North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Richard Moyer <ramoyer@gmail.com>]

Melinda,

Chris gave some good info and links; the NC State HIL series on raspberries and blackberries have been useful for us.

 

My father in Augusta had a similar problem to yours: he bought so-called Heritage raspberries from a Georgia nursery, they thrived but never bloomed in Augusta, probably due to the heat.  We dug them all out and I traded them here for other plants.  Once they bloomed here in mountains, they turned out to be wineberries, and I had egg on my face.  I learned the hard way what Jesus said: By their fruits you will know them. One family I shared the plants with has adapted by making wineberry instead of raspberry jam as planned.  I didn't have a Heritage plant then to compare, but wineberries have many more prominent orange hairs on the stems, you could do a Google image search and see wineberry stems.  http://www.ars-grin.gov/cor/pwc/rubus-art.html  This link was posted by our own Joseph Postman, and is a watercolor of wineberry over 100 yrs old, with good detail of the larger, straight thorns and the many smaller hairs.

 

We bought Heritage from another nursery, and they are yielding for my father very well, with mulch and adequate water in a raised bed, as Chris recommends. 

 

J.C. Raulston, a generous plantsman from NC, once wrote he may have killed more plants than anyone alive, as he learned what would work in your conditions.  So don't be afraid to ask, or to get rid of what doesn't work.

 

Richard Moyer

East Tennessee, 1800', Zone 6

 

 

  3. Heritage Raspberries in Georgia (John McCuan)
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 13:11:48 -0800 (PST)
From: John McCuan <wawo@yahoo.com>
Subject: [NAFEX] Heritage Raspberries in Georgia
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: < 20060103211148.63294.qmail@web31908.mail.mud.yahoo.com">20060103211148.63294.qmail@web31908.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"


This is my first posting to the list: I appreciate you all being out there.

In February 2003, I planted fall-bearing Heritage raspberries in my  Zone 7 garden, outside Atlanta.  I obtained the canes from Lawsons  Nursery (known for heritage apples), also in north Georgia.  I  planted them in a raised bed formerly used for vegetables, so the soil  was pretty good.   I mulched with pine straw, and the canes  all  looked quite healthy.

But, in three seasons, I've never gotten a single berry.

After the first unsuccessful year, I mowed all the canes down, added  fertilizer, checked pH, and mulched again with pine straw.  Still  no berries.

Last winter, I started thinking perhaps the berries had been mislabled  and were spring bearing.  So I divided my bed into thirds, cutting  one third entirely to the ground, pruning one bed heavily with only a  few canes left, and pruning the last bed lightly.  The standing  canes seemed to start to produce buds, but only green centers of   flowers appeared, there were no petals at all on any cane.  The  canes grew healthily enough, leaves nice and green.  As I searched  for petals I'd look up and see the wild blackberries nearby white with  blossoms; it was a bumper year for blackberries.  But no  raspberries

I couldn't help hope for autumn berries, and carefully observed the  raspberries to try to figure out what the problem was.  In June,  there was some Japanese beetle damage, but not too much.  During  the high heat of summer (a number of days in the 90s), the canes did  not look very healthy; the leaves damaged by the Japanes beetles  withered, and some looked slightly maroon colored.  I did water  them.  As the days cooled in September, new green leaves appeared,  but no buds and no berries.

Although I don't have much experience, my best guess at what is  happening is the canes suffer enough insect and heat strees that they  don't produce in the fall.  I have no idea what the petal-less  flower centers are.

A horticulturalist friend said that last year was a great one for  berries, if mine didn't produce last year they never will, and I should  dig them out.

I'd appreciate any input concerning my berries, and any advice on what cultivars do well in Georgia.

Thanks to all,

Melinda McCuan
(Zone 7, outside of Atlanta in Dallas, Georgia)