2020 -- a year that will go down in infamy...

One of the last things I wrote on this blog was “The raspberries don’t know there’s a pandemic, and they are just growing in the usual way…”

Well, that didn’t turn out to be true.

The berries started out in the usual way and were looking pretty good. There seemed to be very little winter damage. The buds broke out well and the leaves were unfurling.

But as the weeks went by, the rate of growth slowed. They leaves lost their lush green color and started looking a bit too yellow green. We wondered if the application of natural nutrients had been too late to be fully utilized by the plants. Areas in the field that we had known to be weaker in previous years, again began to look weak again.

Then, even the stronger areas started to show weakness. Many buds that had leafed out and pushed out began to die, instead of lengthening out and creating more fruit laterals.

As harvest time came closer, we could see that our crop was dying – slowly but steadily.

Randy was disheartened, fearing that the soil pest he has been battling for some years had grown exponentially and was overwhelming his efforts. We had been so hopeful in the previous years that we were making headway and finding a way to decrease and combat that perennial nemesis.

Why were so many plants dying now…and why were they starting out fine before slowly collapsing?

There was one 5 acre block that looked good. Why was it not affected? What was causing the collapse which was now obviously wide spread in the rest of the field?

Harvest time came and trying to pick the fruit became a daily discouragement. On the weakest fields, very little fruit developed as the fruiting canes died before setting fruit. Other areas had enough strength to develop fruit but it was of smaller size, and tended to clutch the receptacle, not dropping until the fruit was very soft and lower quality. Eventually, little berries were set but dried up on the cane, becoming miniature fruits that were rock hard. The collapsing plants added dry crunchy dead leaves to the product we were trying to pick. The dried mini-berries and leaf and stem debris made it hard work for the crew to create the high quality product we usually sell.

In the end, we abandoned most of the acres as the output of fruit did not justify the cost of picking it and cleaning it up. We did pick 15 acres (instead of the hoped for 45 acres) for most of the season, though eventually we could only make juice quality, which has the lowest return in the market.

Meantime, our researcher friends who have done so many projects on our farm banded together to help us try to find a reason for this disaster.

They first sampled to see if Randy was correct in his concern that verticillium (the soil pest) was the culprit. Results showed no significant presence. So that was good news – our soil was not full of organisms that would kill our crop, preventing us from ever growing raspberries again!

Other known raspberry pests: soil organisms, bugs, worms, viruses, bacteria were contemplated. Soil, leaves, roots were sampled to test. We thought we might have another soil problem with wire worms after our first baits attracted a number of tiny white worms. The wire worm scientist came out to verify – but found none. The worms we thought were wire worms, were actually pot worms, and not a problem.

Any of the other pests were not proving to be of sufficient population to cause the problems we were seeing. And still, there was that 5 acre block that was doing fine. What had we done differently there?

The 5 acre block that was fine...

Because it was a block of baby canes coming into their first harvest, they had grown like a jungle so Randy had not applied the natural nutrient to them. Nor had he done the first couple of spring time sprays on them as they had not been completely tied up.

I was certain it was the natural nutrient (AKA cow manure). We had procured the liquid gold from a different dairy this year, so I wondered if there was some problem with it. It was the only thing that had been done differently on that block.

But – if there had been some toxic component in the nutrient, the grass between the rows would have been damaged. Nor would the grass be so lushly green. This eliminated our concern that the nutrient perhaps had not fed the plants well enough. Soil testing for nutrients also showed no deficiencies.

It wasn’t the cow manure – despite my insistence that it was the only thing that was different.

Another clue on our quest was that the damage, with the exception of the 5 acres of babies, was widespread. EVERYTHING was dying. Pests and diseases usually cause hot spots – areas where there is a lot of damage – with other areas being only lightly affected. In our case, the damage was uniform and devastating.

We finished harvest believing that we had grown our last crop of berries. Not knowing the cause of the death, we could not afford to put more investment into the fields and risk the same result. In a matter of months, (and in the middle of pandemic) we had gone from a hopeful start to a devastatingly unexpected end.

Finally, one day when Randy was out in the field with one of the scientists working on some root sampling, they admired how weed-free the field was. The scientist knew that in that area of the field there had been an infestation of wild buckwheat, a tenacious, wiry, climbing weed that engulfs the plants and smothers them. He admired what good control Randy had gotten over it and wondered how. In fact, he noted that there were hardly any weeds in the field. Randy explained that he had used a newly labeled weed killer and was very pleased at its efficacy.

Randy continued to ponder the extraordinary efficacy of the weed killer. And then he recalled that he had not sprayed the weed killer on the 5 acre of babies that had not collapsed. They had been too bushy to drive through at that time. He went back to his spray records to check application amounts and rates. He checked the calendar for the spray dates, and then the weather calendar for the weather at that time. He did the math again, and again --- You have to make adjustments for the width of the band of ground that is sprayed to get the appropriate concentration of herbicide. He found that he had done this incorrectly and had over-applied the weed killer. To exacerbate this mistake, a day or so after he sprayed, we had a heavy rain – 1 ½” in one day. Likely this moved the chemical much farther down into the ground where it could affect the small feeder roots that were growing there.

We finally had our answer. The weed killer had damaged the roots as they were forming the network that would sustain the plant through the growing season. We had caused the devastation ourselves, with the help of badly timed weather. Very, very humbling that even after 34 years of berry farming, one could make such a consequential mistake.

But also very encouraging in that we feel reasonably confident that our soil is fine for growing raspberries. No pests were found to be probable cause of such damage as we experienced. We caused the problem – and we won’t do that again!

So we are not done with the raspberries, and we are grateful. The losses this year are going to necessitate us growing fewer acres and doing things a bit differently.

Good things have come out of this very stressful season. It’s always good for us to be humbled and remember that it’s what God has done for us that makes our worth. It’s been a time of having our standard modus operandi shaken, and a new perspective gained along with refreshed convictions about how we use our time on this earth. 

One of the main reasons I blog is to tell our farming story. Our experience this year took my voice away for a while -- so much uncertainty and, frankly, trauma. I've told about our successes, but I want to be honest and tell about our failures too. We are not immune to mistakes, big and small. I had someone on social media suggest that God was punishing us. (This person disagreed with our conservative beliefs.) I know that is not true because we have not deserved any of the blessings He has been gracious to give. Neither would this year be adequate punishment for all the sins we have committed. No -- God is not petty. His greatness is seen in how all things are worked for good in our lives, even -- probably especially -- the very hard things.

Currently, the existing fields are being pruned and tied. Fifteen acres have been added to 10 that were previously fallow, and we are not sure what we will do with them this coming year. Either way, hope for a new growing year has returned and we continue on with the farmers’ mantra, “There’s always next year.” 

So grateful that it’s still true!