North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

I have a weird problem with some of my St. Cloud half-high blueberries  
this year.  As is usual, the flower buds opened before the leaf buds,  
and the blueberries were completely covered in white bloom.  Pretty  
much all of it appeared to set.  But whole branched have almost no  
vegetative growth, maybe a couple of leaves, or maybe nothing.  These  
branches obviously can't support the hundreds of little blueberries,  
and I expect those berries to abort soon.  (They haven't, yet, but  
they average a lot smaller than the berries on stems that also have  
vegetative growth.)

The stems with no/few leaves are mostly speckled red, and the ones  
with lots of sprouts are mostly pale green, fading towards brown,  
without the speckled appearance.  So I suspect some sort of disease or  
damage.

(I've had the red speckled stuff to some degree for years.  I think it  
is occasionally associated with visible cankers that kill the stems,  
but I'm not sure.  I remove a few dead branches every year.)

Does anyone know what is going on, and how to prevent it in the future?

Thanks,

Ginda Fisher
Eastern MA, zone 6