Hi lass,
Can't help too much. We planted both last year, we had berries on the Royalty and we really liked the flavor. Didn't get berries on the Brandywine, hope to this year. We are biased though, we haven't found a berry yet that we don't like. From the research I've done it seems that for an eating berry Royalty is what you want, Brandywine is more tart and is more for jam. It just depends on what you like and want.
Hope this helps
Jake

Jake- That does help :)

I've been leaning towards Royalty, but just wondered if Brandywine had a better flavor. Did you eat any of the Royalty when they were red, or just the purple?

Hi lass
Didn't eat any Royalty when red, just ripe ones. It's hard to describe the flavor, I would call it rich or full flavor not strong or overbearing. I would have to add that the canes of the Royalty are quite striking, they have a pretty hue to them that I really like.

Jake

Hi Lass: Can't speak to Brandywine but, my first dozen or so Royalty fruit last year were delicious and Large compared to Heritage and Latham. Looking forward to lots of fruit this year as there are many floricanes that survived 17 below uncovered and unscathed last winter. The canes are a dark, purplish-rust color and full of spines, beware the spines,enjoy the fruit. BTW, I decided to wait until all of last year's berries turned purple before they were eaten.

I'm going to get five Royalty and try them in my kitchen garden. If I like them, I may use them along the side of the bigger veggie garden (about 30' bed). Do they need to be trellised?

Hi michael,
The Royalty do seem quite hardy, we had 24 below for two consecutive nights and there doesn't seem to be any winterkill. And yeah the berries are HUGE!

Jake

Hi lass,

I'm not sure yet if they need to be trellised. We planted ours last spring and they seem to have a strong upright cane, we have to see what happens when they fruit. If they yield a lot we might have to with the weight of the berries. Most berries are easier to work with if trellised though.

Jake

Guys, I'm so happy to see that...we've had -27 F. a few times in the winter. How do they do with summer heat? We have hot, but dry, summers here. I water a lot, but there's very low humidity.

Hi lass
We generally have mid 80s and humid in summer. Royalty fruit supposedly late July here. The thing to remember is that they need to be watered an inch a week the year of establishment, and when they are developing fruit they need even more. They are hard to kill, just pump water to them when you see fruit.

Jake

No problem. I'm very good about watering, just not so good about weeding. I've been underplanting all my vegetables with alyssum, which really helped last year. Do you mulch the raspberries?

Lass: Apparently the canes don't mind constant 90s with upwards of a week at 100 with 50 +- percent humidity. My tiny first harvest last year was only a foot or so off the ground but still in the sun but there were no maladies associated with the weather, a big plus. Anxiously awaiting this season to see how they do on big canes, high up off the ground.

As far as trellising goes I can't really say. We live in a very windy area and I hate grubbing along on the ground to harvest or standing up and wading through canes to find the berries; therefore I trellis. I read somewhere once that royalty tends to grow in a bunch and they can be trellised kind of like those tall, round tomato cages. My canes all currently emerge from an area about 1 1/2' or less in diameter but they are flopping over onto the trellis for the most part as they are about 4-5' long. Time will tell how it all works out and what proves to work best. Fruit laying on the ground is certainly an invitation to disease and critters stealing your fruit to say nothing of being a pain in the rear to work around mowing and such.

Agree with berry-nut wholeheartedly. Don't forget the water.

The raspberries will be against the fence on one side, so trellising is no problem. It might be better, if it keeps the canes off the grass paths. I don't want the nieces and nephews getting caught up in the thorns. Would a couple of wires on metal posts work? That should hold them up between the fence and the wires.

Lass: Perhaps a single pair of wires would if they don't get too tall. Maybe I'm picky about canes flopping about but, I have 2 pair, one about 2 1/2' apart horizontally about 4' above the ground and the other about 2' apart about 2 1/2' above the ground. The lower level helps keep the canes in bounds when they are shorter, earlier in the season.

Thank you, I think that will work well in my space :)

I've been growing Royalty for the past 15 years or so and really like them. I've had harvests begin as early as July 1st and as late as July 20th. I try to pick mine while they still have a reddish tint because they seem to overripen quickly once they turn purple. I trellis mine at 2 and 4 ft and tie the canes to the top wire with string that is coated in plastic. I let the canes grow as tall as they want in the fall, and will be cutting them back to about 4-1/2 ft next week. They've been pretty disease and pest free up until the last couple of years when Japanese beetles began to invade around harvest time. They don't do too much damage but are unbelievably annoying during picking time. I get a lot of cane borer too but I cut out the affected portion of the cane, after which a side shoot resumes upward growth with little noticable effect by the end of the season.

I have more questions about Purple Royalty! I bought one this spring, and it's about 12" tall, sending out lateral canes which are short but they're flowering. I planted it against a big trellis that I use for black raspberries, since I read it behaves more like black, but I just read it behaves more like red! Gnomeabram or anyone with experience, I have questions!! Should I cut the 12" cane shorter to encourage more canes, or just wait? Will Royalty send out suckers like red raspberries or stay put like black raspberries? Should I construct a lower support for Royalty at this location? (Currently first support wire is at about 2'.) Can you recommend a good source of information on Purple Royalty?

I have currently bookmarked about 15 pages on various sites describing trellising, pruning, etc of various raspberry types, but not one of them is complete enough for me and I'm so frustrated!

I have lots of Jewel black raspberry, One Royalty, and new plots of Caroline, Rosanna, and Anne.

Thank you!

Ann

A royalty cane that is fruiting finished growing upwards last fall and shouldn't be pruned at this point. A few weeks after all the fuit is picked, the cane is going to die. Is there a new primocane forming at the base of the crown? At least one should be appearing by now. Once the plant gets established, the primocanes should grow much taller than the one you have currently.

Royalty does sucker, but no where near as prolifically as red raspberries. I have over 50 ft of royalty and get maybe 5-10 suckers per year. Most will show up within a foot or two of the main plants, but I've had a few appear over 15 feet away in my 10 year old patch.

You might try to coax the current fruiting cane into a small wire cage to support it for the next month.

Here's a picture showing my trellis system. This section was planted 4 years ago and is now the most productive. I'm not sure anyone else would do it this way, but it has worked for me.

{{gwi:78222}}

Gnomebran, that's exactly how I do mine and it works just fine as long as I tie the canes to the wires when needed. Of course raspberries like fruit trees never put out growth exactly where you want or plan to have it which makes trellising more challenging.

I'd show a pic of the Royalty but it is a flopping, thick mess as I didn't know what to expect it to do in it's 2nd year, lesson learned. It might be a bit of a treasure hunt finding some of the berries, haven't rooted around down from the top of the morass to see what is in there. Pickin time is coming soon!

You're right, the canes do need to be tied with this system. I usually tie mine after I remove all of the floricanes in August. It's important to keep the primocanes inside the wires as they grow so you don't have to bend them later to make them fit, and possibly break them. If they don't get that tall enough for the top wire, I tie them to the lower wire after I know they won't reach the top wire. I also run a wire down the middle of the top supports to help spread out the primocanes evenly within the depth of the row. This helps to fill the entire space without overcrowding.

There is no perfect way to trellis, as you can see from the picture a few canes do get messed up by the wind pushing them around or breaking off fruiting branches. But I find they are few and far between.

My wires have turn buckles at the end with a hook, that way in the Fall it is easy to drop the wires out of the way for mulching and spent floricane removal. afterwards, the new primocanes get put in their places for next year.

thanks for reminding me about the center wire idea Gnome, I forgot, again. A year or 2 ago I thought of a system that was used in a greenhouse I once worked in that grew cut carnations on benches. The plants were planted in a grid about 8" x 8" in benches about 4' wide and about 100' long and were trellised like you and I do raspberries. The main difference is that we would tie off strings, perpendicular to the wires from the inside wire outward to the outside wire making a grid. As the plants got taller, successive layers of strung wires were added keeping the plants upright and the stems very straight. Doubt I'll ever get that obsessed with the raspberries but some variation of it might be useful to an obsessed raspberry grower :)

The best things for weed suppression I've found are about 4" of mulch and drip irrigation. I use the green mulch from the city landfill. I has leaves, twigs, wood chips and other good stuff that helps feed the plants.They let it compost over the winter so it kills most, if not all, of the seeds. At 4" it keeps most seeds from reaching the ground and germinating. A steer mulch in the fall would be good too as brambles like their nitrogen. The drip irrigation puts water in very localized places, limiting where weeds can come up... unless you live in a very wet place.