Jostaberry question

[lottielady]

I have on my lottie an old Jostaberry bush which this year did not fruit very well, I am in a dilemma as to whether to remove the bush altogether (not sure how old it is but size is over 1.5m either way) and replace or whether to prune hard this year and see what comes next year.

Any advice would be greatly received.

Thanks

[realfood]

They grow to 2 m x 2m quite easily. I would start by removing some of the oldest branches from near the bottom and any crossing or damaged branches. It may also need some feeding using a slow release fertilizer such as bone meal. Have a look at this jostaberry

[lottyrep]

Raised 3 jostaberries from cuttings donated by a Percy Thrower lookalike from my local RBL Gardening Club and have had massive amounts of fruit. His advice was to treat them as you would a blackcurrant bush and prune in a similar fashion. The fruit make a superb jam that my wife and I have been eating since the harvest and have got enough left for another month.I will be propogating from my own cuttings later this year and look forward to lashings more of this terrific fruit.

[Seamus]

hi lottierep, could u give somemore info on the jostaberries please, have been trying to find out more but without much success, roughly how long before u get a sizeable crop off them, and what weight might you expect from a mature bush ?, how long do they take to grow full size ?, i have planted 6 bushes, 2 last year and 4 more this year, last years bushes didnt yield any fruit, am not impatient about it, would just like to know what to expect, a big thank you in advance !!

[realfood]

Mine started producing in the second year and after a year or two, should produce the same amount as a blackcurrant. Should be full size after 4 or 5 years.

[lottyrep]

Hi Seamus, When I started, the cuttings were about 6 inches long and they grew into productive bushes in about three years. I now take about 4-5 kg of fruit off each plant.
The plant needs occasional feeding and I found that blood fish and bone was the best to feed pre-season and a general purpose fertilizer like growmore a couple of times in the growing season. Probably when the bushes are a bit older and pruned correctly I should be able to get a bigger crop. Hope this helps
Alan

[Seamus]

thanks alan, thats perfect, didnt know what the form was with them, at least now i have some idea what to do, ha,ha, thanks again, seamus