Raspberry Plant Randomly Dying This Spring

carson.skjerdal

I planted a Raspberry plant last year, it of course didn't grow any raspberries. I purchased it as a small plant from a gardening store.

About a month or so ago it started to grow leaves.. now for about 2 weeks all the starting leaves are dead, the bark is cracking, and there seems to be nothing I can do. Can I save my Raspberry plant? Is this just a bad case of root rot? I'll include some pictures that should help any avid eye.

fidgetbones

It cannot compete with the grass around it. You need to keep the grass away from the stems, at least a foot in anay direction. You can use a mulch over the bare soil to help keep the weeds down. It is probably very dry around the roots.

carson.skjerdal

Oh interesting, well let me rip out that grass right now! ha ha. Do you think it's too late or do you think it'll bounce back?

fidgetbones

It's looking pretty dead. You could try cutting it down and see if it sends up new shoots. You only want to keep a maximum of three strong shoots the first year. Normally you prune out the weakest , spindly shoots as they don't fruit well.  Try a bucket of water, a feed and a mulch. Remember to keep watering through hot weather, especially if you are on sandy soil, as raspberries are shallow rooted.

carson.skjerdal

So I dug easily a foot of width around the plant. Watered the under dirt heavily which appears to be more clay like than I realized. I then added a moist soil layer on top and I will look for some mulch in a couple days. It should rain for the next 3 days so hopefully I can see a bounce back.

Tempting though to cutting it down. I am still at the gardening level where pruning feels so destructive ha ha If I don't see improvement soon then I will do some pruning on the dry days and try and revive it for next year

Nollie

You can already see a tiny bit of new growth at the base. I know it sounds drastic but be brave and cut all those dead stems off now, right back to the base, your plant will thank you for it.

Do you know the variety and if its an autumn or summer fruiting raspberry? If its autumn fruiting, they fruit on this year’s new growth so nothing to lose and this type need to be chopped back to base.

If its summer fruiting, it will fruit on the new canes produced last autumn (you only prune out the canes that fruited in summer). As the canes look dead anyway, still nothing to lose as you won’t have a crop this year because it won’t fruit on dead stems!

carson.skjerdal

Thanks for the reply Nollie, of all the things I grow this is the only thing I don't have any information on, which is unlike me to throw that stuff away.

I think the plan will be to give this a week incase any bounce back but I assume it won't as you said. Then I will give it a good prune and we'll see if it is a summer or fall variety. For some reason I think it is a summer variety but just a hunch. Either way I would rather wait for it to re-grow next year then to plant a new one.

Thanks for the advice!