please post some images.

Unfortunately I had problems getting closeups with the mobile phone / only a few of them came out.

There may be some minor activity with some buds on the sour cherry / not sure if it has something to do with a spray of neem oil I game it a day ago (in desperation) - maybe I should hit the black currant with neem also ?

A few buds are a little brown now, the rest still whitish/grey (some branches are a little whitish/grey also). The tree seems to have been stopped from growing /budding . There's one photo of the black currant (last uploaded/first in line) where the whitish/grey buds can be seen. On the second photo (and the rest of the sour cherry) you can see the fine web and there's actually may be a small whitish spider sitting next to the bud.

bump - any ideas ? The parts of the buds are grey and they're not opening + the webs near the buds (thought it was spider mites)

Yes, I know the conditions are not ideal - I'll see in the long run whether to continue but I'm more concerned about the grey color on the buds (not only on the black currants) - any idea what that could be as it's also on the sour cherry which is local ?

I'll try cutting it back just in case it's not dead

I have only 2 black currants - I popped out and pruned both to see what the middle of the stem looks like. On the first plant the middle of the stem is like powder and there is no green coloring (I guess the plant is dead), but on the second, there is a green ring, so I may be able to save it if I only knew what the cause was. I presume the web may be indication of spider mite and am treating that with neem but what could the greying on the buds mean / what could I try - a mineral oil/fungicide ? I don't know what it is so I don't know what treatment to try.

As far as I can see the colour of the buds is pretty normal, apart from their being dead. The twig is severely shrivelled. I really don't think it's a pest issue.

Can you show the cherry buds?

Hate to ask the obvious question, but have the trees been getting adequate water? In warm dry climates where there is not a lot of rain, the soil around the trees may need a deep soaking every 10 days or so.

When it comes to watering, I try to do deep watering and I test by checking for moisture in the top few inches below the mulch - if I feel the soil is not dry, I don't water. I must say I'm not sure if that is the best method but with all the talk about root rot, I'm afraid of overdoing it. Having said that, although I did water a few times as the start of spring brought with it some "summer weather", I didn't pay much attention to the conditions of the soil as there was quite a bit of rainfall during winter and I thought it wasn't time yet to focus on watering - maybe I should be focusing on this more irrespective of season ?

You got me curious so I popped out to check the moisture and under the mulch I could feel the earth not being dry (cool feeling), but I added a couple of litres of water anyway.

Red currants , goji, blackberries and other berries along the same part of the fence are green - the black currants - no life showing from the buds.

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here's some more photos - first of cherry, last two of black currant.

I just got off the phone from the local advisory board whom I sent some photos also and they seem to think along the same lines as you guys - dehydration. I will cut the black currant that may be dead to ground level , add some nitrogen rich manure and water well and see what happens.

I would appreciate if someone could tell me in some detail how you go about watering as it looks like I may not be doing the right thing (i.e. for each season, how much, what checks you make etc.) -thanks in advance. Now off to the garden.

If you don't have puddles of water remaining for days and days after a week of rain, I would not worry about root rot. Water is the plants life force, In the summer I water almost daily. It all depends on the plant. Do not wait till plants are bone dry. Keep them moist at all times. As long as your soil drains well, little chance of over watering in ground.

Black currants are hard to kill as long as they have constant moisture. Mine have never been watered but they are growing in heavy clay on the site of an old watercourse. They get rain all year round and very seldom experience a temperature above about 25c.

My soil at the very beginning was very clayish/more yellowish and quite poor but I have amended it in the ground with organic matter (leaves, shredded tree branches, pine needles and manure) and the same on top with additional pine bark and shredded branches and reed which grows on the beach nearby to act as mulch.

Just to get the moisture level clear - today when I poked my hand in the soil , it was "dry moist" - moisture is not seen on the hand but is felt and some fine dirt particles are left on the hand (if you know what I mean ;) ) - should it be actually moist, so that you see slight dampness on the hand ?

One more thing, I use sheep manure and sometimes I find white fat "worms" in the manure. Now this is not the good long redish worm but the (well, not sure if worm is the correct word for it (in Croatian we have a separate word for this pest) pest which can feed on the living tree roots - not sure if this could be one explanation for cases when a tree stops growing and I'm not sure how to get rid of it without digging other than nematodes (as far as I've read somewhere) . I bring this up because one of the black currants was slow to grow from the very beginning - just trying to think of possibilities other than dehydration - any experiences with this sort of problem ?

Did you have a deep cold or a prolonged cold this winter?

I'm thinking out loud.

You know, there was another post about a year ago about another man in Croatia whose fruit trees were mysteriously dying:

Would appreciate some advice to save cherry tree

vjeko, it's always a good habit to dip your pruning scissors in some water with bleach before you prune a fruit tree, this will help avoid spreading disease. Maybe you have been a little too aggressive pruning, this can also leave the trees vulnerable to disease. Prune when the weather is dry.

Could it have been possible your fruit trees suffered a prolonged period without water in prior years? I mean like 5 years continuously without enough water, or 1 very dry year without any water whatsoever; that could have permanently damaged them.

Soil also makes a difference, poor sandy of chalky soil can require the tree to be watered more frequently, because the soil does not retain moisture well.

The " other man" with the dying cherry tree was unfortunately me - the tree died. From the pictures you can see it was a well developed tree (maybe some 5 years old) - it was quite easy to take out of the ground which was rather strange. Like I said - I've had quite a few problems with the fruit trees and now the black currant and sour cherry - don't know. For the sour cherry, I did prune it rather hard as it was overgrown but not the black currant - I pruned them the same as the other berries - take out a cane or two of the old wood. The winter was basically not a winter , but enough rain- so it couldn't be that. You can see the other two happy cherries next to the one that died and the other berries are happily growing (red currant, black berries, etc.), so what could be the difference in watering them.

Looks like the only thing I can do is to focus more on sterilizing scissors and watering. Could someone please give me some details on watering so that I can analyze whether I should change something there (when, how often, how much and how you check the soil moisture) ?

Please quit pruning. Your plants don't need it. Next winter mulch and cover young plants after they go dormant. You barely got a twig on these plants. Pruning is for mature fruit baring plants. Also, farmers in dry hot climates rarely prune and never have root rot.

Young plants need all their few leaves to survive. I'm in California and figs grow as weeds, we never prune them.

The small cherry tree didn't have enough branches to require pruning either. Cherry trees need lots of water.

If the soil is so dry it turns to separate particles its bone dry and has been for a long time.

Those fat white worms are called grubs. They cant kill a tree. They eat roots but its the dead roots that they prune off plants and make into healthy compost.

Grubs eat potatoes, potatoes are not a root, they are tubers attached to potato roots.

If your climate is Mediterranean like mine spring means water. Young trees need lots of water to soften the soil so their roots can grow deeply.

vjeko - I just noticed in your first post you said you weren't sure if it was the black or the red currants which were dying. Black currant smell strongly of tom cats, so that is one way to tell if you are not very familiar with the two species.

Regarding the statement above that your plants don't need pruning, certainly since yours are new and on their last legs anyway they don't need pruning at the moment. But if they ever start to grow and fruit they certainly do. And black and red currants require different techniques since the black ones fruit on new wood while the reds fruit on old.

And about the grubs - many do eat living roots of a wide variety of plants - not just potatoes - so it is important to identify the ones you find if you can.

And find yourself a sack of salt to go with statements, such as 'farmers in dry, hot climates rarely prune', or 'young trees needs lots of water to soften the soil'.

Floral I was referring to the cherry trees in the post. The poster only mentioned grubs to find out if they were killing cherry trees. He mentioned live healthy trees next to the tree that died so theres no need to waste time killing harmless grubs.

We're not talking about some plants or grubs in the UK. We are talking about cherry trees and currents in Croatia. No snowcover in winter, no summer rain, bone dry soil right now. Floral have you ever grown a plant in that environment?

Also poster killed a tree by pruning it and stated it was out of control. The tree in the picture was a nub the trunk looks like an inch thick. Nothing on that tree was big enough to be out of control and they were able to just pull the tiny tree out of the ground, obviously, the root system couldn't have supported a out of control tree. Which suggest that the trees may have planted too close together and so the weakest tree died.

Furthermore poster stated the tree was 5 years old. My comment that cherry trees don't grow fast enough to survive pruning in a Mediterranean climate is supported by that tiny 5 year old dead tree so are you questioning me or lying eyes.

Salt will poison soil and any plants in that soil will die unless theres enough rain to leach it out. V salt will kill the cherry trees you have left and you'll have to dig that salty soil out and replace it with healthy compost before anything will grow.

V, floral is in the UK and never seen a month without rain. I don't even think they read your post or looked at where you are. I further think they don't know Croatia has a Mediterranean climate just like California.

Im in southern California, There was no snow here in the winter but we had enough winter rain for the plants. I had to start watering in spring.

I killed two red currents last year from not watering enough so that's why I didn't answer the water question. We don't have enough chill to fruit black currents but we have native red ones. I grow figs and tend a fig/citrus orchard at school.

I have two healthy 2 year old cherry trees grown from seed.

If your post didn't say Croatia we could be neighbor's. You should check out the California forums we grow the same things as you and we talk about drought all the time.

Your chill hours are like northern California and rainfall is like mine in southern California.

Guys thanks for all the feedback - I really appreciate the time you spent for the comments - I've learned something to make me a better gardener !

Just to clarify a few things - regarding climate, I am 100m from the coast near the middle of the Adriatic near the town of Zadar and here we do have a Mediterranean climate (which is not the case for the continental part of Croatia or the plains of the east or the mountainous regions) . There is little rain during summer, the winter can get cold (below zero) and there is rain in winter and spring - weather forecast is 3 days rain now - it has been pouring since yesterday.

The cherry tree that died (other thread) was not pruned at all and in the same year two apricots died (an agricultural engineer from a local nursery didn't know what it was but that they were dead). Yes I did some hard pruning on the sour cherry tree that is still in the garden as it was completely overgrown - branches/leaves everywhere - really "thick" - I guess I over did it.

The black currants each had over 20 stems - I thought it was too much (spreading very wide), so I cut a couple of the oldest ones out (leaving plenty of old and new wood).

I followed the advice of the local agricultural advisory and cut the black currants back (left some 10cm above ground / few buds) - now we'll see if they're still alive.

I sprayed the cherry and black currants again with neem and a week later with mineral oil just in case it would help (grasping for straws) - now I'll just water and see if there's any life left in them.

If nothing else, I've learned to be "moderate" ;) in pruning and that all plants have their specific watering needs (if only all plants were like the thorny wild blackbarry that grows like a weed here without any watering - maybe I should cultivate it).

Thanks for the additional information, vjeko. Rest assured I read all your posts thoroughly and was aware of your location. I am just wondering if anyone else in your area is successfully growing black currants? I don't recall seeing them on my various travels in the Med and Adriatic areas. I've not been to Croatia, although many friends and family have, but I do know the Italian coast directly opposite where you are. It just doesn't seem like a crop that would do well in that region to me.

Regarding the pruning, once BCs are producing they do need pruning for maximum crops but if they are struggling they need all the leaves they have. However, it doesn't sound as if the amount of pruning you did would make any difference to them. Pruning consists of removing a proportion of the older fruited wood. An easy way to prune it is to cut the entire branch when harvesting and then sit somewhere to strip off the fruit. Unlike red currants black currant strigs are not easy to pick whole and you can squash the berries if you try to harvest in bunches. They need removing individually which is hard on the back if you do it when they are on the bushes on the bushes.

if you could post some clearer pictures of the currant bushes we could try and say if there is life left in them. And have you done the sniff test I suggested just to make sure you know which are reds and which are blacks?

floral_uk, will take some more photos - but as I said, I have cut the bushes back to approx 10cm. now. No I didn't do the smell test but there is a clear difference between those two currants and the others which have a lighter more brown wood.

You're absolutely right about the location not being "optimal". Maybe it was a sales pitch only but the people at the local nursery said it should be OK (and they have a range of berries they sell) but the watering needs to be increased compared to continental Croatia and I'm a sucker for having a garden full of a variety of fruits ;). The other berries are doing well, will post back with further on the problem plants.

Well - good luck and keep us posted. BTW, I was definitely not advocating adding salt to your soil, as I'm sure you realised. That would have been ridiculous. It was certain statements I was referring to as needing a dose of salt, not your garden.