How to prune currants in the fall for a good harvest

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-18 00:05

Among the shrubs that give berries, currants are highly valued by gardeners for their taste and a huge amount of vitamins. But in order to have a good harvest, care is needed for it, as well as knowledge of how to cut currants in the fall. We will find out about this below, see photos and videos, and analyze all the stages step by step.

Description

Currants grow on almost all continents.

1. Bush. It can be branched, it is a perennial crop, it grows up to 2 meters.
2. Shoots. Young ones have a light greenish tint, darken with age, new branches grow every year.
3. Roots. The currant has a very deep root system, developed, with a powerful structure.
4. Leaves. Dissected, serrated, mostly green, slightly pubescent on the lower part of the leaf blade.
5. Inflorescences. They look like small bells, collected in several pieces, have a variety of colors, from milky to purple. They bloom in late spring - early summer.
6. Fruit. Very aromatic, depending on the type of plant, they are painted in different colors. Appears in July-August. Fruiting begins in the second year and lasts up to 20 years.

Application

Can be grown both privately and on an industrial scale. Various dishes are prepared from currants. They are added to desserts and pies, eaten raw, stewed fruit, jams, fruit drinks, preserves. They make sauces for meat and poultry.

Types of currants

Currant species vary in color and characteristics. The most common are red and black.

1. Red currant. Berries with sourness. The bush has grayish shoots, the leaves are shiny, serrated. Fruits are watery and can quench both thirst and hunger.
2. Black currant. Distributed in European territory, as well as in China and Kazakhstan. The berry contains a large amount of vitamin C. It is considered a good anti-inflammatory and diuretic.
3. White currant. It looks like red, strongly branches and grows with shoots, the berry is early, blooms already in May-early June. Very good in drinks.
4. Yellow currant. Imported from America, very similar in taste to gooseberries. The bushes are very decorative, they can reach a height of 3 m.

Each species has its own characteristics of care and pruning.

The common gooseberry also belongs to the currant genus.

Interesting! How to prune raspberries in the fall for a good harvest

Do I need to crop and why

Although currants can delight gardeners for a long time without reducing their yield, over time problems arise that need to be solved, for this they prune.

The main goal is to remove damaged and old branches, improve fruiting and rejuvenate bushes. But autumn pruning dramatically increases the resistance of the bushes to unfavorable conditions and helps to prepare for wintering.

What is needed for trimming

It is not enough to know how to cut currants in the fall in order to have a good harvest, you need to choose the right tools and materials.

Since there are no thick branches on the bushes, you can get by with pruning shears, garden shears or a saw. The spring pruner is a very handy tool. If it is sharp, then the pruning process is not tedious, with minimal effort.

It is advisable to put on thick mittens and stock up on antiseptic, ash, garden varnish or oil paint.

When to trim

In the fall, choose a sunny day for cutting currants, two weeks before the onset of the first frost. As a rule, in central Russia, October is such a month for cutting bushes, but it is worth watching the weather in order to do it correctly.

Young bushes

Pruned in the year of planting, for further growth of the bush.

An incision is made over the bud, leaving 3-4 pieces on the shoot. And by no means at ground level.

Mature plants

First, they carry out sanitary pruning, removing dead wood, damaged shoots, shoots, crossing. Further, the procedure depends on the type of currant.

Black currant

This species has a spreading crown and bears fruit only on shoots up to five years of age. You should not wait for berries on older branches.

Consider the steps on how to prune black currants in the fall to have a good harvest:

1. Branches older than five years are removed, since the main fruiting ones are two and three years. Older branches are much darker.
2. They form the crown, making the bush more attractive, and remove the lower branches that touch the ground.

Then those that are directed towards the center of the bush.

Note! Each year, the length of the shoots should increase by more than 0.15 m. If this is not the case, they are removed.

If necessary, the procedure is repeated in the spring without touching the fruiting branches.

Red currant

The fruits of this species are located at the tops of the shoots, so they should not be shortened. And also, unlike black, the best harvest of red is on the branches of five to eight years of age. This is another prohibition against pruning. And in general, this species is cut off as little as possible.

What is removed

1. Young shoots, leaving no more than 7 per bush.
2. Older people over eight years old.

After shaping the bush, no more than 12 branches of different ages should remain.

In order to have a good harvest, after the procedure, it is necessary to cover the sections with both garden varnish and any bactericidal preparation. You need to trim red currants in the fall correctly, removing the removed parts after themselves and throwing them into the fire.

White currant

In autumn, sanitary pruning is carried out for white currants, cutting out branches with cracked bark, having poorly healed wounds, aged, infected with galitsa or glass, which infect not leaves, but branches, forming back doors in them.

Young shoots are not touched so as not to reduce the yield.

Yellow currant

After the leaves fall off, they begin to trim yellow currants, when only the strongest, fruiting shoots are left on the bush.

Since the bush grows tall and it is difficult to harvest on it, it will be correct to pinch a branch that grows above 2 m, removing it.

The next step to be done is to remove the thickening so that light can penetrate into the bush and air is carried out.

General technology for cutting currants

To make the process easier, we suggest the following pruning scheme.

№	Removal phase	Explanation
	Old branches	They are removed at the base so that there are not even hemp. Otherwise, top branches appear, which only divert nutrients to themselves.
	Branches affected by diseases and pests.	This can even be on the top of the shoots, they must be removed.
	Young shoots	They will not give berries the next year, they need to be shortened.
	Parallel to the ground	They also do not bring berries, they shade part of the bush.

Do not forget to pay attention to the type of currant when removing old branches.

Formation of bushes

This process also has to be carried out when pruning, otherwise the shrub will look ugly, although currants are not particularly suitable for landscape design. But you can refine the plant so that it fits into the environment and looks great in the photo.

To do this, when removing, they make the bush more compact, rounded, but taking into account the characteristics and leaving a certain type of shoots.

Features of some varieties

In addition to differences in color, some varieties of currants are divided into two categories:

with active;

with passive shoots.

The latter also differ in the types of trimming. How to do it correctly and when is presented below.

Passive varieties

The berries are formed at the top and in the middle of the branches. And if they are shortened, the yield drops sharply. Young shoots appear reluctantly. In this case, only sanitary pruning is carried out, without touching the rest of the shoots.

Active varieties

They differ in that the branches grow annually, they are cut off by 0.3 m.

Errors when pruning currants

Novice gardeners, due to their inexperience, often make the wrong steps when using pruning. Let's find out what not to do:

1. Cut off the tops of fruiting shoots. Yields can be drastically reduced.
2. Start the process 2-10 days before freezing. The plant will not have time to heal wounds and prepare for winter. His immunity will weaken, which threatens the death of the currant.
3. Carry out the procedure in wet weather. This threatens the spread of fungal diseases.

Try to avoid these mistakes and enjoy your work.

Remember: pruning currants is a prerequisite for its fruiting. When it is produced correctly, the shrub will give you a bountiful harvest, providing the body with vitamins. And how nice it is to make delicious jam out of berries and add it to compotes!