Useful Feeding For Currants

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Currants are an incredibly popular and demanded crop, which is why it is very important to learn how to properly care for it. But competent care for currants is not only timely pruning, proper soil cultivation and watering, but also regular feeding! What is recommended to feed currant bushes so that they can please us with wonderful harvests?

How to feed young berries?

As a rule, berry bushes planted in autumn do not need spring feeding - the soil already has everything that they need for proper growth and good nutrition. But if the currant was planted at the very beginning of the growing season, it must be fed! Two weeks after planting under bushes, it is recommended to apply high-quality nitrogen fertilizers at the rate of thirteen to eighteen grams per square meter. And so that the active components contained in them do not begin to decompose directly in the air and do not erode, all fertilizers must be immediately embedded in the soil (while do not forget that the root system of the currant is always located close enough to the soil surface), after which the plants watered abundantly.

And when the currant bushes begin to bear fruit, in addition to nitrogen, they will need to be fed with other compounds, in particular, phosphorus and potash. They are usually brought in closer to autumn, counting on each young bush for ten to fifteen grams of potassium sulfate and forty to fifty grams of superphosphate. At about the same time, berry bushes should be fed with organic matter, and this should be done in such a way that from four to six kilograms of humus gets into the soil (another great option for fertilizing is mullein infusion).

How to feed adult bushes?

The composition of dressings for adult currant bushes is largely determined by the type of soil on which these same bushes grow: if the soils on the site are sandy or peaty, that is, light enough, then fertilizers will go deep into the depths rather quickly, becoming simply inaccessible for currants, while dense soils can boast of the ability to retain all kinds of nutrient compounds for much longer in those layers where the roots of shrubs are located.

Starting from the fourth year of life of currant bushes, nitrogen fertilizers that accelerate plant growth should be applied annually, spending about twenty to twenty-five grams of urea for each bush. It is quite acceptable to give such dressings in two steps - this will contribute to their more efficient use. For example, with the onset of spring, only two-thirds of the total portion can be brought under the bushes - this will allow the currants not only to release leaves and bloom together, but also to form quite strong ovaries. And the remaining rate is brought in at the end of flowering - such a top dressing will be an excellent help for shrubs while pouring berries.

If the soil on the site is dense enough, then you can pamper the currants with potash or phosphorus dressings not annually, but in compliance with a two-year or even three-year interval. They are introduced either in the fall or in the spring, spending on each currant bush from thirty to forty-five grams of potassium sulfate, and the norm of superphosphate is in the range from one hundred twenty to one hundred and fifty grams.

And in June, currants can be fed with the following composition: boric acid (2 - 2, 5 g), copper sulfate (1 - 2 g), ammonium molybdate with zinc sulfate (2 - 3 g each) and manganese sulfate (5 - 10 g). Such a composition is introduced under the crowns, observing a distance of twenty to thirty centimeters from the roots. An excellent alternative to this kind of dressing will be complex fertilizers specially designed for berry growers containing all the necessary microelements.

It is also allowed to introduce organic matter intermittently - the only exception is sandy soils, on which plants need to be maintained on an annual basis. Additional dressings in the summer season (both traditional and foliar) will not be superfluous - they can be applied both in liquid form and combined with watering. By the way, the rates of application of mineral dressings in this case are slightly reduced - this is necessary in order to avoid "overfeeding" or burns of the root system. Try, if possible, never to overfeed the berry bushes with nitrogen - an excessive build-up of green mass will inevitably entail irreparable damage to both the quality of the berries and their quantity. And still powerful one-year-old shoots very often simply do not have time to ripen by autumn, often dying from severe frosts. So it's not for nothing that they say that measure is good in everything!