Crandall tends to weep once ie bears fruit. Crandall produces so much fruit the branches need support. I guess I could thin? Anyway the branches start going straight up then bend with the weight of the berries.
I thought this would be easier to make into a tree. Looking at it, I think not.
Oh fyi my Crandall is not from Lucy I don’t remember where i got it? I never ordered anything from Lucy.
Last year and this year I grafted gooseberries onto Ribes Aureum. This year I used a hot callus pipe (25°C) to callus the grafts and I noticed a big difference in success and growth afterwards using this HCP. 75% of the ones on the HCP were successfull. You can see the results on the pictures below (the coloured labels are an indication for the grafted variety).
Cut one of your “mother”-plants about 4" above the ground. When the new shoots sprouting out of the remaining stub are about 1.5 foot high, put a pot without bottom, upside down over the shoots and fill it with a well draining soil. Keep this moist during the whole season. At the end of the growing season you can easily remove the pot, and cut the new shoots, that have formed plenty of roots.
Those look great! I’ve actually been using an ad hoc hot pipe described here on the forum so it would be pretty easy to just save some space for gooseberries.
One question though – those rootstocks you’re propagating have a really upright and vigorous form. Are those from a named rootstock?
As far as I know these are Ribes Aureum (I bought some of them 3 years ago, and they were labeled that way). But maybe the picture is somewhat misleading. I wanted to emphasize the way I placed the pots, so the pictures were taken low. The actual height was about 50 to 55" (120-140 CM). You also get taller shoots if you only keep a few strong ones, so before placing the pot, remove the others.
