Where have all the berries gone?

[Primrose]

Our pyracantha bushes this year have barely a berry on them and hawthorn bushes in surrounding lanes seem pretty barren too, despite prolific flowers in spring. Even the nearby elder bushes and trees seem to have few berries on them. Is this the same in other parts of the country? If so, I fear our birds and other wildlife are in for a difficult time this coming winter.

[alan refail]

Primrose

I haven't checked out the elder so far, but the hawthorn and rowans round here are laden with fruit.

[vivienz]

I was only today admiring the massive bunches of scarlet fruit on a rowan in a garden I was visiting. However, we have a pyracantha in the back garden that is usually a great favourite with the blackbirds, but they will be disappointed this year as it had an attack of suspected fireblight in the spring that wiped out all the blossom. It seems to have recovered and it's foliage looks okay, but no berries on this particular shrub. Luckily, we have plenty of other stuff the birds can scoff.
Vivien

[Johnboy]

Hi Vivien,
If the pyracantha has recovered then it wasn't fire blight. Sadly things do not recover with fire blight, you can prune affected parts but in the end the FB will win. I had the most wonderful John Downie crab apple and a couple of years ago it flowered magnificently then dramatically dropped dead with the flowers left on the tree. This was quickly felled and burnt. I didn't even keep any for the log pile. Have now bought another JD crab apple as it is a very good tree for pollination of the apples down in the orchard.
JB.
PS Fire Blight used to be a notifiable disease but I am not sure if it is any longer.

[Johnboy]

Hi Primrose,
We have the most wonderful host of berries on just about everything. Hawthorn, Rowan, Whitebeam, Sloes
and Elderberry. Sadly virtually no apples this year.
We had a very heavy frost when the trees were in bloom and that put paid to most of any sort of crop.
JB.

[Chantal]

We have virtually no damsons or plums, but the most apples I have ever seen.

Cotoneaster, rowan etc all pretty laden too.

[Johnboy]

Hi Chantal,
Less than a mile from here they have got so many Apples, Pears and stone fruit they do not know what to do with all the produce. An exceedingly poor year for me. I live at the head of a valley and the cold
freezing wind whistles up this valley and misses those below me. Can't complain as they get flooded every time the river breaks it's banks! I have a dry house and they will see me alright for fruit and there is very little I can do for them when they are flooded except commiserate. They have been known to come up for a cuppa and stayed for a fortnight!
JB.

[Primrose]

I've read in the press that damsons nationally are going to be in very short supply this year and the price, if you can find some, will be exhorbitant. Shame, as I really like to make a batch of damson jam every autumn. Think the same will apply to plums.
Johnboy - what a good neighbour you are. People like you are worth their weight in gold!

[alan refail]

Primrose

You're probably right about damsons. £2.69 a kilo in Pwllheli and selling fast! They are one of the most popular autumn fruits in these parts. Need to get some next week for jam.

[Monika]

Primrose, you must have had bad weather when the pyracantha and hawthorn flowered and they didn't get pollinated. Our hawthorn certainly seem to be ok and we have masses of rowanberries which the blackbirds are devouring. Apple trees, which don't usually do well here at all, are also laden with fruit.
It just needs a week of wet. cool weather without insects to lose a year's harvest!

[old codger]

Dear Primrose,on the way to Milton Keynes on saturday a house in the village of Wavendon had a board outside, saying damsons 1pound for 2lb in weight. What a bargain.