Black and Red Currant lack of water

[womble]

Check your currants!

I have regular looks at mine, but it looks like in the last couple of days the drought has started them to drop the upcoming crop off!!

[Two_Sheds]

My strawbs have been wilting (new transplants) but the black- and redcurrants were mulched with newspaper a few weeks ago. Just in time ...

[FB.]

Even the weeds are wilting.

[SarzWix]

My gooseberries have all stared a major drop in the last few days too I've given each of them a can full of water, but can't really spare much more than that - I'm already having to water 3 rows of recently planted raspberry canes so that I don't lose them, and we don't have mains water at the allotments.

We're supposed to get rain sometime this week, hope it doesn't go in a different direction instead like it did last time...

[Shadylane]

Are you sure it's the heat and not frost that caused your gooseberries to drop. A lot on our site have lost fruit - plums gooseberries and black currants. Not all but a lot have shrivelled and dropped. I haven't watered any of our fruit bushes and apart from the ones got by the cold they seem fine.
EDIT just read that and realised how nuts it sounded. Extreme heat and overnight frost in the space of a week

[womble]

I lost the gooseberries and plums with the bad frosts. But now I am losing currants, pears, apples, with the drought. But the pear looked alot better after a very heavy soaking and the fruitlets firmed up again, so I'm hoping the currants will look better today as well.

Metcheck forecast rain Sat, Met office, none.

[FB.]

womble,
which rootstocks are you using for your fruit trees?

[womble]

I can't remember, most are different, the ones that are affected are all very dwarfing.

[chris]

All mine dropped off.. I was trying to grow them "hard". I've now built beds around them, watered really REALLY well, topped up with some rubbish wickes compost, watered again, and it's still damp 3 days later dispite all thsi sunshine. I'm going to put weed fabrioc down, them some decorative chips on top to help further. Then run some auto water pipes along them.