more on pruning climbing roses

With climbers - where there is a fork how do we know which one to prune off - in order to grow one strong cane? Does it matter? Do the hormones just swap over if we don't know which is the main cane and which the off-shoot? Does it take considerable time for the plant to do the homonal switch? Is choosing just a matter of going for one with a better size and least damage? Thanks


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You want to aim for a network of horizontal shoots at various heights.
for the fag ends of the aristocracy.
I think some sources talk about main canes being canes that are coming from below ground level (or from the base of the plant) but they can also start higher up.
It depends on how you prune/treat them. It's like how with an espalier tree, you tie the main branches that you have selected horizontally to encourage new shoots to grow all along the length of the branch. Then you prune back the lateral side shoots which are trying to become leafy stems to encourage them to become fruiting spurs. But if you didn't prune back those laterals then they would be trying to grow and become new leading stems. Some people use this to create more elaborate espalier designs by extending the structural branches in interesting shapes.
On a climbing rose you do a similar thing, you train the structural 'main canes' horizontally (or near to horizontal) to encourage lateral side shoots all along the length of the cane. Then after flowering and in winter you cut the laterals back shorter to encourage more flowering shoots to grow from that point in the future and stop them getting too long.
If you just left a lateral shoot to grow long then it would try to go vertical, stiffen up and become structural with flowers just at the very tip. So a lateral side shoot can become a 'main cane'.
Short answer:
I think main cane just means a cane that is being used to support the structure of the rose plant - they can be a side shoot from another main cane.
That's my understanding anyway.
The usual way of growing climbing roses is to train the two side canes towards the horizontal to slow down the flow of growth hormone to the tips, thereby encouraging the development of side shoots which will bear the blooms.
As others have said, not sure why you'd want to remove either of those canes ?