BOB6831 Posted July 3, 2009 Share Posted July 3, 2009 Hi. Are you sick of my questions yet??? lol Its 2am in the morning and I just got off work.... Ok, I have been growing brambles (raspberries and blackberries) for few years now, and basically have not been spraying them with anything ..... except trying Sevin a few years back. I think the berries came out a little deformed after that, so I did not do again. I have put some Miracle Grow on the bottom of the canes a few times ........ So, my question is........... what is a good spray treatment that I should consider for the best brambles? Is a regular 'fungicide' treatment recommended? If so, what fungicide? I do have a problem with some plants producing uneven berries, and some plants seem to have a problem where the berries have dry-brownish areas near the lowest part........ and also have noticed some red rust? on few of the plants in my 'wild black raspberry' area. I also have a problem in one area of my mostly wild raspberry area of my backyard where new canes come up that have no thorns, and produce no fruit. I have not done a soil analysis there but did PH test and it was about 6.7 Note that this is near an area of the lawn where there is moss where grass should be. I KNOW that is a problem with sunlight here. Could this be the main problem in this area???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smokefree Posted July 3, 2009 Share Posted July 3, 2009 My mother has great blackberries every year and has never done a thing to encourage this. They are growing all around a huge group of wild grapes. It sounds strange, but would there be something about the grapes contributing to the soil or attracting beneficial insects? Just a thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lavender Posted July 3, 2009 Share Posted July 3, 2009 Personally I wouldn't want to get into a "full spray" program for anything. One thing I can tell you is that you should never plant domestic bramble fruit near the wild ones. There is a virus among wild raspberries that they manage to live with but that the domestic ones have no protection against. There is no spray for it. Mostly there are no sprays for problems with bramble fruit. You just buy guaranteed plants and keep them clean and away from the wild ones. The red rust is a fungus. This might help. http://www.canr.msu.edu/vanburen/e-1730.htm Moss tends to grow in infertile areas as well as areas that have little sun and are damp. You might try fertilizing the area. Lack of sun could be the reason you are getting no fruit. There are thornless varieties of raspberries and the newest canes can seem thornless in regular raspberries. Raspberries get fruit on second year wood so if none of the canes make it through the winter you will never get fruit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOB6831 Posted July 3, 2009 Author Share Posted July 3, 2009 Thanks for the response Lavender......... the canes I am referring to are both new (this year) and 2nd year canes from same wild black raspberries, from same roots as previous years black raspberries, and they have no thorns, no fruit and leaves even look little different. Have grown raspberries for several years now, so know they are different. Its just this one area that it is happening. Other black raspberry areas are ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lavender Posted July 3, 2009 Share Posted July 3, 2009 As I said sometimes plants do mutate and put out a sport. This could be what is happening. On the other hand you could have something in there that is not a black raspberry. By now you should know one when you see one and if the leaves look different it coud be something else. Even if it wasn't there to begin with birds plant fruit seeds all the time. Currents come to mind; the leaves are a bit like raspberries and they are native to the area. I think the leaves are a bit rounder. I'd have to go out and look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOB6831 Posted July 4, 2009 Author Share Posted July 4, 2009 Hi. This is not just 1 plant, is happening to several in that area. New canes coming up from root ball of semi-good, thorny, fruiting canes. Also, I do have current plants further down the fence line. Is definitely NOT currents. Somehow there are variation/defective raspberry canes....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lavender Posted July 4, 2009 Share Posted July 4, 2009 OK, then this might be your explanation. A sport and a chimera are the same thing. "Chimeral plants can be categorized on the basis of the location and relative proportion of mutated to nonmutated cells in the apical meristem. Periclinal chimeras are the most important category since they are relatively stable and can be vegetatively propagated. A mutation produces a periclinal chimera if the affected cell is positioned near the apical dome so that the cells produced by subsequent divisions form an entire layer of the mutated type. The resulting meristem contains one layer which is genetically different from the remainder of the meristem. If, for example, the mutation occurs in L.I, then the epidermal layer of the shoot which is produced after the mutation is the new genetic type. A classical example of an L.I periclinal chimera is the thornless blackberry. The epidermal layer of this type produces no "thorns" (the modified epidermal cells are correctly called "prickles"). The thornless epidermis covers a stem whose cells contain the information for the thorny genotype. This can be demonstrated by taking root cuttings. The adventitious shoots which differentiate on the root cuttings are not chimeral and therefore revert to the thorny genotype." The entire article is here http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/tisscult/Chimeras/chimeralec/chimeras.html Thornless blackberries are apparently the result of a mutation. Mutations can be spontaneous or induced by conditions or chemicals. Do you think that this is what is happening? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOB6831 Posted July 4, 2009 Author Share Posted July 4, 2009 Could be! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lavender Posted July 4, 2009 Share Posted July 4, 2009 It's probably the most complicated explanation but we seem to have ruled out the simpler ones. I can't find any mention of grafted berries which would be the ordinary explanation when something like that happens and you said they were wild anyway. Let us know what happens with them. I'm also reading that black raspberries tend to root at the tips rather than suckering as the red ones do. I'm wondering if cutting those canes back would keep them from reproducing themselves. There is that stuff about the adventitious roots (the ones coming from the canes) not being genetically like the thornless canes though so I don't know. I'm getting in over my head here. Genetics was never my strong point. Apparently, you should trim black raspberries anyway to make them branch better. I've only grown the red ones. There are thornless black raspberries varieties but not many of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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