I have been recently intrigued about the Golden Currants that are native to North America.
I’m interested in learning more about the different cultivars available for Golden Currant and seem to only be stumbling upon one cultivar in particular, Crandall. I will likely be considering growing this variety in addition to many European currants; reds, whites, blacks. Although, I am particularly interested in finding a cultivar or golden currant that produces the golden colored fruit.
I would love to hear others experiences with growing these types of currants and if they know anything about any cultivars that are specifically golden colored.
I’ve been pretty curious about them, too. I had 3 and they all seemed to struggle where I am. I think I’ll try them in shade. I have seen some people growing them in Central Texas, though.
The sparse production thing is real with the native species, though I wonder if it improves once the plants get established. The citrus-orange flavour description is interesting, I’d not heard that before.
I like them better for fresh eating than european currants. I supposedly have Crandall. Taste is kind of reminiscent of a concord grape. They are more disease resistant than euros as well at my location. I do have problems with low production, but I recently added some seedlings for cross pollination so we shall see if that improves fruit set. Mine set flowers in extreme abundance.
I have some wild specimens in my project area. All of them but one are black fruited, with a tart and fruity flavor similar to average but not exceptional European black currants.
There is, however, one amber fruited specimen, and it tastes like spiced apples. It’s amazing. I don’t mean, spiced apples as a faint and wishful description of medlars, but that the fruit tastes like cinnamon and clove and cooked tart apples.
Here are photos of both, with the amber fruited specimen in the background of the first photo:
They don’t root easily from cuttings, but are prone to suckering into multi trunk shrubs. The easiest way to propagate them clonally is to dig up the suckers with a bit of root.
I am currently in the process of breeding them. They are quite an amazing fruiting species. Unfortunately, they’re not as impervious to disease as I was hoping. My climate is somewhat humid and I have had bouts of botrytis fruit rot and are also sensitive to anthracnose (although less so than European currants).
Okay, cool. For anybody interested, just send me a private message so I have a record of your request, then we can talk about getting some clones or seeds out to you in the future.
I munched a couple Gwen’s buffalo currants at the nursery, but they weren’t very good.
I have a few non-varietal golden currants that I got from the conservation district. I put them in lower sun areas because I didn’t expect as much from them, and they have stayed alive but not grown well. Not a flower in 3 years. They don’t like shade.
I have some Burnt Ridge Crandalls, and they are great. Many big black fruits the first year. I bought some High Country Garden Crandall golden currents, and I suspect they are seedlings of some sort. The fruiting is more sparce, but at least it is not absent. The berries are smaller, and one of the 3 plants has reddish berries, so they clearly weren’t selling a cultivar.
There definitely some nurseries selling seedlings and calling them “Crandall”. There is too much variation in the different ones called Crandall for them all to be true clones.
In research these plants for my book UNCOMMON FRUITS FOR EVERY GARDEN (currently out of print) I list Crandall as a variety of the closely related clove currant, Ribes odoratum. Crandall was actually not a variety per se because “many plants sold as ‘Crandall’ were seedlings, so plants were variable.” Ribes aureum have also been called buffalo currant or pruterberry and on the web it’s fruits are listed as being anything from yellow, to re, purple or black. I grew pruterbery many, many years ago and remember that production was very poor. Have you tasted golden colored ones?
Interesting that you say they don’t root easy, I wonder if it varies by variety? Because Mike at 39th roots all of his from cuttings and they root for him like any other currant or gooseberry.
The rooting variability makes sense if a lot of what’s sold as Crandall isn’t actually true clones. Different genetics would explain why some people have great luck with cuttings and others don’t.
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