Anyone here battling orange rust on their brambles have any success keeping it bay?
I’m having a small problem with orange rust on my black raspberries(Bristol), I dug out one infected plant and one suspect plant today.
Is there any fungicide I can spray on the adjacent healthy plants to prevent further infection? I read that it is a systemic infection and there are no curative sprays. Several article went on to say that there are preventive fungicides, but none seem to mention what sprays or when…
You can use copper or sulfur, probably others too. Only as a preventative. Spray every 7 to 10 days until harvest. See label instructions. I use Kocide copper as it is about 4 times stronger than liquid coppers. And also Lime-sulfur which works well, great stuff, very hard to find. Both are preventative to rust on brambles according to labels.
Rally (myclobutanil) is labeled for rust on blackberries. It helps to control the infection but Orange Rust is systemic and once the plant is infected it can not be cured.
I’m fighting orange rust in my Navaho blackberries at the moment. I started with a few infected canes 10 years ago and although I tried to dig the infected canes and all suckers and burn them for many years, you can never get it all. I have so much rust now, I no longer remove and burn the infected canes. Fortunately, my other blackberry varieties don’t get it,
Prompt removal of infected canes and removal of pruning wood will help but its very easy to transport the infection to other adjacent brambles when mowing, pruning or even picking fruit.
The only real cure is not to plant any variety that gets Orange Rust because once you have it its almost impossible to get rid of it.
I have both of those on hand, never really gave them a thought, I always think of them as dormant sprays, I’ll look into that, Thanks for the suggestion!
I have Myclobutanil 20EW T&O on hand (generic version of Eagle 20EW). I read the label before posting and it is not labeled for any kind of brambles. Not sure why? I might make up a small mix and test it on one plant and see how it reacts.
I stopped at a pick your own farm on the way to work yesterday and spoke with one of the owners about orange rust. They grow a large stand of blackberries and in the past, have grown black raspberries. For a preventive spray they use an alternation of Pristine and Cabrio fungicides. He didn’t really elaborate on the timing.
He also told me that if they still mange to get an infection, they hand brush a strong mix of glysophate on the infected plants until it is completely dead, then they dig it out days later. Reason for doing this, he explained, was to kill the crown and all the roots to prevent an infected sucker from popping up else where in the row.
Hopefully I can get control of this, I would hate to have give up on my black raspberries. One of my favorite fruit harvests!
Yes you have to use less, and maybe best to test small portion. See our spray amounts guide or what it says on label is even better for use on actively growing plants.
Other cultivars may be more resistant, try others before you give up.
Its crazy how the labels on similar compounds vary where one brand name is approved for certain crops and and the generic is not. I see that a lot where the generic versions are labeled for ornamentals or turf but not for fruit. I normally pay more for the brand name chemical just for that reason
The Rally brand of myclobutanil is labeled for brambles for orange rust and leaf and cane rust at 1.25-2.5 oz/acre. It cost about $60 for 20 oz or about $6 per application for 1 acre.
Pristine is also labeled for blackberries too but only for “suppression” of rust, unfortunately the rate is 18-24 ounces/acre and the chemical is expensive which would cost more than $50 for a 1 acre application.
Commercial recs are to start sprays in spring and continue every two weeks. Like most fungii, the risk is heaviest when there is lots of rain and humidity.
I also use a systemic herbicide to make sure any plants which get rust are completely killed.
I grow mostly Triple Crown and have had some rust. It took about 5 years to show up in my planting.
It took a good while for my orange rust to get bad too. I first noticed it in the Navaho about year 5 and now around year 10 its on more than 10% of that variety. None on the other varieties.
We use typical cover sprays on peaches and apples, but not the blueberries and blackberries.
We manage to get by with just a couple of sprays for SWD on the blue and black and one fungicide spray on the blackberries to help control orange rust of leaf and cane rust.
I am late to this discussion, sorry. My experience here in Atlanta has been unsuccessful so far. Orange rust has plagued my first year Navaho and Prime Ark Freedom. I am a gardening novice and did not know to remove them.They just grew so well!! I will remove and try a more resistant variety. Or should i just admit defeat and try something else in that hole as I have very limited space? Thanks guys …
I planted a 100ft row of Apache blackberries a couple years ago for my neighbor and now about 75% of it looks like that. I have a row in my yard but none of them are infected. This is so sad because he looked at my yard and loved all of the fruits and veggies and wanted to “dip his toes in” with some blackberries and then with maybe peaches or plums. Now he might just say screw it.
None of mine are Apache, so does anyone have a list of rust-resistant varieties?
Im guessing that there is some other strains or variants in the past 20 years…
I didnt know it infected the roots too…
So in order to destroy all… a person would have to abandon the whole row and somehow destroy all the roots it seems. Most of my roots are under the walkways… i still have plants popping up that i have long since removed… im not sure anyone can remove all the roots unless you plowed it and tilled the rows and the walkways.
I know that Richard said that there was a remedy… but as far as i can tell there is not. There is prevention on healthy uninfected plants by spraying fungicides if you think you will or possibly will have infection.
University of Kentucky lays it out the best that i have seen.
The fungi infects the crown…then in spring the first set of spores are released infecting plants and nearby plants…and if conditions are right a second set of spores are released by the first set of spores further infecting the plants and nearby plants.
I have seen these questions on FB and there is always the folks that say to spray this or spray that on obviously infected plants… which maybe there are sprays that i dont know about…
Can we say that as of 2023 there is no cure? The only remedy is to totally destroy all plant material and roots?
Can we say that the only cane fruit that is immune to Orange Rust is red raspberry? (Black, Purple and Yellow are not).
if so we can ease some confusion and debates going forward until there is a ‘cure’…or cultivars that are ‘immune’.
edit–
In case of the West Coast variants vs East Coast variants… here is information regarding West Coast practices and procedures.
Thanks for posting the UK info. I had not heard of “late rust” but I seen leaf and cane rust which is corrected by fungicide.
We tried various labeled fungicides on our Orange Rust over multiple years. They slowed the progression of the disease some but did not cure it. The real benefit of the fungicide was to help keep the disease from spreading to the adjacent rows.
My conclusion is that no cure exists. Fungicides can slow the progression but not cure it.
Another conclusion is only buy plants propagated by a well known tissue culture vendor
Most of the advice on Blackberries in the FB groups I am a member of is junk!
However you dont read this often…its in the news article i posted above…
" Orange rust in established plantings often comes from wild blackberry brambles along the edges of woods"
In my hunting of wild elderberries i come upon lots of blackberry plants that are eat up with orange rust… which i can then transfer on my clothes if im not careful.
I have alot of land and lots of wild blackberries spread by birds… so far i havent seen any diseased plants on my land but…its likely inevitable.
So for now im going to say that the most common infection is the wild local natives and likely spread by wind. At least where my plantings are.
Someone from the city or an area without local natives would have less susceptibility than i do.
If i were a breeder i wouldnt talk about susceptibility to Orange Rust from native plants either. Their test plots are likely free of all wild native blackberries.
I did purchase these Apache from an Etsy seller. They were very healthy looking all last year, though, so unless it is capable of being dormant for an entire year then I don’t think they were diseased when I received them.
One observation I have is that there are plants in between infected ones and they are completely healthy, not a speck of orange rust on any leaf. Is this an indication that not all of these are Apache and that the healthy ones ARE immune/resistant, or is it normal for a few to go uninfected during the first round?
The nearest wild brambles are about 3/4mi away but if I see orange rust on them I will know where it came from. Other than that my only other guess is maybe the Tru-Green guys that my neighbor hires showed up from a previous job with orange rust in the vicinity and was kind enough to bring it on over.
They just grew so well!! I will remove and try a more resistant variety. Or should i just admit defeat and try something else in that hole as I have very limited space? Thanks guys …
