You should grow crandall currant

You got that right here in my county we have storm drains that mix with raw sewage in heavy rainfalls and it drains off in lake st Clair. Happens throughout the great lake area. Not just my state. Our county did begin to correct the over 800 drain points in our county. When done rain runoff will never mix with sewage. It’s going to take years to fix it.

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Out of curiosity, not that I care much about conventional vs organic fertilizers, but do organic fertilizers have less theoretical nitrogen run off?

Not really. The sludge industrial farming is using to fill the Whole Foods of the world with ‘Organic’ produce is every bit as damaging as mineral fertilizers. It is all about how much nitrogen ends up in bodies of water.

Also a lot of common sense is lost on a ‘one size fits all’ approach. For instance this year my raspberry plants were smaller than usual so I decided to go trigger happy with fertilization and it shows; they are super green. “Oh the horror, that is going to destroy rivers!”. Well I fertilize with human urea and if I don’t, I guess I can just flush it down the toilet, where it goes to my septic system, and straight into the soil anyways.

Also worth keeping in mind is that the nearest creek is a kilometer away, and the much nearer water well (about 200 feet) doesn’t show nitrogen buildup on tests.

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Found I have a crandall…
in a one gallon pot…and
forgotten about.

Still alive though.

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Well you’d know what I suggest lol, grow some crandalls!

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compared to other currants they are very drought resistant. only plant i didnt need to water at all during 20’ and 21’ summer droughts.

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Most organic fertilizers are natural products. They absorb more slowly. More of it is gathered over time, and by a wider range of beings. Synthetic fertilizers are less absorbed and almost all of it very quickly, so they pass through into the water table more quickly and you need to add more again sooner. They also kill many of the helpful microbes and soil food web. There is a lot of evidence about synthetic chemicals creating vast dead zones at the outflow of rivers. Along the Mississippi River it is huge and it damages crab, shell fish and other fisheries. Many industries have declined percipitously. We also need to be concerned that as we do more activities like this, the ability of the topsoil to remain in place and accept nutrition (CEC) decreases and we are trapped into more cycles or topsoil erosion, desertification, required synthetic fertilization and ocean dead zones.
John S
PDX OR

This is more a function of either commercial farming or bad small scale practices, not the fertilizer itself. Just the most cursory familiarisation with the nutrient carrying capacity of your soil (the Cation Exchange Capacity) should set you on the right path to responsibly use fertilizers, whether organic or chemical.

Heck commercial farming for overpriced “organic” produce uses a lot of farm sludge to “organically” grow your veggies. Because of the scale we are talking about, hundreds of acres that also can experience water overflow, (something the “organic” label doesn’t care about) you can end up with a lot of nitrogen pollution downstream. It being “organic” nitrogen doesn’t make a difference.

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I agree that finding out about the CEC of your soil is not difficult, and more people should be able to do it. The extent of the problem shows that hardly anyone actually is doing it. Yes, you can find organic practices that are less than ideal. That’s one reason why many people are going further, not giving up. We are looking into permaculture practices, no till, cover crops or something covering the soil, adding more organic material to the soil, and mimicking the processes of nature when possible. Claiming that natural fertilizers go into the water table at the same rate that synthetics do doesn’t make it true. Fighting to continue polluting doesn’t make it right.

I started my Crandall currant from a tiny cutting many years ago and it has grown into a mature, fruiting plant, so it is definitely possible, and I don’t even think it’s hard.

John S
PDX OR

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@Adamsmasherz

Since your a lover of ribes you might be interested in the other clove currents besides crandall at some point Clove currants - great smelling blooms & delicious fruit!

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Holding a handful of your soil in your hands should give you all the functional information you need. My soil is basically gravel and a range of river rocks, my CEC is extremely low. Where I to use chemical fertilizers in say my lawn, it would be smaller amounts over the season. Not that I care to fertilize my lawn.

Heck clay? The problem is that while it has an amazing CEC nutrients are painfully slow to move through it; even dressing it with compost you are more likely to have nitrogen runoff when it rains. Spiking chemical fertilizers (drive a rod, sprinkle granules in the hole) pretty much ensures that it will not go anywhere else.

Personally I love finding cheap fertilizers at yard sales but my favorite way to use it is to add them to my horse manure pile, that’s what I amend my soil with. For fertilizer hungry plants (raspberries, currants) I do shallow but constant diluted urea applications over the season, up to the fall (winter here is not subtle, plants don’t miss the signals to go dormant). I monitor the coloration of the leaves to adjust the schedule; it is easy to tell when they are getting too much.

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I monitor the color of the leaves and add small amounts of urine over long periods of time too. Adding your fertilizer to the horse manure seems like a good idea. I wish others were as careful as you

John S
PDX OR

I have a love/hate relationship with plants in the currant family; here not only they are pretty much the only plants subject to insect pressure. On top of that the more lush the leaves are the more tasty they are to sawfly larvae.

Damn if you do, damn if you don’t.

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We have awful bugs that eat up the leaves of the red currant, the jostaberry, and the gooseberry. They hide under the leaves and munch all spring. They mostly leave the aromatic black currants alone. I think they hate the smell.
John S
PDX OR

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Does Crandall need a pollinizer? I’ve seen mixed reports, and wasn’t sure if the ones saying it needed another plant were copy+pastes from the European black ones that do or not.

As a general rule assume that with plants in groups that need a partner but can do without, you still would want one. They can put out fruit, but the output thend to be meager and would do a lot better with another compatible plant nearby.

Heck some that need at least one pollinizer will do a lot better if there are three or four. Haskaps in particular will crop better the more generic variety is available to them.

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My crandall fruits well with no pollinizer.
John S
PDX OR

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OP said they’re shade tolerant. How will would they do on the North side of the house where they only get morning and early afternoon sun? Being able to put in something more than herbs or flowers would be nice.

Mine are currently on the west side of the house in between my house and the neighbors house. They only get 3-4 hours of sun per day and thats usually from around 11-3.

I don’t think that I mentioned that the crandall currant doesn’t get eaten by the evil bugs that eat the gooseberry, jostaberry and red currant leaves so heavily.

John S
PDX OR

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