Propagating currants and gooseberries from cuttings - when and how best done?

These were black currant cuttings taken probably in February, and stuck in an air-pruning bed. Not all of the ones I put in there took, but this is how much those little six inch sticks grew during the year. I transplanted them into their garden spots in November.

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What kind of soil do you have? That can make a big difference when rooting cuttings.

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mostly clay with some loam in the upper 6in. mulching well helps keep the moisture around the cuttings. putting them out this time of year keeps them from sprouting while they put all their energy into rooting. we get deep frosts over winter and they still root well.

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Like others said. Ribes are quite easy to root.

I would advise against the “greenhouse” approach right now.

Likely now your currants don’t have leaves. They are dormant. If you take cuttings now, we call those (dormant) hardwood cuttings. If you keep these dormant hardwood cuttings in to warm a place, they can start to “wake up” and produce leaves before they have sufficient roots.

If your taking a cutting with leaves attached (summer /softwood cutting). It is usually wise to keep them in a high humidity spot. like a make shift rooting “greenhouse” from a plastic bag or something like that. Do keep in mind though that lack of airflow/high humidity can promote rot and fungus.

Ribes hardwood cuttings usually root fine if you just stick dormant pruning’s in the soil next to the plant outside. Where the winter rains keep them more than wet enough to not dry out before they have roots.

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All my rooting attempts of gooseberries on a heat mat have failed.

All my attempts of just sticking them in soil and forgetting about them have succeeded.

I’m concluding that gooseberries may not like heat mats or overly warm soil like fig cuttings :melting_face:

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I have some in soil and in pots. And the soil ones haven’t been zapped by the frost after leaf out half the ones in pots got zapped by either the 2 or 3rd frost we got. So seems like in ground is better than pots. I stuck them all in pots in November.

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they need to root in cold conditions to keep the cutting from waking up. Ribes are cold weather plants. put them in ground in late fall and you will get near 100% takes. mulch well. i wound up with 27 black currants by just sticking cuttings all over the yard. i removed all but 10.

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I have learned this today :face_with_spiral_eyes::weary_face:

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i could attempt to root some of my jeanne for you tom. theyre still dormant and its still pretty cold here.

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They’ll root during the growing season pretty often if you stick the cutting in the shade. It drops dramatically from doing it in the Fall or Winter but it’s still decent.

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Thank you so much but i have jeanne, jahns Prairie, Tixia, Pixwell pink that might be the sacrificial plant for the animals cause it doesn’t taste as good as the others, a random one from a cutting at a friend’s place, black velvet, poorman, and welcome i think. As well as maybe Oregon champion from somewhere.

I was trying to root leveller/langley gage from smc along with comanche from zombie fruit and yeah… i have 1 that survived cause i stuck it in a pot in the garage and forgot about it/ran out of room in the living room heat matting and it looks like it took! But i don’t know which one of the two varieties it is lol.

I’m looking for more leveller, Langley gage, and colossal.

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