How to Properly Care for Currants After Harvesting. What You Must Do
Currants, like any other crop, need good care, then they will bear fruit well and for many years.
The main activities for caring for currants:
After harvesting, the plants must be sprayed against pests and fungal and viral diseases.
For this purpose, ready-made preparations are used, which include fungicides and insecticides.
They are mixed during plant treatment if these preparations are purchased separately. More popular fungicides include 1% solution of Bordeaux mixture, topaz and fundazol.
And from insecticides it is necessary to use against specific pests:
Currant mites are destroyed with the following preparations: Kleschevit, Fitoverm, Karbofos or Neoron;
the glassworms are destroyed with the help of Karbofos, Fitoverm and Lepidocide;
galls on currant bushes using Aliot, Kinmiks, Fitoverm or Lepidocid.
To make these products stick better to the leaves, liquid detergent is added to these solutions.
Timely pruning of currant bushes.
In autumn, when all the leaves on the currant have fallen, the bush should be pruned so that the plant can set as many fruit buds as possible.
If old branches are lying on the ground, they should be cut off, because they will be of little use next year, and they will draw nutrients onto themselves.
Branches that are already 4 years old should be removed, and young ones should be left. Only leave 4-5 most developed branches, but shorten them by 1/3 of their length.
It is also worth leaving 2-3 year old branches, next year almost the entire berry harvest will be formed on them. And dry, crooked and damaged branches are better to remove.
After fruiting, feed the currant with complex fertilizer. During this period, the currant bush should be fed and cleared of harmful insects. For this, mineral and organic fertilizers or complex mixtures are used.
Of the mineral fertilizers, you can use phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen: superphosphate, potassium nitrate, ammophoska, diamophoska, wood ash, urea and potassium sulfate.
A mixture of organic fertilizers is used:
- Vegetable compost, rotted humus and peat mixture;
- bird droppings with mullein;
- organic fertilizer, vermicompost solution and phosphorus fertilizer.
A thick layer of organic matter should be placed around the bushes.
