Brambles

Prior to planting out most of the fruit that I have over the past 8 years, I gave some consideration to where on the property things would be placed. To be truthful, I agonize over that every time I order new stuff…the rest , the digging, the staking, the protective fencing, the pruning, the vigilance for bugs etc…that is all easy in comparison to “where do I put this new apple tree”:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
The point of this post is that I thought it was interesting how different people’s minds work. when I went to plant my blackberries, I referenced something I had read about where to place your blackberries in regard to raspberries. I believe the suggestion was to place the raspberries downwind …the reasoning being, that blackberries are more susceptible to some bramble disease(s) and therefore they would be less likely to catch the diseases from the raspberries if they were upwind. As I write it now, I really have to think about what I am saying, because in my mind that did not make the best sense…because when I went to plant my blackberries, all that I could recall was their greater susceptibility…and thus I did the opposite and planted them downwind of the raspberries…my reasoning being, and which makes much better sense to me, …greater susceptibility= greater likelihood of disease (and so why would I want something fairly certain of getting disease at some point upwind of my raspberries ?..of course I would want them downwind so that they do not spread (almost certain) disease to my raspberries. although I did the opposite of what was suggested, and when I realized that, I also realized that I did that because it makes better sense to me. You could go either way on this , it’s a matter of perspective. I couldn’t recall the pointer, I did what made intuitive sense to me.

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winds not always from the same direction either and my property is bordered with a field full of wild raspberries. yet i don’t have to spray my plants except in mid july when the horntail wasps are out but i haven’t seen diseases/ fungus bad enough to spray here. my blackberries are about 50 yrs north of my raspberry patch but i don’t think placement makes any difference as the wild rasps are 50 yards. north of them.

Yup…another consideration, winds will change…with prevailing winds from the west I put my blackberries at the far east side of my property, thinking, if they get diseased, they are less likely to spread it to my raspberries on the far west. But again, I did the opposite of what was advised…and it still makes the best sense to me on consideration.

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I don’t think it really matters, a lot (not all) of the domesticated brambles (especially thornless blackberries) are pretty disease resistant.

I think the real issue is if you have any wild blackberries nearby (within 200 yards) as they can harbor diseases (like orange rust) that could affect some of your tame blackberries and black rasps.

Saying that, I have wild blackberries on the farm, and haven’t noticed anything amiss with my tame brambles.