BS: Raspberry Question

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Beer
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 02:08 PM

Thanks Gnu.
I will use a few of his tips.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: gnu
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 01:50 PM

Beer... Here.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Beer
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 01:45 PM

Don't see any new canes. The first four feet of my bush is fine. As I recall we bought these and are suppose to be disease resistance. The others I dug up.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Beer
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 11:12 PM

Interesting olddude. Next door my son has a wild crop of black raspberries and I have frozen an extra large zip lock bag of them for the freezer.
BTY Bob. I have a some blueberries for you and the misses stored in the freezer. Will get them for you maybe when I go up to the Pembrooke Fiddling champion ship come Sept.
ad.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: olddude
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 09:04 PM

I had a bumper crop of em this year. my freezer is full .. now my blackberries came out just like your raspberries. I mean I got a couple quarts but what the hay ... there were a ton of flowers but alas they just didn't produce well at all ... dang, I love my blackberries also

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Beer
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 09:02 PM

I'll have a close look tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: bobad
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 08:26 PM

If you've been watching for it then it is probably not the cane borer. If it's any consolation we also had a poor crop this year after having had a bumper crop last season, but our canes don't appear to be dying off as do yours. Do you have many new canes starting?

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Beer
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 08:16 PM

Yes I do have this. I found the rings last year and would cut just under the lowest ring. I then burnt all that I could find. I found a few more this year but not as many as the year before. Maybe I missed to much. It could be it but I would be a bit surprised as I did what I could last year.
ad.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: bobad
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 08:10 PM

Ad, do you see the leaves wilted on the top six inches or so of the canes? If you see that, look for two rings encircling the cane at about six or so inches from the tip, that is a sign of cane borers which will travel down inside the cane and kill it. I look for the rings and snap the tips off at the ring, they come off cleanly right at the ring.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: maeve
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 08:09 PM

If it was cane borers, the canes would have an obvious limp bend near the tips and a dark place near the bend where the borer eggs was deposited. Look here http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/ygbriefs/e216raspberry.html and here http://ipm.illinois.edu/ifvn/volume16/frveg1601.html (photos about 2/3 down the page.)

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: gnu
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 07:55 PM

Oh, okay m. I just was concerned about the amount of canes that died and didn't understand if there was some connection.

Alson, Guy said sommat about "cane bore" but I didn't catch it as I was taking notes and he was kinda busy so I didn't ask about that. I figured what he told me was a good start.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: maeve
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 07:27 PM

The rain preventing complete pollination wouldn't hurt the plants, gnu. It just means not much good, full fruit for the season.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 06:08 PM

http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091006090206AA2zZ2n

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: gnu
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 06:04 PM

Waddn't me bud... c'est Da Vice Grip la!

As for rain preventing complete pollination, would that kill the plants?... by taking to much energy away from them? I don't understand me.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Beer
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:43 PM

Holy mackerel Gnu. That is one fine job you did. There are other crops around that has the same problem and I'll go with maeve on to much rain in the spring.
Will get back to this after supper.
ad.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: gnu
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:22 PM

First step... dept of agriculture because if it's fire blight they will want to know on accounta La Belle Province is big in raspberries. They my come to you or they may tell you how to get them a sample for a plant pathologist.

When did you first plant them and how many years have you been harvesting berries from them? When did you first plant the ones in the raised bed and how many years have you been harvesting berries from them?

What method did you use to plant both? Did you transplant and cut them one foot above the ground?

Which ones died, the original ones or the ones in the raised bed or both?

What was your snow cover last winter? (I know... this could definitely be it.) Heavy snow cover can damage the canes and you won't know it unless you dig up a number of roots from various locations and peel the skin off them to see if the roots are brown or still white flesh (this is a common practice of raspberry management). If most are brown, you have to cut most of them off at ground level. Otherwise, they will use too much energy trying to blossom and bear fruit and then they will die or produce poor fruit.

And THAT is just a snippet of our telecon.

BTW, Guy had not heard the nickname we use to call him for years and he ROARED with laughter when I said, "This is Gary Owens calling and I am looking for Da Vice Grip la. Ya gotta see the mitts on this guy... he could squash yer head like a raspberry with one hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:13 PM

We have 3' high blueberry bushes in front of out house we planted from 2 ft plants a year ago. The yields were quite good. This is a great place for gardening if you keep an eye out for the bugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:11 PM

I think it's spelled THHTHBBB!

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:09 PM

We get a lot of our information from NC State and Clemson University extensions (SC)

I thought that Maine's would be more useful for Beer.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: gnu
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:00 PM

Holy crap. I just got off the phone with Guy. This is gonna take me a while to type up.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: maeve
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:00 PM

That is a good link, Jack. Maine Cooperative Extension has lots of good information.

Adrien, my first guess would be that the rainy weather prevented complete pollination.

Maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: gnu
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 04:59 PM

I'll call Da Vice Grip. Guy will know the answer. His family had scads of U-Pick and he went to ag school and has run a farm for years. My old man got a bunch of canes from them and we had raspberries with milk for breakfast for years when I was a boy.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 04:53 PM

I don't know about your specific problem but raspberries do need good drainage. Perhaps they got a bit water logged with your wet weather?

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Beer
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 04:05 PM

Just finished with your link JtS and was very informative but I didn't find that it addressed my situation. Much appreciated though.
Gnu, most of the plants were dug up from an old raspberry patch on a forgotten farm. They produced great for the past two years. I planted this raised bed 4 years ago.
ad.

Subject: RE: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 03:02 PM

This help?

http://umaine.edu/publications/2066e/

Subject: RE: BS: Rasberry Question
From: gnu
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 02:59 PM

Don't know anything about cultivated raspberries but I know wet weather will lessen the wild crop. Up Kent County, when I was a lad, the thickest raspberries were on the mounds of dirt bulldozed up along the sides of the roads.

They were great raspberries, especially where they ssrayed Agent Orange to kill the hardwood trees. Mmmmmmmmm mmmmm good.

Subject: BS: Raspberry Question
From: Beer
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 02:42 PM

Spring arrived with lots of rain then the bushes flowered. And man did they flower. I looked on and said to myself that there is going to be one hell of a crop. Then the berries started and most stopped growing. I was a able to pick a few quarts but they were not well formed. Now 90% of all the bushes have died and new shoots are not plentiful. I know about thinning the crop out and cutting back the old stocks, but something seems wrong. Could it be because of the very wet spring?

Adrien