On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 11:17:35 +0100, "Diane Epps"
wrote:

I had a nice stand of raspberries and then all of a sudden three quarters
died leaving one quarter looking fine. I replaced the affected canes with
long cane glen magna and of these only two or three plants have taken well.
Could there be some virus attacking or is there a problem in the soil and
suggestions most welcome.
Diane
P.S. the Autumn raspberries close by do not seem to be affected

How long established?
It's been very dry, but that has to be exteme to kill raspberries.
Overwatering/poor drainage? Either of those quite difficult to achieve
in a season like this.
Often going with poor drainage or replanting new canes in an old
raspberry bed is a Phytophthora fungal root rot, this is a fungus
spread in ground water and living in the soil for many years.
For reasons I don't understand, autumn fruiting raspberries seem
harder to kill.
FWIW, I'm not a great fan of long cane planting, your success rate is
similar to my experience of them, then you won't get much cane growth
from them this season, so it'll be a light crop next season. So you
miss out on a years fruit anyway, prune hard at planting (tht's the
conventional way) you miss fruit this year, plant long cane you get a
little this year on those that survive, then little if any next year.

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