I put 4 Crandall currants in ground from 4 different sources as I had heard that the cultivar was not necessarily true to type and may be grown from seedlings.
Here is a recap of the fruit quality from the 4 different sources.
Burnt Ridge Nursery - fruit is small and slightly astringent until dead ripe. It is mildly sweet with high acidity. Low in flavor. Medium productivity.
Local Nursery bought plant - I was told this was sourced from a whole sale nursery in Oregon. Extremely productive. It bears so much fruit the branches droop over. The fruit is large, sweet, and flavorful, somewhat like a mildly tart Concord grape when fully ripe. First to ripen along with the plant from Whitman farms.
Whitman Farms - just like the plant purchased from my local nursery. This thing is crazy productive with very good fruit. Branches are so heavily burdened with fruit that they droop to the ground. Uneven ripening over about a months time.
Ison’s Nursery - the growth habit of this plant is different than the others. It grows more orderly, somewhat similar to a small tree with a central trunk and evenly spaced branches. New shoots do develop from the roots and form similar mini tree like structures. This is the last to ripen with the smallest fruit. I have yet to try the fruit yet, as the kids and critters have gotten them all to this point. The crop is about to ripen in a couple weeks, so perhaps I will try this year. Low productivity, but fairly even ripening.
I also have a Missouri Giant and Black Topaz in ground. I don’t have any fruit from the Black Topaz yet. I did get fruit off of my first year in ground Missouri Giant. It was of excellent quality. Very sweet, highly flavorful, more so than Crandall.
My only Crandall matches your last description. It has been very slow to grow, looks more like a small tree than any of my other currants. The berries are decent once dead ripe.
Good to hear about the Missouri Giant. It is the only variety on offer here. The others that I grow are the ones used as rootstock for currants and gooseberries. I almost bought it but was somewhat skeptical.
mine came from honeyberry usa. fruit is fairly large, productive and tasty. definitely taste the concord grape flavor. it is a slow to grow, short, sprawling bush that only gets about 3ft. it has turned into a thicket from all the sprouts. it also fruits heavily and also weighs the branches to the ground. fertilized it in April and the thicket expanded 2xs. going to try it in jam and pie this year. it took 4 years to produce a full crop but now that its 6 its very productive. not as much as a euro black currant though…
That describes how the bush I received from Whitman farms grows. I forgot to add, all my plants are in full sun. They seem to handle it just fine even in this 2 weeks of 100+ degree days with high winds. It feels like we are living in a blow dryer.
I’ve mentioned this before. Crandal clove grows and fruits from z2 to z10. it’s much more heat and drought tolerant than euro blacks, reds, and gooseberry. for you folks wanting currants in warmer climes, grow American currants. might not handle very humid though as mine got leaf diseases in our hot humid summer last year.
The native Ribes aureum (clove, buffalo, etc…) around here perform best in certain locations. 5 feet can make a difference in terms of sun/shade/heat. Sometimes the birds will show you the best spots (by planting them). In the right location (which for me is usually about 50% sun), they thrive and make numerous currants (ripening over a month), and the size can be great if we get any rain. Planting them in full sun with our many days of 100+ is going to result in failure without a lot of extra care (which I don’t).
I don’t consider ‘Crandall’ to have any special meaning, especially if the name has been applied to any common Ribes aureum. They commonly produce great size/tasting fruit anyway in good conditions, so I’m surprised to hear of ones that don’t. Here are some examples from my ‘wild’ plants.
Clove currant grows natively near me as well. Our native plants produce much smaller fruit that is usually orange or red in color and mostly just sour with little sweetness. The leaves are a little larger as well and most of the plants small.
There is one bush, however, growing near a stream bank that is huge, 8 feet tall and maybe 12 feet wide. It has tiny orange fruit, but the flavor is excellent. There seems to be wide variability in the species depending on local genetics.
They produced several handfulls of fruit first year… i like that. First fruits were lacking flavor and sweetness… mostly just tart… but as the weather warmed up… the last of them ripened in a hot dry spell and they were better.
Little flavor, little sweetness, still mostly tart.
I bet next year they will come around and start tasting better.
Below was my last harvest of this years (first year fruit).
My crandall from Whitman farms will color to black, but not be ripe for another week or two. When the berries are soft and fall from the bush with the slightest of tug is when I find they are at their best. Before then, they are mostly just tart.
