Blackcurrant pruning

Pruning fruit trees and shrubs is the most important agrotechnical technique, allowing not only to form the crown of plants, but also to prevent the development of diseases and increase fruiting.

Blackcurrant pruning in your gardens should be carried out regularly and in a timely manner. This measure causes very rapid growth of zero (basal) shoots, they branch better. Pruning also has a beneficial effect on the growth of annual shoots, which then ripen larger berries.

But the currant bush should be pruned not after some time has passed, but immediately after planting! This is necessary so that the bush begins to branch faster. Each shoot on the bush is trimmed, leaving only 2-4 of the most developed buds. If the branches of a bush are initially weak, they often resort to pruning them to a stump. Over the next 2-3 years, all diseased, weak, thickened, old branches on currant bushes should be cut to the ground, leaving only 3-4 well-developed young annual shoots.

If the growth of the bush is weak, then, without regret, you should also remove several fruiting shoots that are 2-3 years old. This pruning stimulates the growth of root shoots.

Bush-forming pruning ends by the 4-5th year of the bush’s life. At this stage, it already has branches of different ages with different functions. It is better to leave about 10-15 branches of different ages on the bush, but monitor the proportion: there should be 1-2 more one-year-old shoots, and 1-2 fewer very old branches.On adult bushes, branches that are 5-6 years old, which already bear fruit poorly, are pruned.

Blackcurrant pruning is carried out in early spring. You need to have time to do this before the buds open, and on black currants they tend to be one of the first to bloom.