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Pruning currants in the spring is extremely important for obtaining a quality crop. With a large number of old and diseased branches, the berries become smaller, lose their juiciness and prematurely fall off the bush. To prevent this from happening, you need to properly care for each plant and make timely removal of excess processes.
When should you cut?
If the removal is done irregularly, the currant will have weak growth. Young shoots will not be able to break through or will be weak enough to produce abundant fruit. The denser the thickets of branches, the greater the likelihood of infection with pathogens. These can be kidney mites, they can infect the microtail with the disease.
Before cutting currants, determine the age of the plant. The shrub of the current year of planting can be processed for 1-2 buds on all sprouts. In the second year of growth, the branches are left uncut.
Why prune currants in spring? How to properly remove excess without damaging the seedling? Bushes are formed from the moment when a seedling is bought, as a rule, one-year-old. Such a seedling has 2-3 branches, no more. It reaches its highest productivity in the fifth year of growth. Older shoots cannot give a full harvest. That is, in the spring, before the growth phase, branches are removed from the first year of planting. As a result, a bush will form, in which there will be branches aged from one to five years.
Why do pruning?
Pruning is carried out to replace the old growth with new shoots. With such currant care, the growth of basal seedlings occurs, which are stronger and able to give a full and high-quality crop of berries. Lateral shoots also begin to actively grow, the plant becomes wider, the number of branches that can produce a crop increases. Moreover, you need to strive to expand the area of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbthe plant, and not grow it up. A tall bush becomes unstable, branches can break.
It is also necessary to prune annual seedlings, leaving 2-4 buds. The procedure is also performed on young seedlings that have just begun to bear fruit. They remove the so-called annual branches that grow from its underground part.
Trimming rules
black currant
Pruning and shaping in the case of blackcurrant is an important operation. The fruiting of this species is most abundant on parts of the plant of the last year, the berries on older plants begin to grow small and not so juicy. The main goal is to maintain a certain number of young shoots.
If you are interested in the technique of proper pruning of currants, the video will help you figure it out. In the first year, the seedling is cut almost to the root, leaving a maximum of 5 centimeters from the rhizome. If the seedling is young and healthy, you can try to root the removed branches. This will provide an opportunity to get additional blackcurrant bushes on the site. After this procedure, you will get about 4 new shoots from 45 centimeters tall.
A bush grown in this way is not cut off in the fall. In the second year of growth, the crop will be on last year’s branches. In addition, several more shoots will grow, growing from the root. In two years, some sprouts may weaken and become infected with diseases. They will have to be cut before the winter of the second year. Currant pruning is done at the end of the growing season. Sick and old branches are cut off at the very root, leaving no stumps. In this case, care must be taken not to hook the rhizome itself.
Every next year after winter, at least three old branches are removed, and monitor the number of root shoots. They also need to be thinned out, forming a wide bush. The care process should be carried out in such a way that about 12-15 branches of different ages remain. The number of annual sprouts should always be more than older ones.
red currant
Redcurrant does not require such frequent crown renewal as blackcurrant. However, pruning is still needed. You should start a year after planting, when the bush is already large and sufficiently rooted. Most often it is grown, forming a bush. In this embodiment, you need to worry about updating old sprouts with young ones.
Before cutting currants, zero shoots are removed, and then old and diseased branches. The shrub should be well ventilated, therefore, depending on the size and age, 3-5 branches are removed from the shrub per season. To get rid of zero shoots should be under the root, and when cutting out the stiffened parts, the place of the cut is treated with a var.
If the currant is grown in the form of a cordon, when young branches in the form of a fan are located on the main strong shoot, pruning is done in late spring or early June. Lateral sprouts are cut by 10-15 centimeters. A good result will be given by truncation of the tops of each of the shoots, which will significantly enhance their growth.
Video “How to prune currant bushes”
In the video, an expert gardener shares his experience in cutting currants. The specialist will explain why this needs to be done and how.
