Making a fruit cage for my Blueberries

Last year I left it too late to make proper arrangements to protect my Blueberry crop - and paid the penalty. This year I am a bit better organised.

Since my plastic "seedling greenhouse" is no longer required to protect tender seedlings from frost (I hope), I have removed its plastic cover and used the tubing and connectors as the basis of a temporary fruit-cage, along with elements of the ever-flexible Build-a-Ball kit. At present I just have the frame, but in a week or two, when the fruit begins to ripen, I will drape a net over it and weigh the edges down with bricks.

One of my Blueberry plants is not looking very happy. Some of the branches are laden with swelling fruit:

But the leaves on about half of the stems already look Autumn-ey. The have gone red and are drying out.

Significantly, there are very few fruits on these stems, and even those few are dessicated and of no use whatever:

What's going on here? Can anyone offer an explanation?

As a matter of fact, I don't think I'm going to get a very good Blueberry crop this year. This photo shows a typical fruit cluster. You can see that some of the flowers have set fruit, but certainly not all of them.



I draw comfort from the fact that the severe pruning I did last year has produced a decent amount of new growth. Blueberries fruit on older wood though, not on new shoots, so things ought to be better next year.

How is your Blueberry crop looking this year?