Contents
Red currant, like black and white, is one of the most useful berries grown by gardeners in their gardens. The berries of these shrubs contain a lot of trace elements useful for human health. The leaves of the plant are used for salting and pickling vegetables, for making delicious and fragrant tea, compotes, jams and marmalades are prepared from fruits. It’s a shame to tears when the leaves and the whole plant get sick or suffer from pest attacks. One of these harmful insects on red currants is gall aphid. About its harmful effects and how to deal with it, we decided to tell in our article in more detail.
What is redcurrant aphid
By biological definition galls on plants are ugly swellings on leaves and shoots, painted in different colors depending on the type of pathogen or pest. They are shaped like ink nuts (caecidia). Purple-red spots and ugly formations form on the leaves of the red currant (see photo), and the reason for this is a microscopic insect – the red-gall aphid. It can be difficult to see it on the back of the leaves, but it can cause enormous harm, up to the death of the plant.
The size of an adult female red currant aphid reaches 2-3 mm, they are wingless or winged, depending on regeneration. During the season, both flying and creeping females may lay several clutches of eggs (black, oblong, microscopic in size) from which green caterpillars emerge. They quickly turn into adult insects and are ready for their own reproduction. One female aphid can produce about 10 generations of its own kind during the summer. According to these indicators, one can judge the number of pests attacking redcurrant bushes, causing red spots and swellings of different sizes to appear on the leaves.
Red currant leaves, especially young shoots, are in great danger from the attack of a huge number of voracious pests that feed on the juices of the plant, piercing their delicate and soft leaf tissues with special proboscises.
The aphid that settled on the leaves of the red currant attracts ants that love to feast on the honeydew secreted by aphids. Pad is a sweetish and sticky liquid, rich in proteins and carbohydrates. Ants, protecting aphid colonies on currants, scare away ladybugs, preventing them from destroying aphids.
Flying from one bush to another, aphids carry pathogens of fungal, bacterial and viral infections to healthy currant bushes, infecting them and exposing them to mortal danger. Red currants (like white currants) are more vulnerable than black currants. It is less resistant to disease and suffers and dies more often if it does not receive timely treatment.
Diseases of red currant
In spring and early summer, berry bushes are not only attacked by pests, with the onset of summer and the movement of insects, symptoms of various diseases can appear on young shoots and juicy soft leaves of white, black and red currants, the pathogens of which are carried by arthropods and winged “aggressors”.
Symptoms and Treatment
Disease: anthracnose
Symptoms of the disease: small red spots appear on the leaves, which, growing, merge into a large brown and shapeless spot, the petioles of the leaves become thinner, darker, the leaves dry out and fall off prematurely.
Causes: high humidity plus high air temperature (during frequent rains), insect vectors, windy weather, transferring spores from a diseased plant to healthy bushes.
Treatment and prevention: in autumn – treat currant bushes with Bordeaux mixture (1% solution), be sure to dispose of all infected parts of the plant, burn fallen leaves. In the spring spray the plant with copper sulphate (1% solution), dig up the soil near the bush, treat it with the same solution. Before flowering – you can use chemicals: epin, topsin-M, zircon. During fruiting – use only biological means for processing: phytospores, hamair and others.
Disease: goblet rust
Symptoms of the disease: currant leaves with this fungal disease are covered with red-brown spots, soft growths appear in the form of small pads on the back of the leaf blade, which can crack and release millions of microscopic spores, infecting all the plants around.
Causes: the presence of weed grass (sedge) on the garden plot, on which fungi often find their main habitat. In June or July, plantations of the fungus on weeds reach their maximum size, the pads containing spores burst, increasing the infection zone from 25 to 300 meters under the action of the wind.
Disease treatment and prevention: in autumn, remove all branches affected by the fungus, collect and burn fallen leaves, do not use in compost heaps. Treat currant bushes in autumn, early spring, before flowering with special fungicides (see above), there should be at least three sprays for the entire season.
Disease: sphere library (powdery mildew)
Symptoms of the disease: a gray-white coating similar to flour appears on the fruits and leaves of the red currant, then the leaves twist and dry, the berries that have not yet ripened fall, the young growth of the plant stops.
Causes: infected weeds, fungus from insects, spread of spores by gusts of wind, excessive air humidity during frequent rains, when a favorable environment is created for the reproduction of a fungal infection.
Prevention and treatment of the disease: treat the plant at least 3-4 times per season with fungicides, in the early stages we recommend manually picking off the affected leaves and berries, soda solution is popular for such treatments (dissolve 10 g of baking soda or soda ash in 50 liters of water).
Disease: red currant septoria
Symptoms of the disease: there are two types of septoria – rusty, when bright orange bumps-tubercles form on the leaves of red currant, and white, in this case the spots are round, gray-white with brown edging.
Causes: dense planting of bushes, the presence of weeds, infection through insects or wind.
Prevention and treatment: in this case, frequent treatment of plants with fungicides and bacterial preparations also saves, a huge selection of which is offered in specialized stores. Act strictly according to the instructions attached to the packaging of each product, do not exceed the nominal concentration of the substance, preparing from them the necessary solution for processing red currant bushes.
Disease: reversion (terry)
Symptoms of the disease: lack of fruits for 3-5 years, mutation of leaf plates (leaves are three-lobed instead of the usual five), oversized growth of young shoots that thicken the bushes.
Causes: infection from diseased plants.
Treatment: There are no drugs for the treatment and prevention of this disease yet. The only way to get rid of it and a measure to protect other plantings is to completely uproot and burn the diseased shrub. Unfortunately, this disease has been little studied, drugs and methods of dealing with it have not yet been invented, but to reassure gardeners, we note that it is extremely rare. In summer cottages and household plots, where the planting density of red currant is low, it is almost never found. Reversion breaks out in the territories of agricultural firms, where the technology of growing currants is violated and an increased frequency of planting bushes is allowed.
Conclusion
If you love your garden and protect each plant from pests and diseases, then your work for their benefit will pay off handsomely. Each bush and tree will thank you with a bountiful harvest, please you with its healthy appearance, and their fruits will help to prepare delicious juices, jams, preserves that your family will enjoy all year round.
