Does it make any different to the deer if I plant the thorny varieties instead of thornless?
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The large majority of mine are thorned… which helps here with birds too.
Birds can easily land on thornless cane fruit and have at the berries.
I have a Joan J started this spring… thornless… no deer browsing yet. I had thornless Ouachitaw blackberries for 3 years… no deer browsing.
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About the only thing I’ve found that I’m growing that deer will take a bite an inch off the top and then leave alone are gooseberries with murder thorns (on the previous years’ growth). Besides physically excluding them it’s kind of just ‘wait and see’ to learn what your local deer love mauling. It’s probably the new thing you planted, that was doing really well, that you were most excited about. Because they’re evil beasts.
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Well RATS…
My 4 logan pcanes have put on 16-20 ft of pcane growth at this point… and I just found that all 4 pcanes have these…
Cane borer right ?
One cane has 3 bulges like that… others 2 or 1.
I had these a couple years ago and best i remember they did not fruit above those.
Most of those are located just a foot or two up the cane from the crown… which means all that new growth in pcane is worthless now.
BUMMER.
I think my best bet may be to cut off all that new growth including those cane borer swells… and leave the short pcane stubs (with no sign of borers)… and let them push out as much pcane as they can between now and November.
Hopefully what new growth I can get late summer and fall… gets no more cane borer.
What do you think ?
Seems like my only good option at this point.
TNHunter
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that bites. did you notice any cane tips girdled and wilting? that’s how they start here then the grub works its way down. i got hit hard with them this summer but i snapped off just below the girdle to prevent the grub from being able to work down the cane. bet i broke off a 100 or more cane tips from late june to recent. never seen them so bad as this year.
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@steveb4 … no problems noticed with my logan cane tips…
This one likes about 2 ft reaching the ground to tip root. They are still growing despite those bulges.
I am going to cut one of those out and disect it and see what i find… a borer i expect. Will report back.
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different kind of borer than we have. ours is a slim beetle that looks like a skinny fire fly. the grub burrows down the pith of the cane and exits the bottom just above the ground and over winters in soil and hatches out as a beetle come spring. it weakens the cane but rarely kills it outright. if its yellowing its probably a borer in there.
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@steveb4 … i cut all of those out… down below the lowest swell on each cane… the cane was clean… no sign of borer… but in the upward direction it had obviously traveled some in the (above the swell direction).
In the upward direction (above the swell) it had traveled a foot or two atmost then the cane was clean.
Below the swell it had traveled very little… a inch at most.
Well… my logan pcanes are all 4 about a foot long now. I bet each one will still put on 6 ft or more by first hard frost.
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can you inject BT like done for Squash Vine Borer?
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Oh well… on closer inspection… 3 of my 4 pcane stubs… had swells like that down at ground level… my mulch was hiding that some… but when i pulled the mulch back… 3 of 4 had swells at ground level.
I cut them out… opened them up… same stuff inside.
@Oregon_Fruit_Grow… in the lower part of the logan canes they are quite woody… the growing tips are much softer and tender. I dont think it would be possible to inject that lower part.
I opened all of those swelled parts and searched up the cane following the trail… but never found the culprit.
It is obviously tunneling around in there leaving a frass trail.
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…steveB4’s description above is typical of a buprestid beetle, the Rose Stem
Girdler. There may be other pest species also. They generally attack at mid-cane in mid to late spring. Close and regular observation will reveal the swellings. Logan is said to be particularly susceptible. The obvious damage (leaf wilting) occurs here in August. I have noticed the swellings on Triple Crown but those canes are so robust that no damage results.
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ours girdles the tip of the cane about 4in. down. it then wilts and breaks off. ive never seen girdling below that or any swelling. they even have girdled the triple crown, Chester and nelson blackberry tips.
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What I mostly see around here. I usually break off from the bottom ring and crush the area between the two. Hopefully that’s effective… Have cut into a few and not really found obvious sign of the perpetrator. Not seen any swollen areas on any canes either.
This is a raspberry but see often with blackberries too. Rednecked cane borer most likely? Something else?
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thats what i have here. yes its the rednecked one. i snap off just below the 2nd ring. has worked so far. if you leave it, the egg will hatch and the grub follows the pith to near soil level then burrows out to live in the soil over winter. usually a spray just before blooming takes care of most of them but i didnt get to it this spring.
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Red Necked Cane borer… is your culprit.
This is the easiest to understand version of how to control them. They often go in cycles… every couple of years or so. You can introduce nematodes, or encourage birds…which most folks dont do due to fear of birds eating their berries. You can spray insecticides if that interests you. Not mentioned is the tobacco tea that some folks do for borers in persimmons… that will likely not be talked about.
Regardless… catching them before they turn into larvae and into more beetles is probably the main way to control them. Just interrupting their life cycle is enough to get you a few years relatively pest free.
However local wild brambles will always keep them going… and will always be a threat and how they survive mankind.
You have plenty of time to remove them… most folks dont catch the bulges until Fall or Spring.
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@krismoriah … i think you are right on that… based on the description from that link.
Red-Necked Borers
If you’re noticing random swollen areas along the canes of your raspberry plants, you’re dealing with red-necked borers. The red-necked borer is a bluish-black wood-boring beetle. The coppery-red area just behind its head gives this pest its name. Adult females lay their eggs in the bark of raspberry canes in late May through early June. Upon hatching, the whitish larvae bore their way deeper into the cane, where they overwinter. This causes the branch to swell about a half-inch or so in diameter for a few inches along the length of the cane.
…
Odd thing is… i had these 2 or 3 years ago… in my logans.. and now again this year in logans.. BUT.. have never seen these in my multitude of other cane fruits raspberries or blackberries. They must favor logans.
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Logan is a far more tender cane than the bamboo-like Triple Crown.
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they equally attacked my chester, triple crown and nelson blackberries but only at the tips. i dont see any damage below that here on any affected cane fruit.
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@steveb4 … my pest (red neck) is a little different than yours. Yours lays eggs in the cane tips… and mine lays eggs in the more mature lower part of the cane that thas a bark like texture.
Looks like yours is called … raspberry cane borer… where mine is red neck borer.
I looked up pics of yours and it actually has a red neck too… they look somewhat similar.
yours on top, mine on bottom.
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