Description of the Red Guard raspberry variety, advantages and disadvantages, care

Recently, owners of garden plots prefer to grow remontant varieties, which tend to bear fruit on the shoots of the current year, and also produce tasty and healthy berries for a long time. One of these varieties includes the Red Guard raspberry. We’ll talk further about the characteristics of the berry, as well as how to properly plant and care for the variety.

Description and characteristics of raspberries Red Guard

It is advisable to begin the description of this variety directly with the berries. So, the first thing people pay attention to is the taste and color, and they do not leave you indifferent. Each berry weighs approximately 12 grams, and their taste is excellent. Some gardeners managed to grow raspberries weighing 18 grams.

Remontant raspberry Red Guard is characterized by powerful bushes. Young shoots are located close and compact to each other, from the outside it seems that they all come out from one point. By the way, this fact simplifies the care of the crop. The height of the plant reaches 160 centimeters.

Raspberries begin to bloom on the fifteenth of July, and by the end of the month the first harvest of berries is harvested. The crop bears fruit until frost. In one season, with proper care of raspberries, it is possible to collect at least 9 kilograms from one bush.

Advantages and disadvantages

Comparing Red Guard raspberries with other remontant varieties, it is worth noting several advantages:

1. Raspberries begin to bear fruit much earlier than others, and the berries have an excellent taste. All fruits are the same size, which cannot but enhance the commercial characteristics of this variety.
2. Some berries grow fused, resulting in fruits of double size.
3. The plant is resistant to diseases and has high frost resistance.
4. The culture has a high ability to reproduce.

The variety is considered elite, so it is devoid of many of the disadvantages that others have. However, in order to get a decent harvest, the owner of a garden plot must comply with all the requirements of agricultural technology when growing raspberries.

Specifics of cultivation

The specifics of growing raspberries depend on the characteristics of the plant.We will tell you in more detail about how to properly organize the landing below.

Selecting a location

The soil plays an important role in growing Red Guard raspberries, in particular its composition. So, the soil for planting should be loose and contain a sufficient amount of humus. Also, special attention should be paid to the location of the site.

The variety requires sufficient lighting. There should be no high-lying groundwater in the area for planting. The place must be protected from the wind.

Planting pit

When the landing site is determined, it is necessary to draw markings. Leave at least one and a half meters between rows, and half a meter between bushes.

Next, they begin to prepare the planting holes. The easiest way is to plant raspberry seedlings in trenches. The depth of the trenches must be at least 45 centimeters.

Soil preparation

At the next stage, they prepare the soil. This point also requires attention, especially if the land on the site does not meet the requirements of this type. Depending on what kind of soil is available, you need to draw conclusions about what exactly is missing in it, and take measures to replace or improve it.

The main task is to make the soil structure loose and provide the required amount of microelements.

Filling the planting trench

It is useful to compact planting holes or trenches when planting bushes, which will ensure the flow of the required amount of moisture to the plant roots.

Landing in the ground

Planting raspberries in the ground does not cause problems and consists of the following steps:

1. A hole is prepared in the soil, the size of which would correspond to the size of the root system of the seedling.
2. The hole is watered and the soil is compacted.
3. The seedling is released into the hole and covered with soil.
4. The plant is watered.
5. The earth is being filled up.
6. Mulching.

How to care for the Red Guard raspberry variety?

If planting took place according to all the rules and the deadlines were met, you can be sure that at the end of the season there will be a rich harvest in the beds. So, proper care of the variety is another prerequisite in order to get a good berry.

Watering and mulching

If raspberries are planted under mulch, they require almost no watering. Water is needed in cases where the weather is dry.

Experienced gardeners recommend using drip irrigation. The best option would be to lay an old hose, which has small punctures, and let in a weak water pressure. The hose is left next to the raspberry bushes for about 1-2 hours.

Garter

For growth and proper development, the plant needs a garter. Since the bushes are quite powerful and tall, the chosen support should also be reliable. Raspberries planted in trenches need a trellis garter. The trellis, as a rule, is stretched on poles located along the edges of the row.

Loosening

As for loosening the crop, this must be done carefully, since the raspberry root system is close to the soil surface.

Top dressing

Fertilizing raspberries is carried out in the following way: 2 tablespoons of urea, half a glass of ash are diluted in 10 liters of water. The resulting nutrient solution must be watered to the plants. After such feeding, it is recommended to water the crop intensively to prevent burns to the root system.

Topping

If we talk about traditional raspberry varieties, it is worth noting that the berries appear on last year's stems, so they are cut out as soon as the harvest occurs, so that no stumps remain.This will be the starting point for strong young shoots to begin to develop, which will lay the foundation for the future harvest.

As for the remaining young stems, the tops are pinched in order to speed up their ripening.

In addition, it is necessary to systematically thin out the planting, getting rid of the shoots, which are poorly developed and only thicken the raspberries.

Preparing for winter

Red Guard raspberries are frost-resistant varieties that do not need to be prepared for winter. Experienced owners of garden plots recommend tying the tallest shoots of bushes into bunches so that they are not damaged by snow pressure. Despite the fact that in spring the shoots are cut to the same level as the ground, their damage reduces the yield of raspberries as a whole.

Fighting diseases and pests

Regardless of what variety the raspberry belongs to, care measures necessarily include preventive measures or direct control of diseases and pests.

So, the main enemies of berries are: raspberry beetle, stem fly and spider mite. As a preventative measure against raspberry parasites, deep digging of the soil is practiced in the autumn, while plant debris is removed, and in the spring the bushes are covered with agrofibre.

As for fungal diseases, to combat them they use spraying of bushes using solutions of Bordeaux mixture and Nitrofen.

If the bushes are affected by viral diseases, for example, root canker, mosaic or curl, the plant must be removed and burned.

Raspberry breeding

Raspberries of this variety are characterized by a high ability for successful reproduction.Thus, one plant can produce up to 20 root shoots in one season. If in the future it is planned that some of the offspring will be replanted further, it is necessary to eliminate weak shoots and allow future seedlings to develop in such a way that the distance between them is at least 10-15 centimeters.

At the time of transplantation, seedlings must be pruned and planted at the depth of their previous location. To make acclimatization as easy as possible, after watering the soil is mulched with compost, which is applied in a fairly thick layer.

Cleaning and storage

Optimal time to harvest raspberries It is considered early morning, when the berries are still cool. It is also better if there is no moisture (rain or dew) on the surface of the fruit, because this affects the duration of storage and also deteriorates the quality of the berries.

Only ripe fruits, which are easily distinguished by color, are subject to collection, and they are also easily separated from the fruit. Take the berry with three fingers and remove it from the fruit stalk, turning it a little. This process requires extreme care and precision, as raspberries are easy to damage.

Raspberries are stored for several days at temperatures from 0 degrees to +2. If harvested in dry and cool weather, it can be stored for up to a week.