Pruning Red Currants - advice please

[Digeroo]

I do not think I am brutal enough.  Need advice.   They produced a lot of new growth last year.  I think I ought to get rod of some of it.

Several plot neighbours have got drastic, should I be doing it now too.  They have also attacked their blackcurrants, and I know what they have done is not right, since they have cut off the fruiters.

[Digeroo]

[goodlife]

Do you need to be 'brutal' with pruning? If your red currant have room to be big or even bigger, there is no actual need for the currant's point of view..other than cutting out obvious dead and diseased bits.
The truth is that you will get MUUUUUCH bigger crop out of it if the space allow that little bit bigger bush.
I've moaned about this before so, coming rant warning...( and not directed to you Digeroo....just general..)
All currants and goosies are tough 'old' plants, and there is this 'prune correctly school' that tell people that they need to be pruned 'just so and so ..and so often'..NOOOOO! If they are planted too many in too small space they WILL need regular pruning to able to fit them 'in'..but then you loose most of the potential crop and create uncessary work. Given generous spacing and allowed to grow into their full potential and only removing any growth that have started to bend towards ground (berries will get dirty) and maybe odd branch to create new growth for future main branches (but not even that is necessay every year) is all what is necessary and individual bush will yield more than 'correctly' pruned group of smaller ones...so what is the point?  With goosies regular pruning makes picking less thorny job..but lack regular yearly pruning doesn't otherwise have much other effect.
I one does want to have more individual bushes in small space and want to do more yearly pruning...then the correct timing of the job become issue or one risks removing most of the fruiting wood 

Digeroo..if the space have come as a issue...if pruning now, the 'safest' way of tackling the job is either taking whole individual branch off and leaving others be....and/or..shortening some of the new last year's growth by 2/3.

[goodlife]

To add...I've only go one red currant bush..but it yields more than I and neighbourhood birds eat. It is about 5ft high and same wide..too big for netting but it really doesn't matter. It is about as tall and wide as they get and I get my share of berries out of it (plenty)...some for the chickens and blackbirds enjoy rest of it (the picking order may be reverse and I end up being last)...come autumn and there is always odd spoiled berries hanging on as even birds have had enough.
I tend to cut few bits off when the bush is on leaf..I can see better what parts of the braches have become too heavy or are on my way. The bush gets fed with some general feed (just done it last week) and light mulch with chicken bedding from coop or when I'm emptying old compost off from pots it gets chucked under the bush.
Biggest jost looking after the 'old girl' is picking the berries  I've once gone to trouble of guarding the crop with netting and  then picked it most (note! not all!) of it for myself...2 builders buckets full!..that was silly..freezer only takes so much..so in the end I juiced most of it.

[Digeroo]

I have one huge red currant in my garden at home and the birds enjoy it a great deal.  It has never been pruned, just been singed occassionally when my OH has a bonfire.

I planted some of its daughters at the lottie and had hoped to have cordons so they were planted rather close.  I am not sure it is a cordon variety. The stems are rather droopy.   It is very early and very productive.  Where the droopy branches touch the ground it roots and these daughters are now at the lottie. 

I also have some rovada which I bought new and they they are behaving themselves and look like cordons so are easy to keep that way.  I just leave one new one as reserve at the bottom and get rid of the rest.  I am hoping to have two/tree tall branches on each.

The the older variety is rampant and is growing enormous already.  Various bits have disappeared, as people seem to help themselves to cuttings but apart from that they have had free rein.  I could not bear cutting them back when they were small and I did not have much soft fruit on the lottie.

I am not a brutal pruner at all except for blackcurrants which I follow a pick, prune, feed routine which does brilliantly.   

Its just I am not sure I want a huge red currant bush 2 metres high and 3-5 metres across on my lottie.   And I certainly do not want four of them!

[Robert_Brenchley]

If it's a matter of space, you probably do need to be brutal. Maybe get rid of one or two completely? But there are very few things which need brutal pruning as a matter of routine, and redcurrants aren't one of them.

[ed dibbles]

Cutting back red/white currant bushes hard will result in a lot of unproductive sappy growth.

To get bumper crops every year you need to spur prune. Leave the main framework along with existing fruit spurs and prune off all of last years long shoots back to an inch. If you want to extend a branch the shoot at the tip can be shortened two thirds of the way up.

As Digeroo has discovered leaving a bush mostly unpruned will allow it to to form fruiting spurs in its own way, although it may look rather stragly.

So you need to begin re building a framework on the plant you have been brutal with, create new fruiting branches with spurs that will produce pounds of fruit.

After I left school I worked on a pick your own fruit farm. Every winter we pruned hundreds of red currant bushes. The farm owner had to have the fruit pruned correctly to maximize profits.

Gooseberries, red and white currants are all spur pruned. Blackcurrants are the odd one out as the older third of shoots are pruned away each year.

[Digeroo]

Many thanks for you comment but what precisely is spur pruning.

[goodlife]

what precisely is spur pruning.

It is actually a term what you use more with apple and pears..but with currants and goosies  the 'idea' is similar...you have one central main branch from which along the length of you get  side branches...these side bits are drastically shortened , so those will branch again, those are shortened again creating more branching.. eventually you will end up with side branches that have 'divided' again and again..short little growths on all directions and each bit will mature into fruiting wood.
I'll see tomorrow if I have good example of it in allotment that I can photo and show for you in close up.

[ed dibbles]

Bush and tree fruits can be divided into two types - those that fruit best on young growth and those that fruit best on old growth. Redcurrants are one that fruit best on old wood.

The currants are formed on short stumpy inch long growths eminating from the mature branches. These are the fruiting spurs. The more a bush has the more fruit it can produce.

Long shoots growing from the mature stems will not produce fruit this year. It is these that need to be shortened to an inch each year. (the fruiting spurs never grow long.)

The diagram about one third down under the heading "Spur Pruning" demonstrates how shortening these long laterals can help form fruiting spurs.

http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/Pruning_fruit_trees

The diagram is for apples but the principle is the same for redcurrants.

The rhs suggest shortening lateral growth to and inch too but they advise to do it in the summer.

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Grow-Your-Own/Fruit-A-to-Z/Redcurrants

(follow the "grow" link and it's the first paragraph of the pruning section.)

At the beginning of the growing season you start with an open framework of old brown branches that are full of fruiting spurs ready to produce pounds and pounds of fruit.

The more spurs a bush has the less laterals it will produce so less pruning next year.

[ed dibbles]

Just had a look at the video on the rhs site and it demonstrates spur pruning very well. Notice how few really long laterals there are to prune away because the bushes are covered with fruiting spurs.

[Digeroo]

Many thanks the diagrams are great.