Rhubarb Dying?

Mo60

Just checked my rhubarb and found all the leaves and stalks have died back. Crowns don't look too healthy, seem to be soft.

Should I dig them up or are they likely to grow back?

Oldtree

Are they rotten/waterlogged?

My rubarb seems to be doing somthing strange at the moment too but the crowns look healthy and have the appearance of more leaves to come.

I have spoken to a few people about their rubarb this year as mine was very stringy/fiberous and not too good. This seems to have been a problem to a few people and may have had somthing to do with the wind earlier this year as one man who had 2 seperate crowns, one in a sheltered location which was ok and one not which was stringy.

arandale

Everyone i know has bad Rhurbarb this year for some reason

dfbemt

Same here.

Was great during April but during May it started to die off - soft stalks with no replacements growing.

Has to be the weather ?

Cardinal Richelieu

Same, I thought it was due to splitting the crowns before the winter. That said I got a great crop of forced rhubard from a couple of plants. Another section in shade doesn't look as bad but the rest are short and stringy. It might be due to the mild winter, if I remember correctly rhubarb is originally Siberian in origin so requires a certain amount of cold temp. I might try putting a couple of plants in large pots and placing them in the fridge as insurance if next winter is mild.

Oldtree

That sounds like a good idea, you must have a huge fridge??

Cardinal Richelieu

Oldtree wrote: »

That sounds like a good idea, you must have a huge fridge??

Walk in:D, enough for a couple of pallets. Don't use it much now. The fridge trick is used by commercial strawberry growers to replicate winter if you want two crops in a summer.

fryup

first time ever my rhubarb has failed, spring was too cold i think

byhookorbycrook

Mine was good, and still is. Had given it a good feed earlier in the spring.

fitzcoff

We have 2 crowns in the polytunnel and there is no problem with it, we will have our third crop from it this week.