Grow Your Own Magazine

... I have eight, two year old gooseberry bushes, taken from cuttings... all growing well with heavy fruit compared to size... then a few weeks back one at the end of the line looks droopy, as though it's lacking in water, so I water... nothing happens, it droops all the more and eventually over three weeks the leaves drop off but the fruit stays put so I leave it. I though it was just bad luck, win-some, lose-some, you know how it goes on an allotment, until I notice today that another bush, next but one down the line, is beginning the same cycle.

... so I dig up the first bush and discover that the fruit are now hanging on 100% dead sticks... can't see anything in or around the roots which in themselves look healthy, long, tough to pull out of the ground and uneaten... there's a little green mould on the bottom of the stem, but very little... nothing obvious that could have killed the plant stone cold dead... the leaves dropped off dead, they were not eaten by anything.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Has anyone ever come across anything like this before?

Tomorrow I am taking every precaution and watering the area with wine weevil killer just in case even though I couldn't see site of any of the little blighters when I dug the deceased plant up.