Currants And Gooseberries – Naturally Form Bushes
by diywealth on Mar.24, 2010, under diy
Currants and Gooseberries fruits naturally form bushes and their pruning is essentially alike. It is done during the dormant season, usually in spring before growth starts. Red and white currants and gooseberries produce fruit buds on one-year-old wood and on spurs on older wood but they bear best on two- and three-year-old wood with inferior fruit on wood older than that.
Weaker shoots should be removed from one-year bushes, leaving six to eight of the strongest. At the end of the second year, four or five two year-old and three or four one-year-old shoots may be left. After the third year, three of each : one-, two-and three-year-old shoots are left and all wood over three years old is removed. Low branches which would allow fruit to drag on the ground and make it dirty are also removed.
Black currants, on the other hand, bear the most and beat fruit on growth of the previous season. Therefore, pruning should be done so as to encourage a plentiful supply of new wood. Gooseberry shoots are usually fruited only two years and then removed. On the Pacific coast where they are said to bear the heaviest crop the third year, shoots are fruited three years and then cut off.
Blueberries
Because blueberries produce plump fruit buds on the tips of shoots of the previous season, pruning should be done to encourage growth of many new shoots. Little pruning is necessary the first two or three years after planting. Only dead or weak branches need be removed. But each year thereafter a few of the older branches producing short, weak growth should be cut off at the base of the bush. The weakest of the new shoots growing from the base should also be removed leaving only three or four of the strongest. Then, the top of the bush should be thinned out by removal of broken or weak branches. If especially large fruit is desired the bush should be trimmed to leave only four or five of the larger, fatter fruit buds on the tip of each shoot.
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