Ripens very early and produces a second small crop in the fall, just when we start to miss raspberries. Very large red conic high-quality firm fruit is tasty and mild with little acidity. Vigorous winter-hardy canes. After several years of trial in his nursery, John Meader wrote, “I’d strongly recommend Prelude. It showed hardiness equal to Boyne last winter and fruits the earliest of all varieties I’ve observed.”

Summer-bearing raspberries bear on second-year canes (floricanes). Midseason berries ripen around late July in central Maine. Z4. (bare-root canes)