Pruning Fruit Bushes

[shifty581]

Did I see on one of the topics.
That you shud not cut back fruit bushes ie, Blackcurrant Gooseberry.
I have just pruned by bushes back. Will they not fruit next year.

[shifty581]

[tim]

Better to read the book than take our view?

http://www.chsw4.org/growingtips_files/page0001.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/pruning_prunesoftfruit.shtml

[shifty581]

Thank you for them sites, Tim :)

[jennym]

I grow both these. As in all fruits, remove dead, damaged and diseased wood first, and any stems that cross and rub against each other.
For blackcurrant, remove a quarter to a third of the oldest stems every year in late winter/early spring. Cut these at ground level. This maintains a supply of vigorous fruiting stems, they fruit well on two to three year old wood. You want many stems emerging at ground level, ideally.
For gooseberry, you want to promote fruiting spurs, so just reduce new growth by about a third - don't cut back the old wood - it fruits on the older spurs that form along the branches. It is best to ensure that the bush is not crowded though, and form a goblet shape by removing branches from the centre. You want a central trunk supporting a cup shape of branches ideally - or they can be grown as cordons on one central stem.

[shifty581]

Thank you Jennym. Thats a grate help :)

[moonbells]

For blackcurrants, it's worth noting that if you have an ancient bush that hasn't been pruned in years (often the case when you take on an abandoned lottie) they respond to being walloped right back to the ground. You don't get fruit the first summer, as the plant's growing new shoots from the ground and they fruit on 2 year old wood, but after that you should have a well-rejuvenated plant.

The caveat is that blackcurrants often suffer from reversion disease, spread by the mites that cause big bud. Big bud's just that - huge spherical buds full of mites in late winter, as against the pointy slim ones that are normal. You pick them off and burn them (they'll never produce leaves), or prune out badly affected branches completely.  If you've got reversion, you get smaller fruits and weird looking leaves with fewer main veins.  It's literally reverting to wild type.  If a bush is definitely suffering from that, best thing is to dig out, destroy and then buy in new stock (and don't plant in the same place!)

moonbells