Orange Blisters on Raspberry Leaves

[Lovely Helen]

Hi

Can you help. My raspberries (Mainly the summer ones) have violent orange blisters on some of their leaves. On some there is just a few, but other leaves look pretty much orange.

Does anyone know what it is and if there is anything I can do?

Thanks

Helen

[Capsid]

It may be rust (a fungal disease); have you got a picture for confirmation?

[Lovely Helen]

I've had a look on another web site and am pretty sure it is Rust. What do I do?

[sarraceniac]

If it is rust (and it almost certainly is, and not coral spot) then you must firstly clean all the fallen leaves from round the canes and then strip off all the infected leaves from them, keeping them together and then burning them. Then spray with the dreaded Bordeaux mixture. Now Bordeaux mixture is generally hated by gardeners because it is toxic to wildlife, domestic animals and should not be inhaled when spraying. It has recently been declared to be organic by the European powers that be but that is probably because there is no organic fungicide that will deal with the many fungi that Bordeaux fettles. It is Copper sulphate based (hardly truly organic) and is available from good garden centres. If you don't want to go down that route then you must simply pull up and burn all infected canes and replace them with a rust resistant variety. Sorry about that but there is little else you can do.