Currant - a long deciduous shrub with fruits, which have pleasant taste and useful properties. There is hardly a summer resident who does not want to grow this cultivated plant on his plot. However, growing a currant is not so simple. For the bush to consistently produce a good harvest, it should be taken care of. So, for example, it's important to prune the currant in the spring. This is an obligatory condition for leaving. So, we will tell you why you need pruning and how to produce it.
Why do spring crop pruning?
Annual spring pruning of currant branches is necessary not only to form a bush. The procedure is a guarantee that you will have a harvest. The fact is that the bush has a special feature: the crop is mainly formed on the branches of three to four years old. After that, their fruiting sharply decreases. Therefore, pruning branches is the provision in the currant of the growth of fruit bearing wood - the appearance of new root shoots.
In addition, pruning the currant in the spring is a sanitary measure. If the proper care is not carried out, the growth in the bush will be weak and sick, which means that it is possible to accumulate insect pests that subsequently lead to the death of the plant.
How to cut the currant in the spring?
The first rule to follow is the cropping of the currant in early spring, when the buds on the branches have not yet blossomed and the sap flow has not started.
If you just planted a seedling of the currant, its shoots also need to be shortened to thereby promote bushiness. Pruning is done in such a way that on each shoot of the seedling there are two or three kidneys. And then by autumn your currant will have up to four new shoots.
Then, after a year of spring pruning, young and so-called zero shoots should first of all be removed. As a result of the actions on the plant should remain about four or five of the strongest branches, which will form the basis of the bush. In addition, it is necessary to trim the tips of young shoots on branches, leaving about two or three kidneys on them. Thanks to such a pinch, so-called fruit pads will form - fruit twigs grown on old shoots.
If we talk about how to trim the currant in the spring, when the shrub will be three or four years, then the actions of the gardener should be similar. Again, extra zero shoots are removed, leaving only five or six strongest and most powerful branches. In addition, in places of thickening the bush, it is necessary to cut off diseased and thin branches. If this is not done, the new branches will grow weak, which can not but affect the quality and quantity of the future harvest. It is also necessary to pinch the tops of annual shoots. As for shoots of two and three years, they should be cut off, leaving two or three kidneys. This will stimulate their appearance of fruiting lateral shoots. In general, the correctness of the annual spring crop trimming is checked as follows: on each bush at the age of one to six years should remain about 15-20
The rules described above are more suitable for pruning black currant in spring. Well, if we talk about pruning in the spring of red currant, then in general, almost all the technology is the same. The only important difference is that you do not need to pinch the tops of branches. The same applies to white currants. The fact is that in the shrubs of these varieties, the fruiting kidneys are located just on the apex parts of two- and three-year-old branches.
So, in time and correctly conducted spring pruning currants - a pledge of high yield currants.