Topic: raspberries dying

[compostmonkey]

 I was giving these plants last year and had a bumper crop.
They all were growing fine until about a week ago and then they're all turning brown and looking terrible. I'd mulched the bases with well composted leaf litter in early spring....
I'm puzzled ,any ideas? Ta

[Ellen K]

Are there any new shoots coming up from the base of the plants?

Maybe you have to get the pruning / thinning right?  Raspberries are either autumn fruiting types that you cut down every winter and the fruit comes from new growth or they are the type that fruit from last year's wood.  With the latter, you thin them down a bit in the autumn to get good canes and fruit.  If you had the autumn fruit type and didn't prune maybe you would have problems the following year with dying canes.

I don't know much about raspberries but I inherited some plants on the plot and it took me a few years to get the pruning right by a process of elimination sadly - but this year it looks like I'll finally get a crop.

Or it could be drought or something else.  But raspberries are pretty robust so appropriate pruning may be the answer.  Don't know really, sorry.

[cornykev]

As said did you cut back last years growth or was anyone close by using weed killer as these winds weve been having could carry it onto your plants.   :-\

[birdsrfun]

This dry weather is death for raspberries if they do not have enough water retaining muck beneath their roots, did you prepare their spot properly?

[compostmonkey]

Thanks for the replies, they are summer fruiting,I cut the canes that had fruited last year.

We've had a very dry 5 weeks here in Dublin but I'd  gave them a good drink once or twice..

Theres loads of new growth that still looks healthy but all the tall canes wre lush and full of flowers until now too.

2 plots uphill from me had sprayed a few weeks ago,not sure how still it was when he sprayed but the plot inbetween us doesn't seem to have suffered....

I'm at the bottom of the hill and get great flow of ground water,even in the driest times the soil is moist 6inches down

Ta loads