Farming Friday...What's New on the Farm...

When winter came in February, people asked us what we thought would happen to the raspberries. Would they be damaged from the late onset of cold and snow? We were optimistic in our responses, believing that there had not been any awakening or budding on the canes previously.

But our optimism was misplaced. Now that the growing season is finally here, it is becoming obvious that damage was done.

The most vulnerable canes are those that will have their first harvest – and we have 10 acres of these babies this year. Randy started hearing reports of other baby fields that had suffered much damage. I pruned my roses and was shocked at how many dead canes had to be cut out which caused me concern about the raspberries. Unbeknownst to each other, both Randy and I were out in the baby field checking to see if the buds there were dead.

And they were…most of them were dead. More than half of the canes do not have leaves on them.

When you do the calculations of cost: pay for the second tying, pay for sprays, pay for fertilizer, pay for harvest labor, pay for the harvester to travel the rows for a quarter of a crop…Well, it just makes no sense to keep them growing. So Randy made the hard decision to cut the canes off, rather than tie them up and go forward. No fruit from those 10 acres this year.

Pitiful amount of green...

What it looks like now...

The silver lining is that the primocanes are fine and will grow well. We will have a crop there next year – barring any other weather fiascoes.

The bright green is primocane growth.

Our raspberries are floricane bearing which means that each year they are growing two types of canes: the canes that wintered over will flower and bear fruit – floricanes -- and the canes that spring up from the roots of the plant -- primocanes, bear no fruit in that year, but harden over the winter to become the flowering, fruiting canes for the next year.

When it comes to our overly optimistic assessment of what the winter weather would do, I think we were not wrong that the canes were not far along into the growing mode. It was actually the desiccating NE wind that blew so strongly for a few days, and then continued moderately for so many more. It just dried all the moisture out of the canes. You can see they are wrinkled, almost shriveled, and break right off.

You can seen the wrinkling on these desiccated canes.

So far it looks like the acres of established canes fared better than the babies. There will still be damage, but not to as great an extent. I am relieved to see leaves pushing out all the way to the end of some canes. Winter damage usually shows from the end of the cane down toward the ground. Leaves at the end of the cane mean that the whole cane lives! Now we hope they just have the energy to continue to grow until fruiting!

And that next year, the wind doesn’t blow so hard and so long…and in February!

I’ve said it many times before and thankfully, it's still true…For the farmer, there’s always next year!