Gooseberry cuttings

[waterfall]

Three years ago I took some cuttings off a gooseberry bush and pushed them into the soil in a corner of my plot. After transplanting they are now four fine leafy bushes - but NO fruit. Have I wasted my time or do I need to be patient? If it was an F1 hybrid would that explain the problem?

[rustylady]

Hi Waterfall. I think you need to be patient, and don't feed them anything that's high in nitrogen as this will encourage leafy growth at the expense of fruit. As far as I know F1 hybrid only applies to seeds, not fruit bushes. Any cuttings taken will be exactly the same as the plant they were taken from.

[FB.]

As said by rustylady; fruit bushes grown from cuttings should produce fruit identical to the plant that they came from.
They may take a few years to start fruiting - and too much nitrogen feed will delay fruiting and encourage them to grow too large.

All plants are best if allowed a few years to get a good root system established, before trying to fruit.

[waterfall]

Thank you both. I shall leave them another winter with a mulch of leaf mould and then see what happens next year. I recall I did use a general purpose fertiliser this spring on all the fruit bushes including the gooseberries but I will leave that out next spring.

Incidentally all four bushes will need a winter prune but can I damage their fruiting potential if I do no more than thin out and shorten?

Gooseberry puree goes wonderfully with locally caught fresh mackerel.

[rustylady]

Found this link for you regarding pruning, waterfall. Royal Horticultural Society | Advice Search | Gooseberries, red and white currants

[Snadger]

Not sure whether there's such a thing as an F1 hybrid gooseberry? Even if there were, vegetative cuttings would be the same as the parent plant anyway. I have one gooseberry which does really well on my soil so I have weighted down half a dozen branches with bricks in the hope that they will 'layer' where they touch the soil.
The beaurty of this method is that I can still get fruit this year.........even from the layered branches!

[jackie j]

Thanks for asking the question as I was given some cuttings ( sticks ) nearly 3 years ago and so far not one gooseberry, do you think I will get some next year.

[BUFFS]

i had 4 good lengths of gooseberry trimmings two years ago and shoved them into the seed bed,now have 4 small but growing bushes with enough fruit for a couple of pies,they are still in b&q buckets that they sat out the winter in,no protection,they will be put into proper place in the autumn.....more berries...yeeeeeeeessssss..

[lbt]

Think I am going to have a go at Snadger's method of layering. Found this article which suggests that it is more successful that cuttings: How to propagate gooseberry bushes.

I was hoping to take cuttings and make quite a few bushes to use as a bit of a barrier but it looks like it wouldn't be very successful so I'll have to (learn to!) be patient

EDIT: On second thoughts - I might try a bit of both I have read somewhere that the new growth takes better than the older growth.