How to trim red and white currants correctly

Currants are not too rare in German gardens.

For a big harvest, prune the shrub regularly.

We show you how it works.

Currant bushes * provide delicious fruit for snacking or processing every year.

In order to make the harvest particularly large and to make it long-term, you should treat your plant to a cut regularly.

You have to note that red and white currants are cut differently than black currants.

We'll show you how to trim the former two.

When are red and white currants cut?

Red and white currants bear the largest fruits on the annual side shoots of two to three year old main shoots.

That is why the side shoots must be well strengthened with the cut in order to achieve a good harvest in the coming years.

When to cut depends on how old the shrub is and what you want it to do with it.

A parenting pruning takes place, for example, in spring on a one to two year old plant.

The conservation pruning is used from the 3rd year after harvest.

If you want to rejuvenate an old plant, you have to use the scissors in late winter.

It is best to choose a day with mild temperatures for cutting.

Find out here

Parenting cut on red and white currants

With the training pruning, you help your young currant bush to grow into the right shape and establish scaffolding shoots.

These are the shoots emerging from the ground, on which the fruit-bearing side shoots form.

Once the shrub is planted, first cut out the weak shoots.

In the following spring, choose the strongest five to six ground shoots and shorten them by a third, as the gardening journal advises.

Start the cut on an outward-facing bud at a distance of two to three millimeters.

Cut away the remaining ground shoots.

Remove the weak or inward-growing shoots around autumn in the year after planting or in the following February.

Maintenance pruning on currants - this is how you proceed

The maintenance cut serves to remove the old shoots and to promote the young fruit wood.

To do this, cut off a few of the oldest scaffold shoots at the base shortly after the harvest or in the next spring and leave the same number of young ground shoots.

In this way, the plant can concentrate on investing more energy in the young shoots than in the old ones, on which ever smaller currants grow back over the years.

All superfluous shoots from the rhizome are removed.

Shorten the harvested side shoots on the remaining scaffold shoots to a length of one to two centimeters.

Also interesting

If currants have not been pruned for years, impenetrable branches quickly develop that are not only unsightly, but also hardly allow any growth - instead, only measly berries develop on the shoots.

To give the aged currant bush a chance, a rejuvenation cut is a good idea: cap the old, dark shoots directly above a deep-seated, young side shoot or shorten them to one or two buds - the buds should point outwards.

Also note that such a radical cut should not take place between March 1st and September 30th.

According to the Federal Nature Conservation Act, only shaped cuts can be made there.

Late winter, for example in February, is suitable for the rejuvenation cut.

Also read

: How to cut blackberries correctly: How to avoid wild growth in the garden.

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