If you want to collect a decent harvest of berries from your currant bushes every year, take care of them not only at the stage of ovary formation, but also after the fruits have been collected.
One of the important stages of caring for this crop is its pruning.
How to prune currants after harvesting
Pruning takes place in two stages.
1. First, you need to remove dry, diseased and simply unnecessary branches to thin out the bush.
2. After the first stage is completed, the responsibility falls on the shoulders of the gardener to give the bush the correct shape, leaving only two-year-old, one-year-old and zero shoots on the currant.
This is done because the ovaries of black, white and red currants are formed only on one- and two-year-old shoots.
Therefore, shoots older than three years simply do not make sense, since they will not yield a harvest, and they use up nutrients - such shoots, as you already understood, should be cut off.
How to determine that you have an old shoot in front of you? It is enough to pay attention to the following characteristics: small growth, hard brown bark and greater thickness compared to young ones.
If an old branch does not have good young shoots, it should be cut to the ground. It is recommended to remove 2 to 5 old branches to ground level each year and replace them with 3 to 5 zero shoots.
The ideal number of branches in a bush is 15: 5 current year shoots, as well as 5 one-year and two-year branches.
The healthy branches remaining after pruning can be cut into cuttings for further propagation.
