avoided it. But soon time to bare root the plant, if viable. If not I'll try again next year. I had success with a cutting, but that was promised out in the spring. I'll take cuttings in the spring and try again. But it may have worked, let you know soon.

Yes I got a few and they were very similar. Actually hard to tell apart. The wyeberries were bigger, but otherwise taste, and plant characteristics were very similar.
I made jam with currants, wild blackberries, tayberries and wyeberries all mixed in. One of the best jams this year. I made 4 different jams so far. The other standout was a mix of domestic and wild black raspberries. Both were killer. Both are already gone! Friends and family after tasting took them all! It is rather tart raw, but man the jam was excellent. I myself liked the mix with currants. That really made it unique tasting. Mostly red currants, some whites, and pinks in there too.
Anyway plants are still growing, but soon I should be able to take it. I guess I should wait till dormant, but could try now. Well in about a week I have to leave town this week and will be back the 27th. I'll post at that time status of tip rooted plant.

Again I didn't see much difference between the plants. nest year will be better as both grew like crazy. Although the wyeberry seems to be a better growing bigger berry version of Tayberry.
I have a boysenberry between the plants and it grew so much, it's hard to tell what cane is what? They all overlapped each other. I left them on the ground as I need to cover them. I will trellis them in the spring. While dormant I'm going to cut the boysenberry way back, ridiculous how long the canes are. Some are almost 20 feet long. I'll sort them, prune them, trellis them in late winter/early spring.

We grow black raspberries only at this time and they are 3' tall and do not need support. This time of year the tips hit the ground and make new plants which in our case is what we want. Black raspberries in my experience require less maintenance and are more drought tolerant.

I like black raspberries a lot. I have 3 cultivars. 2 are just put in. Allen was planted in the spring of 2013. Impressive plant. It's huge, grew 11 floricanes off one crown. I cut of 2 and left 9. It tries to root, but I stop it. Taste is really good.
It is a cross between Bristol and Cumberland. My favorite black raspberry so far. But I have tasted few. I have Jewel and it tastes a lot like Jewel. Seems they all pretty much taste alike. Jewel seems like a good one too. I also have Niwot, and to tell the truth first year primocane berries were not that good. But it is a young plant. Hoping the summer crop is better. Still cool to get black raspberries in September.

Drew51,

Yep. I was hoping to get a wyeberry starter from you at some point in time. I have a few other trailing blackberry varieties that I have to trade. Much like your experience, I have several varieties that have grown into each other so they are somewhat of a tangle. I noticed that my SiskiyouâÂÂs have tip-rooted again despite my attempts to get it contained. I put one Siskiyou aside for you earlier this year in a pot and it has grown quite a bit. I might have to trim it a bit to ship it. I also have several Marion blackberries available if you want one. All have had a bit of leaf spot fungus this year, so I would suggest a good bath in lime sulfur before planting them.

I would suggest the same (sulfur bath), let me look at the plant tomorrow, and see if I have something to send you. All was going well, then that one branch died. I couldn't tell if it was the tip rooted branch as it is a jungle. I'll let you know tomorrow.Also I'll contact the other guy, maybe if not interested I can send you his. It was hard to tip root as plant was still small. It has grown this year.

Drew51.

Sounds good. If you have any extra Rosanna Raspberry plants that might be cool too. I have some extra Newberry and Wild Treasure for sure...perhaps a few others but will have to check.

Shoot, I forgot to look today, I was super busy. First thing in the morning! On Rosanna. The taste is good, but man it's a weak grower. It's barely surviving. It's not that great. You know when you first get fruit, one tends to be overly optimistic. We are all like that. And this might be where I was. And you saw my plants, they look great, yet this one struggles? . I can still dig a sucker up no problem. I think you tried Cascade Delight and was not impressed. I have Cascade Gold, and I like the plant. The berries when super ripe tinge red,with very good taste. It seems less vigorous this year. Still a strong grower. Want to try that one? A summer bearing type.
I have so little room, I would like to try many of yours and would ask for a rain check. For a few years. After I move it would be very nice to get something different. It you're still around. I'll take Siskiyou for now, I do want all you mentioned, but I just have no room! Once I move room should not be an issue. Still it's years off(sigh).