I’m in AR (6b) and am taking it on myself to figure out what works here because I love blackcurrants and I have mixed results with the two varieties I started with (from Burnt Ridge). Minaj Smyriou does consistently well. Titania has lagged every year and has had dieback unlike Minaj.
This spring I ordered the following from Whitman Farms:
Willoughby (read somewhere this one handles Sun/heat well)
Black Comb
Tahsis
Whistler
I’m doing a similar experiment with gooseberries. Anybody else have much experience growing Ribes in 6b+? I’m the only person I know of in my area growing black currants- but I’m sure y’all are out there!
I have 4 varieties planted, one of them being Thasis. In morning sun and afternoon shade they are doing quite well. I’m in zone 7 in the hot dry and windy high desert. I had one currant planted in full sun and it got cooked, but with afternoon shade, they seem to take temps up to 100 degrees ok.
I’m in 7b Maryland (yay humidity), and Crandall, Glendale GB, poorman BG, hinn yellow GB, black velvet, red lake, pixwell GB, Primus, belarouska have all taken the heat and survived and growing well (they got planted last spring) I planted 2 colossal and both fried and died at the same time as the others. I’m trying to root some from cuttings inside I got from someone (I wanna try and cross it with Glendale for bigger berry and hopefully some of the vigor)
I planted a ton more of GB and currants this spring… Consort has put on a crazy amount of growth in a month out of the bunch.
I’d say based off my experience, if planting in spring, plant very very early if you get hot summers but I’d suggest fall planting if you can’t plant early enough for them to establish before getting baked.
Poorman and Glendale have done very very well for me, along with black velvet.
Belarouska when planted last spring looked really bad by late summer (I planted it a bit late too) along with the hinn. Yellow.
But black currant wise … Belarouska from last year put out crazy growth this spring and also has some berries. And consort planted last month has crazy growth on it already.
Risanger, laxton giant and a few others got zapped by frost but are recovering. So hopefully they bounce back enough by the time they get heat. They are planted south facing, but there’s a house to the west about 40 ft away that gives some shade late afternoon
Fair enough. To my mind, the sweeter and more familiar “grape” like flavor is some American varieties might be more approachable, but it’s hard to say. There’s no accounting for tastes.
I live in zone 5 midwest and yeah id agree minaj is my best for fresh eating. Blackdown are ok. Black september not great and unproductive. I should get fruit off belaruskaja in a few weeks. They have all been pretty trouble free and productive for me.
Insufficient chilling hours most likely. My European black currant looks like that most years despite 800-1000 chilling hours. Kind of a bummer because it’s held up under weeks of 100+ degree days.
I also had Crandall die on me. It was on a south wall - but I heard it could take heat. My others are near a north wall but get full sun in the summer until around 4pm.
@Melon … not sure… I have not seen any evidence of damage to the canes… it is just that many of the canes just have no leaves.
The canes are not dead… they are still limber and green… but have no leaves.
The canes that do have leaves have set some fruit.
Sounds like Crandall clove currants may be a no go here in southern middle TN.
Jeannie Gooseberry… this is year 2 for them and I can find no fruit on them.
I will not put up with things that are not happy here… and dont perform … very long. If these are still not working next spring… I will yank them and grow something there that will work.
I’ve had to battle sawfly larva every day on all my gooseberries to get them to produce. But this is year 1 and they’re 2-3 year old plants from cuttings overall. I pick the leaves and burn them or burn that leaf, or step all over it after picking it off. Figured that if i kill even 1 larva, it’ll kill at least 10 in the future. So far I’m winning and my plants all have a few berries. Some of the nurseries I’ve seen have all been defoliated by sawfly larva… if you have leaf nubs which it looks like you do, but no leaves, it may just be defoliated by the larva, especially if you don’t keep an eye on the plants daily. They can take off an entire stem of growth in 3 days time over here.
I’ve noticed last year that the stalk that had Currant borer in it was alive as well but also no leaves. I only found a hole at the end of the season and i tried cutting it to the ground. I found 1 larva but another hole was empty. Funny thing, i only found the larva when i was trying to root that piece for someone else and it was by accident.
We also have some kind of caterpillar here that is the EXACT shade of green as the leaves and eat them off like sawflies (which love my elderberries but can’t keep up with their rampant growth). They are obviously capable of defoliating my plants but I am so far hunting them out before they hurt production on my single Hinnomaki Red.
