This has definitely been a year of grotty raspberries. The raspberry beetle, Byturus tormentosus, is to blame. Affected berries have telltale dry, grey-brown patches around the top edges.
This has definitely been a year of grotty raspberries. The raspberry beetle, Byturus tormentosus, is to blame. Affected berries have telltale dry, grey-brown patches around the top edges.
I’ve never known anything like it. I was at a horticultural show recently, and 80% of the questions people asked me were about their poorly raspberries. I only grow autumn-fruiting varieties at home, which normally avoid attentions of raspberry beetle, but the early berries have been affected. So I wasn’t too surprised to find that when the kids and I went to a local Pick Your Own farm, we discovered that their summer-fruiting raspberries were also rather iffy.
The creamy white-brown larvae may be anything up to 7 or 8mm long, and although they’re not always easy to spot in the fruit, if you leave the container of picked berries in your kitchen for an hour, you’re likely to see the culprits appear around the edges of the bowl.
Sadly, the recent wet weather seems to have exacerbated the problem, because affected fruits go mouldy very quickly if it rains.
Whether you eat affected fruits or not is up to you. But it’s important to remove infested fruits immediately, to reduce the likelihood of infestation next year. Being an organic gardener, I don’t use pesticides, but carefully timed applications of pyrethrum will control the infestation. If you do decide to spray, follow the label instructions carefully. The chemical needs to be applied at different times, depending on the crop that’s being attacked – it's not just raspberries which are affected, but also blackberries , logan berries and other hybrid berries that are at risk. But whatever the crop, only spray at dusk to minimize the risk of damage to bees and other beneficial and pollinating insects.
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