this has been the best explanation of multi-year cane life progression that I have ever come across for making pruning decisions! Every tutorial I've watched shows how to clean up twiggy and damaged growth and only discusses primary and secondary growth and not how to recognize that this could be productive thru year 5. So for years I had been doing the same raspberry cane pruning technique with my blueberries, pruning out the 2nd year production canes at the end of the year. luckily I had hand surgery that forced me to "selectively neglect" certain garden chores for two years and boy howdy, did that make a difference in the amount of blueberries I harvested! I still didn't know why, until now :0) thanks for the lesson!

Thanks. That was very helpful. I didn't know that the canes fruitfulness waxes and wanes with age. I assumed they just fruited a little farther out each year depending on how you pruned them. It seems as though one should think of them almost like blackberry primocanes and floricanes, but on an extended time line. Can you make the younger canes produce more fruiting wood by pruning a certain way, like you can with blackberries? I just have three plants, so I can spend a reasonable amount of time training them, if it can make a worthwhile difference. They are rabbit eyes, I'm in SE Texas. I added another level to my raised beds this spring. My plants put on a lot of vegetative growth, but didn't produce as much fruit as they did last year. I think the bagged soil azelea mix I added may have been amended with more nitrogen than they needed. Does that seem probable? Best regards! J