Pinching out blackcurrants & redcurrants

[Slug]

Hi all,

I have 2 blackcurrant plants & 2 redcurrant plants which I bought for the first time this year. I've read the other posts on the forum which say you should wait a couple of years before pruning, but I have a more immediate question....

My blackcurrants are reaching for the sky and are quite tall rather than bushy. I'd like to know if I can pinch the tops out (no flowers are showing yet) to make them more bushy. I'm not sure exactly what sort of shape they're supposed to have

They're growing quite vigorously, so I'd like to do something about it sooner rather than later before I end up with blackcurrant trees

Can anyone help with some suggestions?

Thanks!

[pigletwillie]

your blackcurrants and red currants will grow quite tall and if required you can indeed pinch them out. My red currants are around 6` tall and the blackcurrants 5` tall.

They are best pruned in winter and are pruned totally differently. With blackcurrants you cut old wood (over 2 years) right back to the base and with redcurrants reduce by a third to half to give yourself a nice framework. You can even leave the redcurrants to grow tall as cordons and just keep cutting back the side branches to 3 or 4 buds. You can't do that however with blackcurrants. With these you should aim for a nice bowl shape with no cossing branches and no older wood.

[Slug]

Hi Piglet,

Thanks for the really useful information - I had been reading about pruning the blackcurrants, but I had assumed (silly to assume!) that the redcurrants were the same.

My redcurrants are almost 4' tall at the moment, so I'll leave them growing upwards as cordon plants. My blackcurrants got blown over in high winds (before I planted yesterday) and some of the tops were damaged, so it's a good job they're supposed to be more bushy!

Thanks for the great advice!

Slug