Folks:

I've received some EXCELLENT help from this forum on diagnosing cane borers that I've hopefully eliminated. This place is excellent! Such knowledge.

Can someone tell me if I'm pre-mature in worrying about this year's fruit? Take a look at these photos. My berries are fall bering (Carolina), so I don't expect fruit development just yet. They are starting to show some red berries but a great deal of smaller developing fruit. I THINK they are developing but I don't know the patter for raspberries. I worry the fruit will remain small. Again, I simply don't know the patter of fruit development. I want to do what I can to ensure I get large fruit this year--if its not too late.

I've changed my watering habits from being dripped every day for 8 minutes (dipper line similar to my garden) to now twice a week using a hose on slow flow watering to a deep level. Like 30 or 45 minutes of watering at different places. I move the hose every 10 min or so. This should lead to deep root watering for sure.

We've had LOTS of bees over the past 3 weeks. So I doubt pollination is a problem.

If indeed my fruit looks dwarfed, if that is what it is called, or perhaps just retarded in growth, I hope changing watering will help that going forward.

I live in Utah; we get little rain and had a very hot June but now the last week has been mild.

Any thoughts?

TKH

I have grown raspberries but I a way over on the other coast. I didn't get huge ones like stores sell, but had some decent years. Here's your extension service about them but it's pretty brief
https://extension.usu.edu/yard...

I blamed myself for not fetilizing regularly or giving extra water - though we're usually pretty good with rain Or maybe not thinning, pruning like the pros.

How long have you had them? Could they need thinning or removing older canes? If the main crop is fall, I wonderif these are blooming on last year's canes and are (commercially) removed, and force it to wait for fruit on new canes, that would bear bigger fruit. Just guessing, but there is something about the cycle of each cane emerging, blooming, dying off..
https://www.finegardening.com/...

Sallyg:

This is my 4th year with these plants. I cut all of the floricanes last year out, leaving just the primocanes. So these berries are showing up on the floricanes; primocanes haven't produced a berry yet.

I intend to cut all of them to the ground this year as I had a bit of cane bore issues with my primocanes and had to remove those that had the worm. If anything, I think they are lacking good organic compost as fertalizer. I just don't know if fertilization helps fruit growth as much as it helps leave and cane development.

I don't know either. You've got more knowledge than I did.
But, healthy leaves and canes are the energy source for fruit production.

I assumed that commercial fruit growers were really on top of fertilizer and water and I wasn't...

I have black raspberries but I noticed that I got bigger and better berries when I watered more, they did best getting watered every day. Weekly fertilizing helped too (I use one of those miracle grow things that connects to a hose). My soil definitely isn't great since it's mostly clay but my raspberries seem to like it. I do mulch with grass clippings which helps keep my soil from drying out really quickly. I got over a gallon from 4 plants which impressed me considering they were planted last year.