Hello, I’m a 53yo guy from Edmonton Canada. I’ve had an interest in “gardening” for most of my life, and could be said that I’m making up for lost time of having many years of not having a yard of his own.
I’m pretty wordy, and don’t apologize for it. I tend to really drill down on a subject… That’s kinda who I am.
Didn’t recognize all the references in the title to this fine fruit? Well, read on…
In late summer 2024 I went to a regional fruit growers gathering, in a high school gym.
Attending, with a table displaying fruit to taste was Dr Ieuan Evans, popularizer of the Evans Cherry.
I guess in the circles of this board, that was my brush with someone famous? 
On the table was a rather sparse branch with some black berries. I knew enough to ID it as a Ribes- growing up when I was a teen, we’d had a green gooseberry on the north side of our 2 story house in USDA 3a, so no surprise, with those factors against it, it didn’t produce much.
The branch didn’t look very healthy. Sparse, undersize leaves with long petioles. But I was familiar with black currants. My mom is 1/2 Czechoslovakian (yes one Grandparent from the west and one east) and the other half Scot. Seems like black currants were something they could agree on, so as the next generation, I sort of developed a taste for them. Welll… these…weren’t those. Dr Evans seemed mildly amused with my stunned curiosity because I found them sooo good.
So we chatted back and forth. I let the crowd change, and I noted the cultivar name in my phone for later.
I went further along and someone else had clove currants on their table. Much smaller. Tried them. Nothing worth having. Weird. That fella said his were a selection of wild and plants had not been watered, trying to say part of the size difference was due to that.
Ok, but still, nah. Just not in the same league at all. No faint labrusca grape taste, so much smaller, not sweet.
Thinking afterward, to me, that had been the highlight of the show for me- over apples and plums, even.
So, I did my research and got a pretty good knowledge base, largely from this forum, and contacted Dr Evans, who is local to me. By this time snow was on the ground, and I was able to get a promise to do business in late spring with me buying a offshoot from him. Well, turned out a bit difficult, with the transaction not taking place until Jul30/2025, as Dr Evans said something to the effect that “the main one I had died”. Because of that, a small question still hangs over my completed purchase, as now I was no longer sure of its provenance as one of the “good taste ones” (and vigor?). I mean, probably yes, but I worry a lot ! lol. And my plan had been to get several, and I’d missed opportunities to get them through two Canadian vendors.
And I had learned right off the bat that the exact cultivar mattered a lot.
Well research is my thing, and I was now still sure I wanted one or more other cultivars.
I found listings for a trademarked cultivar Black Topaz, and one called Missouri Giant.
No one seemed to have much to say on either. I contacted a handful of places online, and of One Green, Raintree, Northwoods, Restoring Eden, no one was able to tell me when/where/what the Missouri Giant was selected for, or even who the small fee to sell the Black Topaz was going to. I saw tonight member Iowacity said his Missouri Giant were great tasting, and presumably size is good. But no listing or customer service agent had more info.
So at that point I decided with Dr Evans in his mid 80’s and no one locally stepping up, I’d become a bit of my own expert.
So, I determined who Black Topaz was registered to- Lubera in the EU (Germany/Switzerland, owner Markus Kolbe).
That added a few interesting twists. His history was that he bought a large number of seeds from a Federal US seed bank and started his own selecting.
He really didn’t seem to utilize the concept of “standing on the shoulders of giants” in using previous-selected-for cultivars, or learning the black is the dominant color.
He had to learn everything from scratch.
Oh, and along the way, he decided to confuse the issue of taxonomy even more by inventing the name Fourberry for the species
But he’s done a few things with his work:
- a cultivar line of orange berried
- more selection for size & quality, culminating in his best so far “Black Sapphire”
(also slightly off topic, he has selected a purple leafed version (lightly but more strongly in full sun) of the nigrum, which I’m not sure has a North American equivalent? correct me if I’m wrong)
Then more locally, as importing live plants into Canada at least legally is a…controlled thing, I did find a Canadian importer selling red and amber (and Crandall and Missouri Giant) cultivars of Aureum.
I’d be very curious if anyone knows where he may be getting them from…?
So I have in hindsight, probably erred by only ordering a Missouri Giant, and not another strain of Crandall, from there. Due in 70-80-days (we have a late spring here).
Part of the reason I did that was I became distracted by another “category” of breeder…
Well, long time Ribes fans know the Federal government suppressed them, actually paying Federal workers to spray them with herbicide and attempt to eradicate them. * face palm* Well they still exist, yay! (perhaps indicating how effective federal programs are)… Ahem.
So who was always playing “opposite day” to American gov’t interests?
Yes, the Soviets.
Well well well, according to these scientific reports Russia produces…400,000 tons of black currants a year, and has been breeding r.aureum for ~70-75 years…and that species contributed some percent of that huge yield. Moreso a player in dry regions.
I downloaded a great PDF, in English, from here or slightly different link here but neither appear to be up tonight. I have it on my harddrive, if anyone is interested?
Or search, maybe with an AI that reads all languages in case it is hidden on a server that is written using Cyrillic:
"Title: Promising sources for breeding golden currant (Ribes aureum Pursh)
Authors: Makhfurat Amanova & Hilola Abdullaeva Year: 2023"
Unfortunately like us, they have some trouble differentiating the type I want to focus on from nigrum. All the same linguistic/botanic-taxonomy confusions, or mostly.
They added a reference to Pursh type. Who is Pursh? He was Lewis and Clarke’s botantist and some really cool deep history on that in this PDF.
Anyway, the Golden currant took on, on the other side of the world, the nickname Uzbeck-type, because of strong results in that former member of the USSR- and in a practical sense, to differentiate from the r.nigrum coming from the West Russian side (“White Russian”/Sav/Pole, etc).
I wish you could see that paper laying out all the details. The one cultivar gave them in the peak year a freak 4.75lbs (2.16kg) from “one bush”, though typical was 1.4 lbs per bush. At scale, they found a yield of 1800lb per acre, up to the one perfect year of the best yielding cultivar brushing up at equivalent of 3000lbs per acre.
That sounded impressive until I read that nigrum routinely hit 8,000 pounds per acre.
Again, wow. they take Ribes crops seriously over there.
Here’s a link to a nursery growing them. Some good photos.
(I had mixed luck getting them to enlarge to full screen- seems a slightly different protocol exists for enlarging thumbnails than we use here, and well… a differing protocol for each photo, it seemed?)
What a crop! Купить саженцы золотистой смородины Узбекская сладкая (ЗКС) - ЕжеМарина
Note- do scroll down lower on the screen, don’t miss the video! (of some lady with hands that suggest she is a “presenter”… or Lady of the house?)
Here are the listings of a respected Moscow area nursery for currants. They are super focused on r.nigrum (some promised up to 8grams so consistently along the weight of a large sour cherry like Cupid- 5.25 to 7.75g- doing so without the weight of the pit) … but in the 175 currant cultivars there are a few others.
As a novelty, Here’s a tear drop shaped reddish golden currant:
here is a youtube of a small orchard of Aureum in bloom
Does anyone here have a contact in Uzbekistan who might be able to send along some wood or other info?
I have a couple ideas, including contacting members of Facebook Uzbeck Tourism groups. I tried contacting doing so, but it didn’t go swimmingly.
No doubt a number of nurseries over there have plants.
Of course Russia is embargoed/sanctioned.
But Uzbecks are not.
I mentioned a couple of times the taxonomy battle.
Aureum, Odoratum, Some people here in past threads have mentioned Kansas type (including Crandall) being different than Missouri type (despite Missouri being generally used to refer to…umm, Crandall?) *scratches back of my neck and sighs *
… And that there is an unrelated Ribes missouriense … yes, unrelated.
You can’t make this … stuff.. up. It’s almost comedic.
No wonder the plant isn’t as well known as it should be.
Did I mention there’s Nevadense, too? Pretty robins egg blue berries with specks and perhaps fine hairs.
Trying to stay on topic,… supposedly the “official” version according to wikipedia (who mention a yet additional nickname of “pruterberry”) is:
- Ribes aureum var. aureum: below 910 m (3,000 ft) in the western U.S.[11]
- Ribes aureum var. gracillimum: below 910 m (3,000 ft) in the California Coast Ranges[12]
- Ribes aureum var. villosum – clove currant (syn: Ribes odoratum); native west of Mississippi River, but naturalized further to the east[13]
Meaning Kansas and Missouri types are both the var villosum… (?) so that didn’t help.
OK.
This North American site partially fails to format properly in my browser- I have to sweep with my mouse to check for “invisible text”, so you may need to do the same if you see “open areas” on the page…?
It helps to sort things out, by saying “here is a list cut down to those we can eat”, …explaining:
- Alpine Currant (Ribes alpinum): A more cold-hardy currant distributed throughout Europe with fair flavor.
- American Black Currant (Ribes americanum): Our native Black Currant. I’ve never tried this species. Reports on flavor range from very poor to very good. This probably has to do with location, plant, and personal preference.
- Golden Currant (Ribes aureum): Native to western North America, these currants reportedly have a good to very good flavor.
- Blackcurrant or Black Currant (Ribes nigrum): This is the most widely grown currant with many varieties available.
- Clove Currant or Buffalo Currant (Ribes odoratum): This North American native has clove-scented flowers and can produce small batches of very good flavored fruit. This would be a prime plant for breeding/selective improvements.
- Rock Red Currant (Ribes petraeum): A less common European species.
- Trailing Red Currant (Ribes procumbens): A very low-growing Asian currant with good flavored fruit.
- Redcurrant or Red Currant (Ribes rubrum): There are a number of red-fruited currant species that all have the name “Red Currant”, but this species has had many names in its past. Ribes rubrum is sometimes called Ribes sylvestre or Ribes sativum or Ribes vulgare, and you will still see these names in older publications (or with writers who aren’t aware of the taxonomic updates). These fruits are more tart than Blackcurrant, but full of flavor. They typically can tolerate more shade than Blackcurrants.
- Whitecurrant or White Currant (Ribes rubrum): this is actually an albino sport of the Redcurrant, and it has a mild flavor and a pale color. Depending of the cultivar, the fruit color can range from almost translucent white to salmon to pink to yellow. These other colors are often sold as
- American Red Currant (Ribes triste): Our native Red Currant. Good flavor, very tart, with a lot of seeds.
- Downy Currant (Ribes warszewiczii): A Siberian currant with very good flavor.
I’m kidding. Kidding.
That really didn’t solve my confusion. If it did yours, well, kudos. I am not worthy.
Anyway got to head to bed.
Anyone grow these things? 