Raspberry leaves yellow and dying suddenly

The leaves on my Heritage are turning yellow and brown and dying. It's been raining almost everyday for two weeks.
I hope it's not root rot. and black mildew or mold has grown in the last week on the bamboo canes I used for temporarily support.
I just noticed it s I cut off the dead looking leaves.
Maybe I should spray them with sulfur?
I also just noticed some of the leaves have been chewed off.
Yesterday I saw 4 deer in the yard. One of them were walking in the area of the plants. I opened the window and slammed it and they all took off.
Could the plants be dying because of deer chewing at them?

All the leaves were beautiful green a week ago.

it could be too much water. what kind of soil do you have? did you check ph before planting them? how deep did you plant the roots? raspberries should have their roots no more than 2in. down . did you fertilize near the roots? shouldn't fertilize a new plant till it shows signs of new growth. i bet if its clay soil you have it could be poor drainage. don't add sulfur for sure as it will kill your already weakend plant. its still got plenty of leaves so i don't think the deer hurt it any. maybe someone else with more experience diagnosing raspberry problems will chime in? try lightly raking the top inch of soil to fluff it up some. might help to dry the soil some don't go to deep as the roots are shallow on raspberries. does water pool on rainy days around your plants? if so you may need to dig them up and put them in a mound with some coarse sand added to your soil for drainage.

steve bossie wrote:it could be too much water. what kind of soil do you have? did you check ph before planting them? how deep did you plant the roots? raspberries should have their roots no more than 2in. down . did you fertilize near the roots? shouldn't fertilize a new plant till it shows signs of new growth. i bet if its clay soil you have it could be poor drainage. don't add sulfur for sure as it will kill your already weakend plant. its still got plenty of leaves so i don't think the deer hurt it any. maybe someone else with more experience diagnosing raspberry problems will chime in? try lightly raking the top inch of soil to fluff it up some. might help to dry the soil some don't go to deep as the roots are shallow on raspberries. does water pool on rainy days around your plants? if so you may need to dig them up and put them in a mound with some coarse sand added to your soil for drainage.

Thanks Steve. The nursery where i got the Annes should be able to help with any more of my questions.
t's probably too much water. It rained every day for two weeks!
Initial planting was with homemade compost with chicken manure mixed with bags of garden soil and mulch. I think it was Black Gold brand.
I made a mistake and planted the roots all the way down. but that is how far they were in the container when I bought the plant so I would think that is OK?
Coarse sand for clay soil I have read about. made a mistake once with other plants and used regular sand and made concrete mud.
A mound is probably a good idea but I didn't know I could dig them up, I thought it was too early. I just planted them last fall. I thought they wouldn't make it if I dug them up already but if I have to I have to.
holding out on that for now, waiting to see if it gets worse and spreads to the new suckers.
Last week I spread about a inch of compost all over the entire surface circumference of all my raspberry plants.
This compost is really broken down it is black, I bought a truck full last week from Agway.
It contains straw, horse manure, poultry liter, corn cobs, cottonseed hulls,
coco bean hulls, lime, gypsum and sphagnum peat moss.
I hope the gypsum in the compost works. I am thinking of buying a bag of pelleted gypsum tomorrow and top dressing every single plant in my yard to help with the clay soil issue.
I can get a 900 sq ft bag for about $12.

places I've bought my raspberries at say to lay the roots horizontal to the surface about 2in down so the suckers can reach the surface easily. i agree digging them isn't a good idea now but you may lose them to root rot. your soil seems good. try raking the surface to fluff up the soil around the roots like i mentioned earlier. that will allow for moisture built up in the soil to evaporate and may save them. i think that the roots being planted so deep, initially you won't get many suckers but they will eventually grow closer to the surface over time giving you lots of babies to transplant! good luck!

steve bossie wrote:places I've bought my raspberries at say to lay the roots horizontal to the surface about 2in down so the suckers can reach the surface easily. i agree digging them isn't a good idea now but you may lose them to root rot. your soil seems good. try raking the surface to fluff up the soil around the roots like i mentioned earlier. that will allow for moisture built up in the soil to evaporate and may save them. i think that the roots being planted so deep, initially you won't get many suckers but they will eventually grow closer to the surface over time giving you lots of babies to transplant! good luck!

He told me to cut down last years canes on the Heritages. The old canes were the only thing dying on both plnats.

He told me to dig up my Annes and plant roots shallow and mix bark chips and pea gravel in the clay soil. Not to dig a hole and replace soil cause it would just make a bucket underneath at the bottom of the clay soil.
I dug them and put them in a better spot, built a long mound for all the canes and laid the roots on their side, then built up more dirt (mixed in some compost) all around the mound. only downside i might need support might need trellis because the mound should have been built and left standing for a few weeks before planting. Put a lot of clay soil on top of the mound all around to compact the mound as much as possible.

i have very rocky clay soil. i find peat w/ vermiculite is the best amendment for berry plants. i use the promix from lowes. fluffs up the soil and add some acidity, which most berries like. compost and gypsum helps too.

This site has some words of wisdom which seem to confirm the rootrot diagnosis.
http://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/plpath-fru-14

Digging up one affected plant to check the appearance of the roots would be beneficial.
"Heritage" is said to be moderately or highly susceptible to phytophthora root rot.

Many plants get yellow leaves when there is an excess of rain, due to nitrogen being leached out of the soil, especially in cool spring weather. Adding nitrogen and magnesium can help in this case.

It's hard to tell from the photo whether the affected leaves are on primocanes (this year's) or floricanes (last year's). The younger shorter leaves look OK. So perhaps cutting off all last year's canes would solve the problem, if it's not root rot.
Otherwise, they would need to be dug out, destroyed, and new virus-free canes planted in a different spot.

I had lousy luck with the 'Heritage' cultivar in my fairly clayey soil. Raspberry cultivars are very hit or miss for us; over half seem to hate it here, and often die within a year; many of the rest thrive; few are in the middle. Tulameen has done very well.

I've had good luck with heritage and the other 3 cultivars of raspberry I've planted and i have the worst soil you can imagine. i think the 4in raised mounds with the addition of peat, vermiculate, and compost with a topdress of 2in. mulch of hardwood chips made the difference. i have heritage, polka, jaclyn, and autumn brittien in my 2 raspberry patches. all are growing equally well. i also inoculate the sawdust with king stropharia mushroom mycelium so i get a flush of mushrooms under my bushes in late summer. it helps to turn the mulch to a nice black compost. i just add more chips every spring. almost never need to water.

Ruby Gray wrote:This site has some words of wisdom which seem to confirm the rootrot diagnosis.
http://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/plpath-fru-14

Digging up one affected plant to check the appearance of the roots would be beneficial.
"Heritage" is said to be moderately or highly susceptible to phytophthora root rot.

Many plants get yellow leaves when there is an excess of rain, due to nitrogen being leached out of the soil, especially in cool spring weather. Adding nitrogen and magnesium can help in this case.

It's hard to tell from the photo whether the affected leaves are on primocanes (this year's) or floricanes (last year's). The younger shorter leaves look OK. So perhaps cutting off all last year's canes would solve the problem, if it's not root rot.
Otherwise, they would need to be dug out, destroyed, and new virus-free canes planted in a different spot.

Thanks Ruby!

They were the floricanes and they were the only leaves turning yellow and dying so aw with them I cut all the old canes down to the ground.
Perhaps nitrogen was drained also from all the rain flushes...that isn't a problem now. They are getting plenty of nitrogen!

Thank you for that link.... very good information an pictures.

steve bossie wrote:i have very rocky clay soil. i find peat w/ vermiculite is the best amendment for berry plants. i use the promix from lowes. fluffs up the soil and add some acidity, which most berries like. compost and gypsum helps too.

The man from the nursery told me to use my clay soil mixed with pea pellets and bar chips..
so far things are looking good on my new Anne canes! multiple new shoots!!! I will post some pictures.

great man! glad they made it! i have 4 cultivars and they're all growing like mad! gonna have a crapload of berries come fall!

Hi There.

I'd like to add to this post if possible. I live in high desert (7000 ft.), mountain town. I'm trying to grow a raspberry bush. I purchased the Raspberry Shortcake Dwarf Thornless raspberry bush that is having issue. However, I had to go out of town for 2 weeks to help my mother so my husband was taking care of my garden. He has 10 black thumbs, no fingers so that might be part of the problem.

Anyway, the leaves are turning yellow, black and drying out at the ends and bottom. This plant is new, I just replanted it 3 weeks ago. Everything I search for this about this condition makes me more confused. It seems like everything causes this condition - not enough fertilizer, too much water, not enough water, fungus etc... I'd think living in a high desert, where we haven't had rain in about 2 months, we couldn't be over watering it..... I planted the bush as directed 1) hole two times the width of the pot. 2) prepare soil. I filled the bottom of the hole with Harvest Supreme Soil Amendment with 15% chicken manure. 3) placed the plant into the hole so the top of the root ball was above ground. 4) then I back filled the hole w/that soil amendment. 5) then I used some of our soil to cover the root ball on top.

Also, it looks like something has been eating off the tops of the bush.

Here are some pictures. I can dig it up to look at the roots but I wanted to get some advice first.

Thanks!!

did you hardend off the plant to the sun before transplanting? the sun at higher elevations is stronger than at sea level. looks like sunburn to me. also do you have deer in the area? looks like its been browsed. deer love raspberry bushes! could make a circle with hardware cloth to protect it. try trimming out the mostly dead leaves. put some bark mulch , 2in. thick out 18in. or so around the plant. make sure the mulch doesn't rest against the plant. that will help keep in moisture during dry spells. the green parts of the plant are still dark green so i think the roots are good and it will bounce back. maybe put some light shade cloth over it to protect it from the sun till' it starts to produce new leaves. keep watering but don't water mid day as this could be causing this also. early morning is best and try not to wet the leaves. good luck!

Thanks Steve. I will work on getting the mulch this weekend, along w/all your other advice. I really appreciate the advice.

The deer's ate my tomato's last year. So, I'm not surprised they would come back this summer for new treats. I'm thinking about creating a scare crow for my back yard, see if that would help. I'm betting the deer will be too smart to get scared off by that. Oh well, gardening is an adventure. Thank you again!

I've had good luck with a larger circle of chicken wire. up here its the voles and moose that chew up plants! moose really like raspberries! spraying some rosemary oil in water w/ a spay bottle works good too. they hate the smell ! just don't use too much as it will burn the plants. spray late evening! good luck!

My heritage are doing terribly. I followed instructions from the place I bought them at. The instructions said to basically dig a hole the size of the root ball and plant in that so it was about 6 to 8 inches deep.
Something is getting the leaves cause there are tiny holes on a lot of them. I also have yellow leaves from so much rain lately.