Raspberry plants dying

Hello everyone

This year I decided to invest in some raspberry plants.I bought about 130 plants of the summer bearing type.I thing they were called Palola or something simmular and they have produced about 50 grams every second-third day.I bought them as one year old plants so this should have been there second year.

But since 1st of june to 1st of july about 10 of them have died and now more and more are starting to turn brown.The first raspberries were really small when they turned dark red.I tought they needed some food so I bought them 16:16:16 type of compost and the next ones were bigger.They were a little sower but are still yummu.Yesterdey I went there at about 10 am and I picked the raspberriess.Then at about 6 pm the same day one of the plants was dead almost if it had a hart attack.Here are some pictures.

Also a lot of them have been turning yellow.They have had brown leaf edges yellow around that and green center area and they were all dying.Some of them were the original 2 year old plant and I tought that it was okay at this time of year but others that shutup this year were also getting this type of leafs at the bottom. Maybe it is too much sun and I should put a net over them.I live in a zone 8a and it gets to about 42*c this time of year.Maybe I put too much water I added a drip system and I left it to run for about 12 hours one day and 12 hours the other day.

Thanks for the help.

I've had a similar issue with my summer bearing raspberries from Nourse. Mine were planted on a new hugelkultur berm that was made from cleared brush and subsoil from digging a pond. They started off great, got a few feet high, and did the exact same thing as yours.

I talked to the owner of Nourse farms (I sent an email to them asking for guidance and was pleasantly surprised when he called me) and the issue with mine seems to be lack of organically available nutrients they needed to establish themselves fully. They basically expended what was stored in the bare roots and burned themselves out. Once they were in a weekend state they started to be attacked. Rather than compost, nourse recommended trenching the sides and generously applying fertilizer. I did this and managed to save about half of them.

I don't think over watering is an issue. I have another set growing on a year old hugel that is directly bordering an irrigation ditch, and the soil is continually damp. Those are producing like crazy, though I'm snipping off the berries when they form to let the plants get well established.

I have been puting fertilizer of the 16:16:16 type and they have been growing because of it.But I was afraid that some of that fertilizer went directly to the roots and burned them.Now with that new water system I added it is easier to disolve the fertilizer.I put fertilizer two 1day before this happened.I tought it was some type of an insect because of the outside damage.

A lot of the plants have been going brown too.I know that the old ones should do that but some of the new ones are doing the same thing.I thing that they are burned because of the sun.Mine are Polana type red raspberries and I don't think that the my zone 8 weather is suitable for them.I am thinking of adding neting on them but I have read that they neef direct sunlight for atleast 6 hours a day.So if I ad thick nets I would need to remove them every day and put them back on so they get that direct sunlight .What are ypur thoughts on this?

The second and last pictures look like there might be a potassium shortage, with the dark veins and yellowing around them.

I may be heat and sun as you suggested. I didn't opt for polana because I didn't think they would hold up in the Colorado heat.

As for netting, I have a couple of plants that need shade and their companions haven't grown quickly enough to provide it. I made the posts out of 2x2s and tacked cheese cloth over them.

In that case I am going to try and add some potassium furtalizer to see what kind of results I am going to get.Also I will test my soil to see its Ph level.

I think I will buy some netting to put over them but I will have to take It off when ever the temperature falls down.A lot of people have told me that they need direct sun light in order to have big and red fruit.It will be a pain to take it on anf off every day but I will find a way to make It easier.

Thanks for all the help Josh.

My first thought is that you might want to consider using some organic growing practices instead of chemical fertilizers. I'll put a few thoughts here and expect others will add to them.

One of the biggest things that sets organic practice apart from conventional agricultural approaches is a focus on soil health. To achieve soil health, it looks like you'll want to add organic matter. There are different ways to do this. I'd suggest considering three:
1) Adding well-aged manure from cows or horses on top of the soil will add organic material even as it brings nitrogen and other nutrients with it.
2) While it won't help you this year, a cover crop (either with seeded crops or just letting weeds grow and cutting them before they go to seed) will add organic material and nutrients to the soil.
3) Even longer-term, you may want to add wood chips to the top of the soil. The breakdown of woodchips ties up nitrogen for a while and you may want to give a boost in the form of manure or something to help counteract that. But long term wood chips will improve your soil quality.

In the short term, rather than adding more chemical fertilizer, I'd suggest you might use organic approaches. For example, to increase nitrogen you can add human urine diluted about 9:1 with water. It sounds nasty but it really works and it's quick. For potassium, if you decide you need it, you can add wood ash. This kind of approach will help you develop and maintain the health of your soil.

I wonder if they were just planted in the spring and then bearing fruit, if they had a chance to establish a good root system?  

Are they showing any new growth from the roots at all?

The thing I notice in your pictures is how bare the soil is.....my raspberries like some mulch and even like mints as a living mulch.  

I remember when we had a wood stove we gave the raspberries a dusting of wood ashes on the surrounding area once or twice a year.  

Sometimes I mulch with a thin layer of green grass clippings for nutrition topped with straw.

We are in an area with very hot summers and I've found that the raspberries do better with much less than full sun.

Hope that you can save enough of them to propagate more and replace your losses...good luck!

They look to me like plants that were recently dug up and transplanted -- They don't have enough roots to survive. My next guess would be that the roots were chopped off by cultivation. Without sufficient roots, the plants can't get the water that they need. And lastly, I'd say that they look like they are suffering drought....

This is my first time using cheamical type furtalizer .I didn't use organic matter becase at that time I didn't know what else to put.

I can't find a lot of cow or horse manure, but I can find some chicken manure if that is the same.I have a lot of wood ash that I have gathered over the years but it has been sitting in the open with rain and everything and I am wondering if it will work.

My next question is do I just spread it over the soil or do I add soil on top of them too.Maybe humus perhaps? Can I put wood ash , wood chips and like crop branches at the same type or separately?

They were planted in march of this year.When it wasn't cold and there was some sun.They were one year old and this was there second year.Yes they have new plants growing from the roots of the original one that I bought.They had fruit this year.

Ivan, My raspberries bear fruit on the second years growth, new first year growth comes up from the roots, then the canes that fruited die and the next spring the cycle repeats itself. I usually cut out the two year old dead plants to make room for the new ones but you do not have to .

So I am wondering if the plants are just trying to do to much at the same time. In other words, they are transplanted so they are trying to keep the leaves alive, and grow fruit, and grow new plants for next year, while also trying to recover from being dug up and moved ?

Be patient. If you are seeing new growth coming from the roots just keep watering them and let them grow more roots over the winter.

I would not add to much ash unless a soil test shows that you need that, but I would work on covering the ground with any thing you have, Woodchips, ( yes the picture above looks like you have good woodchips)  leaves, grass clippings etc. You do not have to mix this stuff into the soil just drop it on top around the raspberry plants.  Once the roots take hold and the plants take off they will drop leaves each year and after many years will mulch themselves, but if you can start composting , compost is always a good thing to add.  You might even try to plant a ground cover of some sort , like clover, to keep the ground from drying out and building better soil. Be careful with chicken manures too as that has a lot of nitrogen in it and might burn the plants more.
Also remember that they will be growing lots of roots so anytime you plow you will be killing roots.

That is helpful.I was afraif that this is some sort of virus or insect attack because some of them thaf were healthy died in a manner od 2 days.But most of the plants are really good all green and have about 4 to 5 shoots growing from underneath.But I don't see a way of how I can transplant these next year because they are connected to te main roots.

This years shoot ups started getting brown leaves from the bottom not a lot but one or two and I was worried that it was sun damage.They are grown to like chest level and most of them have green raspberries.It think this happened becase they are an everbearing type that fruits from June to October.The shoots that came up from the two year old canes are supposed to die (people told me about this so I wasn't worried about it).

It think they need some potassium becase I have been puting a nitrogen type furtalizer only this year.I was planing to do a soil Ph test with vingar and baking soda (because we don't have that kind of a a testing facility in my country or not any that I know of) but the weather was windy and rainy so the soil was wet.

Btw this is a great forum.I learned so much about these particular type of fruit.Thanks for all the help everyone .

Miles Flansburg wrote:Ivan, My raspberries bear fruit on the second years growth, new first year growth comes up from the roots, then the canes that fruited die and the next spring the cycle repeats itself. I usually cut out the two year old dead plants to make room for the new ones but you do not have to .

So I am wondering if the plants are just trying to do to much at the same time. In other words, they are transplanted so they are trying to keep the leaves alive, and grow fruit, and grow new plants for next year, while also trying to recover from being dug up and moved ?

Be patient. If you are seeing new growth coming from the roots just keep watering them and let them grow more roots over the winter.

I've had similar experiences when transplanting wild raspberries. One year all 10 plants "died" but then most of them came back the following year to fruit.  

I transplanted a few this year from someone else's patch and only 2 out of 8 stayed green. It didn't help that it's been a hot year.

Ivan, as others have noted, the bare soil is likely an issue. From my own observations, in my parent's garden where they use the rototiller often, the raspberry suckers mostly spring up in a spot which is shaded by the already developed patch of raspberries. They rarely if ever come up in the bare soil there - unlike the goji suckers which seem to love that.
On contrast, when walking through natural pastures, the wild raspberries have no problem going into bare pasture to "compete" with the grasses. From what I can recall after reading Restoration Agriculture, it's raspberries "task" to over-take grasslands in the successional process.

Perhaps for next year, if you believe there is still a potassium problem, you could allow some weeds to grow as they'll likely gather up potassium for you - ideally from areas where you haven't planted anything. (Ex. Stinging nettle)
Then chop and drop them before they seed and use them as mulch from the raspberries which means the soil should retain more moisture for a longer period of time aswell.

Best of luck

Just adding two research abstracts that may be of relevance to red raspberry growers, even if the studies were focused in the Pacific Northwest of the US.  Don't know if any of this is affecting your raspberry production but information to perhaps keep in mind as you continue problem solving.

Ivan, 16/16/16 is very hot fertilizer that will burn plants and the second 16 represents potassium so that is not in short supply in that type of fertilizer.
When you plant any fruit bearing plant you need to let it have a full year devoted to root development instead of looking for fruit.
In cane type berries that means cutting back the hard (2nd year)canes so the plant can put all it's energy into developing a strong root structure.
I always use a vitamin B-12 solution to water in bare root plants, this stimulates them to grow roots and get well established.

Good luck, lots of great information has been shared already.

Redhawk

I have come to a conclusion that maybe my soil is to alkaline. I did the experimental woth vingar and soil so the results were that the pH was between 7 -8.The recomended pH level for my Polana raspberries was between 6.0 and 6.8.

So I am planing of digging up the soil between the plans a little so I can put humus, ash and so weeds if I can find some at this time of the year?.I will top it off by adding wood chipings on top?.I read that these will make my soil more acidic by next year?.I belive that the 16:16:16 fertilizer that I have been using has been doing just that but as you said it could have damaged there roots.

When I got the raspberry plants they were almost chest level high.I cut all of them do about 10 cm tall above the soil.I also cut the root about a milimiter so they could grow out.The plants that didn't bear the transplantation died in the next month.I tought that I wouldn't have a lot of fruit this year maybe just a hand full becase the 2 year old canes grew about 20 cm and some had a little but of fruit.But as time passed new canes started emerging and now they are almost chest level and all had fruit I was really surprised. All the fruit that I collect now is from those new born canes.Maybe about 100 grams from all the palnts every 2 day.But then this started happening I think that the sun and 40+ Celsius heat affected them.I think that they developed fine roots but the lack of minnerals is the problem.

I have learned more about raspberries these past few days then from all the books I read about them.

mineral sulfur (agricultural sulfur) is the thing to use for long term soil acidification.

If you can get some litmus papers, that is the cheapest test and for soil it is accurate enough, just dig a little soil dissolve it in bottled water and test.

I love to use calcium sulfonate when I can find it (might try a chemist supply store, they usually have less than analytical grade, which costs less than the really pure stuff).
The sulfonate gives you both calcium and sulfur ions for your soil (a 2 for 1).

I agree with your assessment of the heat being a factor, most likely you experienced a near perfect storm there.

If you are going to use wood chips for a mulch, acidification will depend upon what species the chips come from. You might try working some of those chips into the soil, that will bring good fungi as well as opening up the soil some for water infiltration.
for a complete mineral addition try to find a sea salt that has not been refined at all, just air evaporated, that will have a multitude of minerals in it and you won't need to worry about salinity as much as you might think.
I use a  sea salt at the rate of 1/2 cup per plant, spread all the way around it. Do that for two years (1 application per year) and you should not need to do it again for at least 5 years.

Redhawk