Content
- 1 Golden currant - what is it
- 2 Pros and cons of golden currant
- 3 Golden currant varieties
- 4 The benefits of golden currants
- 5 Golden currant hedge
- 6 Features of growing golden currants
- 7 Planting and caring for golden currants
- 8 Harvest of golden currants
- 9 Pests and diseases of golden currant
- 10 How to propagate golden currants
- 11 Conclusion
- 12 Reviews of golden currants
Golden currant is a very interesting and unusual garden culture for gardeners. The rules for caring for currants largely repeat the rules for red and black varieties, but you need to know some of the nuances.
Golden currant - what is it
Golden currant is a fruit shrub from the Gooseberry family, found naturally in Canada and North America. In cultivated plantings, the plant is grown all over the world, and in Russia it appeared at the end of the 19th century thanks to the efforts of the famous breeder Michurin, he also bred one of the first Russian varieties called the Krandalya Seedling.
Golden currant is a short shrub up to 2.5 m in height with red bark of shoots. The leaves of the plant resemble gooseberry leaves, the flowering of the shrub is very abundant, occurs at the end of May and lasts almost 3 weeks. The flowers have a rich yellow tint, which is why the plant got its name.
The shrub bears fruit with orange, black or burgundy berries, depending on the variety. A distinctive feature of the species is its high yield; on average, 5 to 15 kg of fruits are harvested from an adult bush.
Pros and cons of golden currant
Before planting shrubs on their site, gardeners are interested in the advantages and disadvantages of culture. The pluses of the plant include:
- high productivity;
- late flowering, due to which the plant does not suffer from recurrent frosts;
- undemanding to conditions - the shrub easily tolerates drought, heat, temperature extremes and stony soils;
- frost resistance, even in the northern regions, the shrub can be grown without effort, it tolerates cold snaps up to -30 ° C.
At the same time, culture has certain disadvantages:
- with a severe deficiency of moisture or nutrients, the shrub can shed the ovaries;
- at a high level of humidity, the fruits may crack;
- ripe currant berries are often torn off the stalk during picking, due to which their presentation is lost and the shelf life is reduced;
- new shoots of golden currants can freeze slightly in the fall, since they do not always have time to finish the growing season.
Golden currant varieties
Golden currant is represented by many varieties, among themselves they differ in frost resistance, yield, color and taste of the fruit. Before planting golden currants on the site, you should familiarize yourself with the most popular varieties.
Golden currant Shafak
Among the varieties of golden currants for the Moscow region, Shafak is popular. The main characteristic of the variety is good resistance to winter frosts and summer heat. Pests also rarely affect the plant; from mid-summer to autumn, up to 8 kg of berries can be harvested from the bush. The fruits have a deep burgundy color, and the taste is sweet with a slight sourness.
Golden currant Venus
The plant tolerates drought and high temperatures well, and also survives calmly in winter frosts down to -40 ° C. The shoots of the plant are not very long, on each branch a bunch of several black rounded berries with a thin skin ripens. Description of golden currant Venus claims that up to 8 kg of fruits can be harvested from a bush, and their taste is very pleasant - sweet, with a slight sour tint.
Golden currant Laysan
Frost-hardy and hot-tolerant, this variety is suitable for growing in most regions. On the clusters of the Laysan variety, no more than 6 individual oval-shaped fruits ripen. The shade of the berries is golden, and in general, the fruits slightly resemble gooseberries. The yield of the plant is very high, up to 9 kg. At the same time, the shrub can be planted, including for the sale of berries, the fruits are stored for a long time and are suitable for transportation.
Golden currant Siberian sun
It tolerates severe winter frosts well and is highly resistant to fungal diseases and harmful insects. The plant bears fruits as standard in the middle of summer, the shade of the berries is golden or rich amber, the fruits are large and tasty, with a slight refreshing acidity.
Golden Currant Gift to Ariadne
This variety is characterized, first of all, by good tolerance to frost and summer drought. The plant is rarely affected by pests and fungi, it can bring up to 8 kg of delicious berries from one shrub. Berries of golden currants of this variety are sweet and sour with a light pleasant aroma.
Golden currant Kishmishnaya
This variety of golden black currant ripens small berries, slightly resembling a heart in shape. The plant bears fruit very abundantly - you can collect up to 10 kg of berries from it annually. The currant is sweet, dessert-like, with a slight sourness in it, but does not impair the taste. The variety tolerates harsh growing conditions in both southern and northern regions.
Golden currant Isabella
The berries of this variety are very small, they have a dark, almost black shade. Despite the small size, the fruits of the currant bush are distinguished by good taste. During the warm season, from the beginning of fruiting until autumn, about 6 kg of berries can be removed from Isabella.
Golden currant Ida
The variety is universal, in other words, it is well suited both for eating fresh berries and for harvesting. The fruits of the plant are round, black, each bush is capable of producing up to 5 kg of yield. The shrub of the Ida variety tolerates severe frosts and extreme heat and rarely suffers from diseases and harmful insects.
Golden currant Black pearl
Low growth and frost-resistant variety with average yield. Currants of this species are capable of producing up to 4.5 kg of fruits from one bush, the berries of the variety are black, sweet and sour, a bit reminiscent of blueberries.
The benefits of golden currants
Golden currant not only has great dessert properties, but also has health benefits. First of all, it contains many vitamins C, B and A - berries are useful as prevention of colds, they can be used to strengthen blood vessels and the heart, to take care of the health of the skin and eyes.
The fruits of the cultivated plant have a slight sourness, but they generally have a sweet taste. Therefore, people with a tendency to flatulence, gastritis and other gastric diseases can use the fruits without fear.Berries improve digestion and do not provoke exacerbations of chronic ailments.
Golden currant hedge
Decorative golden currants are often used in landscape design, the shrub is easy to form and blooms very beautifully. The leaves of golden currant also differ in decorativeness; in autumn they are colored with yellow-orange and crimson tones.
Golden currants are often used to create hedges. The shrub grows quite quickly, which makes it possible to form the desired landscape in several years. And it is easy to care for golden currants, it tolerates pruning well and quickly restores the green mass, while maintaining the desired shape.
Features of growing golden currants
In general, care for fruit shrubs should be carried out quite standard. But there are also some peculiarities.
- Golden currant is a shrub that requires cross-pollination by insects. Therefore, to obtain a harvest, it is necessary to plant 2 or 3 varieties of plants next to each other at once, otherwise the ovary will crumble.
- Golden currants are light sensitive. It is impossible to grow a shrub in the shade, the plant needs a sunny warm place.
Also, golden currants need to be protected from the wind during flowering - drafts can lead to premature shedding of flowers.
Planting and caring for golden currants
Photos, descriptions and reviews of golden currants confirm that caring for a bush is quite simple to carry out. It is enough to follow the basic rules, and the plant will delight you with abundant flowering and good yields.
Selection and preparation of the landing site
It is recommended to plant golden currants in open ground in spring - immediately after the soil has thawed a little. Autumn planting is also allowed, but in this case it should be carried out no later than a month before the arrival of frost, in September-October.
- Almost any soil is suitable for growing golden currants, alkaline and acidic, dry and moist, loamy and sandy loam.
- The main thing is that groundwater does not pass close to the surface of the earth, otherwise the site will be too swampy.
- Also, the plant is very demanding on lighting, it is best to plant it in a southwestern or western flat area or a small slope protected from the wind.
It is recommended to prepare the soil before planting golden currants. It is necessary to loosen and weed the soil, and a week before planting the shrub, add potash fertilizers and about 6 kg of compost per 1 sq. m of soil. You can also sprinkle wood ash over the area.
A soil mixture for golden currants is prepared as follows:
- dig a hole about 50 cm in depth and width on the site;
- soil prepared from humus and fertile soil in a ratio of 1: 1 is poured into it;
- add 200 g of superphosphate and a little nitroammophoska.
Landing rules
Before planting golden currants, it is necessary to put the seedling together with an earthen clod in a bioactive solution for 2 hours, or place it in a container with water for 2 days.
- A seedling of golden currant is lowered into a prepared hole, filled with soil mixture up to the middle.
- The roots of the plant are sprinkled with the remains of the earth so that the root collar of the plant remains buried by about 5 cm.
- The seedling is placed at a slight angle - this facilitates the growth of new roots.
After planting, the ground around the plant should be lightly tamped and properly watered with 3-4 buckets of water. Also, the seedlings must be cut, leaving only 5-6 buds each, this will facilitate the engraftment of the shrub in a new place.
Watering and feeding
For healthy development, fruit shrubs need competent watering. The frequency of watering depends on the age of the plant and on the weather conditions.
- It is recommended to water young plants at least once a week - they need moisture for rapid growth.
- Adult bushes of fruit shrubs can be watered only about 5 times during the entire growing season, the main thing is that the soil remains moist during the period of ovary formation.
- In a drought, it is necessary to focus on the condition of the soil, if the land under the bushes of the plant dries up quickly, the frequency of watering can be temporarily increased.
For each adult bush of a fruit plant, 3 buckets of water are required, 2 buckets are enough for young plants. You need to water the shrub carefully, making sure that less water falls on the leaves.
As for dressing, golden currant does not impose excessive requirements on the nutritional value of the soil. After planting, it will need to be fed for the first time only after 2 years, while it is recommended to lay complex mineral fertilizers and manure in the grooves made in the soil at the roots.
For better growth and fruiting, the plant can be supplied annually with nitrogenous fertilizers in the spring and organic fertilizing in the autumn.
Pruning
From time to time, the plant needs to be trimmed, you can trim the golden currant in the fall after leaf fall or in the spring before the buds appear. The first pruning for a shrub is carried out only a year after planting, and it is carried out according to the following principles:
- remove dry and broken twigs;
- completely cut off the weak basal shoots that impede the growth of the rest of the shrub;
- if necessary, cut shoots that violate the geometry of the shrub, this is important if the golden currant is used to decorate the landscape.
After about 12 years of life, golden currants begin to age and slow down their growth, during this period, you can carry out anti-aging pruning. In the process, the young one-year growth is completely removed, leaving only about 5 strong developed shoots, and after another year, the tops of the basal shoots are pinched to form branching. The same procedure is repeated in subsequent years, the formation of a rejuvenated bush ends in 4-5 years.
Preparing for winter
Most varieties of golden currant are characterized by increased frost resistance, the plant tolerates temperatures well up to - 25-30 ° C. However, it is still recommended to cover the shrub for the winter, in which case frost will definitely not affect future yield.
- For the winter, the branches of golden currants are recommended to be bent and pressed to the ground. You can fix the shoots with staples or simply press down individual branches with heavy stones or bricks.
- The branches are wrapped with covering material - this will protect the shoots from freezing. For each branch, it is necessary to build a personal shelter, if you cover the whole bush, there will be little benefit from this.
- Also, a bush of a fruit plant can simply be covered with a mound of earth. If the winter is snowy, you can build a snow cushion about 10 cm thick over the bush.
A properly covered garden shrub can withstand frosts down to -40 ° C.
Harvest of golden currants
Fruiting of golden currants begins in July and takes a long time and unevenly - the berries ripen at different times. But at the same time, it is very convenient to harvest from the shrub, even ripe fruits do not crumble, but remain hanging on the branches until the arrival of frost.
Thus, you can harvest a tasty and juicy crop several times from the middle of summer, or you can wait for full ripening and harvest in 1 call.
Pests and diseases of golden currant
A striking feature of golden currants is the high resistance of the shrub to diseases and pests. With good care, the plant rarely gets sick, but sometimes pests and fungal ailments affect the fruit shrub.
- Among the pests, the greatest harm to the shrub is caused by spider mites and aphids, insects eat up the leaves of the plant and interfere with the healthy development of the kidneys. You can fight pests with colloidal sulfur during the flowering period, as well as the insecticides Karbofos and Actellik.
- Of the fungi for shrubs, powdery mildew, septoria and anthracnose are especially dangerous. In the first case, the leaves and fruits are covered with a recognizable whitish bloom, and with anthracnose and septoria, light or brown spots appear on the foliage of the shrub, the foliage curls and deforms. Diseases of golden currants are fought with the help of Nitrafen, Bordeaux liquid and copper sulfate.
Spraying of a fruit plant for treatment and prevention is carried out from early spring to late autumn. But during the period of flowering and fruiting, it is impossible to treat the plant with chemical agents, this can negatively affect pollination and yield.
How to propagate golden currants
Basically, to increase the plant population on the site, 4 methods of vegetative propagation are used.
- Cuttings. In early spring, cuttings with 2-3 buds are cut on an adult bush of a fruit plant and placed in water with a root-forming solution for a day. Then the cuttings are deepened into a soil mixture of humus, fertile soil and sand, watered and covered with foil. It is necessary to keep the cuttings in a bright room at a temperature of at least 23 degrees, and after the appearance of roots and young leaves, the plant can be transplanted into open ground.
- Division of the bush. The method is well suited for rejuvenating old shrubs. An adult plant must be cut in half in early spring, carefully dug out of the ground and the rhizome divided into several parts with a sharpened shovel. Then each of the parts is planted in pre-prepared holes according to the standard algorithm. It is important that the divisions retain several strong developed shoots and healthy, intact roots.
- Reproduction by shoots. Currant bushes often give rise to roots that hinder the development of the main plant. Root shoots can be dug out of the ground and transplanted to a new place in the usual way, the shoots take root well and grow into a new bush.
- Layers. A reliable and very simple way to propagate currants is to use cuttings. Low-lying bush branches are bent to the ground, slightly buried in the ground and secured with wire or brace. Over the course of several weeks, the cuttings should be watered abundantly. When the procedure is carried out in late spring, in the fall, the cuttings will give strong roots, and next year they can be transplanted from the mother bush.
Propagation of golden currant by cuttings and other vegetative methods allow not only to spread golden currant over the site, but also to completely preserve its varietal characteristics.
Conclusion
Golden currant is a very beautiful and useful fruit shrub. There are many varieties of golden currant on sale, it is easy to care for the plant in any climatic conditions.
