How cold did it get for you this winter? Any snow cover? Did the plants put on a lot of late season growth?

I have ever bearing types so this may not apply completely, but I have never had a single 2nd year cane that leafed out⦠in other words, I only get 1st year sprouts from the base, and the previous year's canes are always dead. Ever bearing types are often grown this way anyway (spent floricanes removed each winter) so I'm guessing they tend to do this on their own. Another theory of mine is that late season growth followed by sudden cold in the fall which almost always happens for me could be the culprit.

You could always switch to ever bearing types if this continues to be a problem (although the second crop tends to ripen very late -- too late if you have a short growing season).

I think you need to give it some time. Mine are pretty much doing the same thing. The fall bearing summer crop though is going to be huge. I know some just take the fall harvest only, but here in the midwest the summer crop is huge! My floricanes are growing 7-15 lateral branches, all will produce berries. For me on fall bearing the summer crop is amazing. I think the berries are bigger in the fall crop, but the volume is a lot more in the summer crop. Some places that are super hot during the summer may not see such a harvest. Here it's only been hot one day or so, at 12 noon today it's 45 degrees! Coldest spring in memory for me. This may be why the summer bearers are slow, expecting more heat, will probably be very late to bear this year.
Mine always leaf out first btw.
I have one black raspberry that is the most advanced. it has flowers already, it is going to produce a huge crop. I added two more blacks, one is the new 2 crop fall bearing cultivar Niwot. It's doing well, coming along fine. I believe it is probably the best black to have. It out produces all others.

Fab,

Yeah for some reason it's feast or famine with the fall bearers depending where you are at, how strange, both zone 6 too? Shows how useless zone info is. We had 13 days below zero, with the coldest being 14 below. No damage to raspberries at all. Although talking to MSU experts, they told me some crops were damaged. Not mine! I did lose almost all of my blackberries. I will protect them this winter. They looked good late winter, still green, but died anyway. I thought I was OK, but no. All are still alive but the floricanes died except for a couple. I'll have a modest crop. All the blueberries are good, some tip die back, but only an inch or so. I'll have a good harvest, buds are beginning to open.

Here's a pic of my Coho summer bearing, Nourse tells me most likely winter damage, but i had none before this winter.....could it be slow ?

Here's a pic of my Taylor summer raspberries, same problem.

Lastly here's my Newburgh summer bearing raspberry, sucker's galore but not too much foliage.

OK, I misunderstood exactly what you meant, yeah that is very strange. Do those bare canes have live buds? Looks like it, still never seen that before. I guess that's what winter damage may look like.

Mine look a ittle different. Photo taken yesterday.

I have a currant that looks like that, now I know what happened! Winter damage. Did Nourse say of they would die? Or recover?

Doing a little research those canes might never recover, the vascular system may be compromised, so if they fruit, they might not be able to supply nutrition to the fruit. Bummer! Wow, did I get lucky!