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Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: weedin project on March 30, 2006, 12:40:26

Title: When is a redcurrant not a redcurrant?
Post by: weedin project on March 30, 2006, 12:40:26
When it is a whitecurrant?

Dunno, but I planted 3x redcurrant bushes two years ago, and in the first year I got a few strings of redcurrants which were promptly pinched by the birds.  But they were definitely REDcurrants.

Last year the bushes produced quite a lot of berries, and because they were in a fruit cage now, they survived.
Actually they survived until they went rotten in December, because they stayed translucent white all the time.  I left them on in the hope that they would turn red.

Although they were fed on well-rotted horse muck, I presume this is a mineral deficiency or something similar?  Any ideas out there?
Title: Re: When is a redcurrant not a redcurrant?
Post by: Ceratonia on March 30, 2006, 13:37:37
Don't know the answer, but redcurrant and whitecurrant are cultivars of the same species and I think the variety Red Lake can even produce both red and white/pink berries at the same time.

So I wouldn't assume that it was necessarily a mineral deficiency.
Title: Re: When is a redcurrant not a redcurrant?
Post by: MollyBloom on March 30, 2006, 15:56:41
I think maybe they are kind of interchangeable sometimes. When I made whitecurrant jelly a few years ago, it came out a very dark pink, even though the berries were all translucent white as "normal". Maybe the temerature has something to do with it - keep them cool and they stay white, heat them up and they turn red?