Contents
Striving for independence and wanting to get a guaranteed profit, many gardeners today would like to start their own business. Experts say that the cultivation and sale of currants can bring a good stable income. How to choose the right place for planting, as well as seedlings, and what is the proper care for currants?
Place and soil
Despite its seasonality, currant remains one of the most popular berries in our country. And the business of growing it in your own dacha can be easily turned into a small profitable business. Because currants have always been valued by consumers for their excellent taste and medicinal properties.
Also good for business is the fact that the berry has an early ripening period, which allows you to harvest faster. Currant is also a frost and cold-resistant crop, which makes its cultivation a profitable business even in regions with a harsh climate. And after harvesting, you can keep the berries frozen for a long time. At the same time, they will not lose their appearance and taste, which is also good for your own business.
Before you start growing currants in your country house, you should decide on the landing site. This berry grows well in a variety of soil types and produces good yields for 12 years or more. But it is best suited for slightly acidic, slightly and medium podzolized, sandy and loamy lands with good moisture capacity. Before planting currants in the country, it is recommended to dry the soil well, prepare drainage ditches, the depth of which is planned to be about 40 – 60 cm, with a drain into the central channel (which is clearly visible in the video). It is also necessary to dig up or plow the ground in the fall; first, organic fertilizers are laid out on the site. This is manure, rotted peat or compost, lime or dolomite flour, phosphate rock, potassium chloride.
It is advised to dig up the ground for currants to a depth of 30 cm. Also, the seat should be well lit and protected from the wind. For red and white currants, it is best to choose a sunny site on the south side with a flat surface. And for black, it is preferable to land slightly in the shade, located obliquely on the north side. If you plan to plant a crop in the fall, then the soil must be prepared in a few weeks so that it can settle. Under the condition of spring landing, the earth is left for the winter in clods. When preparing the land, the rhizomes of perennial weeds should be removed. The following video will tell you how to prepare the site for planting.
Selection of seedlings
Starting to grow these berries as a business, take care of the right choice of seedlings. Before buying, carefully inspect the root system of each and evaluate its quality. The length of the shoots is not so important here, since they will be removed before planting. You can contact the seller with a request to make a cut on the shoot. If after that you find blackness, then the seedling is sick with a glass case. The roots must be strong, viable and not broken. The optimal root system may consist of several main roots about half a meter long and many adventitious ones.
A prerequisite is their freshness and moisture. The bark on the branches and trunk should ideally be even. For the test, you can pinch off a small piece and check if the bottom is green. If you purchase seedlings in the fall, the leaves on the branches must be removed. When transporting, the roots should be wrapped with a damp cloth and wrapped in a plastic bag.
After purchase, seedlings with open roots should be buried in a shady place and watered well. To do this, dig a shallow hole, which has a slope to the south and a slightly elongated shape. The seedling is placed there and covered with earth. So they can stay from a week to three, the main thing is to land until the buds appear. Before planting, it will be necessary to remove diseased, dried and broken roots, as well as the aerial parts of the seedling. To avoid drying, its roots are advised to be lowered into a clay mash. All these manipulations can be seen on our video.
Video “Propagation of seedlings”
Landing
The most famous method of propagating currants, which can also be used when growing it as your own business, is propagation by cuttings. You will need annual shoots harvested from viable bushes. They need to be cut into cuttings up to 20 cm. The upper part of the shoot is not useful for the cutting. Hand-made cuttings are planted in fertile soil with a loose structure. It is better to plant cuttings in early autumn. For red currants, this will be the second half of August, for black currants – the beginning of September. Planting at other late dates can reduce the number of rooted cuttings.
The technology for planting currant cuttings looks like this – along a cord in rows of one or two lines. In this case, the distance between rows should be 40 cm, between lines – 20 cm, in a row between crops – about 15 cm. Cuttings should be planted at an angle so that a couple of buds remain above the surface. Then the soil is watered, mulched with peat or humus – the layer should be 3 – 5 cm. A film is also suitable as mulch, where holes are cut for planting cuttings. All this is shown in the video. Shoots for green cuttings of currants in warm weather are recommended to be harvested in the morning, and in cloudy weather you can do it all day. The length of the cuttings is 8–12 cm, 3–4 leaves are left on them, and the leaf blade is shortened at several lower ones. For better rooting, the cuttings connected in bundles are dipped in a solution of growth substance for a day, covered with a damp cloth.
After acquiring seedlings, you also need to decide what the layout of their placement on the site will be. Weak-growing types of seedlings can be planted somewhat closer, and vigorous varieties can be placed further away from each other.
The distance when planting tall plants is usually about half a meter, and undersized – a meter. If you plan to grow several varieties of currants in the country, then it is better to leave about 2 meters between them. This technology will allow in the future to easily cultivate the soil between rows, pruning and harvesting. The depth and width of the planting hole depends on the size of the plant’s root system. The roots should be loose in the hole. On fertile chernozem, you can not apply top dressing, and on poor soils you will need a bucket of humus, about 5 grams of wood ash and 200 grams of superphosphate.
All this is mixed with the soil. Then they make a mound and water each well with a bucket of water. The seedling is placed in a hole at an angle of 45 degrees, the roots are straightened, covered with soil so that the root neck is deepened by 5 cm. All this is shown in the video. After another watering of the upper layer, the earth is mulched with peat, humus or dry soil. They also prune the shoots so that growths with 3-4 buds remain on the surface. All this is necessary in order to properly form a bush later. It is these pruned shoots that are cut into cuttings, as already mentioned above. The technology of planting seedlings is shown in detail in the video.
Thus, in Our Country, as well as in Ukraine or other countries, the cultivation of currants is not so difficult to turn into a small or medium-sized business.
Care
Proper care of the bushes will become an important part of your business, and allow you to get a good income. The basic rules of care include not only loosening the earth, destroying weeds, fertilizing the soil, but also pruning dried branches of bushes, protecting against diseases and pests, and updating old bushes with new ones. Let us dwell on the main stages of care in more detail.
After planting the currant, caring for it involves loosening the soil around the plants to a depth of 6–8 cm. In the aisles, it is necessary to do this to a depth of 12 cm. Competent full-fledged care includes three to four loosening procedures with weeding in the summer. If the spring turned out to be dry, the plants should be watered abundantly. During the growing season, as part of crop care, the best times for watering are considered to be two during the growth period, as well as fruit ripening and after harvest. The video will tell you how to properly water and loosen the soil.
To make up for the removal of nutrients from the soil, in the first couple of years in spring, up to 15 kg of manure, 30 g of ammonium nitrate should be applied to the soil for plowing. In autumn, about 50 g of superphosphate and 30 g of potassium chloride are added. In the fourth year, caring for currants involves feeding 100 g of ammonium nitrate and superphosphate, as well as 90 g of potassium salt and 20 kg of decayed organic compounds. If a lag in development of the bushes is noticed, a bucket of diluted slurry or 10 g of ammonium nitrate should be added, after which the bush should be watered.
The pruning procedure, without which full currant care is impossible, allows you to increase crop yields in the first year. It also allows the bushes to bear fruit for several years later. To do this, old growths that interfere with the normal development of new ones are removed to the ground. After pruning, new shoots can receive more sunlight. At the same time, the berries ripen large, tasty and rich in vitamins. Harvesting is also facilitated, since the bush is not thickened with dry branches. Pruning of different varieties of berries is almost the same. How to do it right, the following video will tell.
To protect against diseases and pests of currants, one correct choice of variety and competent planting is not enough. Even if you comply with all the requirements for planting a crop in the country, your bushes will still be able to attack pests such as aphids, gooseberry moths, sawflies, bud mites, and currant glass cases. Of the diseases, currants most often, even with normal care, are affected by anthracnose or powdery mildew. In the fight against all these troubles, not only folk methods proven over the years, but also spraying with modern preparations will help you. From the foregoing, we can conclude that today it is beneficial not only to grow currants for your own needs. You can try to organize your business, which will allow you to receive additional profit.
Video “How to grow blackcurrant”
The video provides useful tips on how to get the best blackcurrant crop at home.
