Berry bushes can be grown in different forms. The standard gooseberry is a small tree that looks great, and its berries grow larger and tastier than the usual ones. The shape of the plant gives originality and effectiveness to the site. In order to get such a result, you need to invest knowledge, effort, and time. But the resulting effect will certainly please the gardener and everyone around him.
For the first time, Europeans took up the cultivation of standard plantings, creating beautiful trees that were easy to process and harvest. Today, the new product is quickly gaining popularity due to the undeniable advantages of the method.
What is the difference between a standard gooseberry and a regular one?
Standard gooseberry (photo), unlike a bush, has a single trunk and crown.
The height of a miniature tree ranges from 0.6 m to 1.5 m and depends on what method was used and the height of the grafting. The shape is man-made, created only by the efforts of gardeners. The not entirely natural appearance of the plant requires the installation of additional supports and protection from the winds.
An unusual shape can be obtained in two ways:
- carrying out formative pruning;
- by grafting onto the rootstock.
Standard gooseberries and currants have one smooth trunk, at the top of which there are cascading branches and a foliage cover in the form of a cap.
Plants look very beautiful at any time of the year. In spring and summer, bright leaves, flowers and fruits are clearly visible on it; in autumn, it turns into a bouquet of variegated leaves; in winter, a pattern of long winding branches is noticeable.
Advantages of growing gooseberries on a trunk
Gardeners who leave reviews about standard gooseberries note a number of advantages of such a plant:
- due to the elevation of the crown above the ground, it is little susceptible to disease;
- the crown of the standard gooseberry is well ventilated even in a quiet place, protected from winds and drafts;
- tree yield is a quarter higher than usual;
- the berries remain intact and clean even after heavy rains and unfavorable weather;
- the branches of the standard gooseberry do not break in winter under the weight of snow;
- during frosts on the ground surface, fruit buds are not damaged, since they are located at a height of 40 cm from the ground;
- the lifespan of a standard gooseberry is at least 15 years;
- it is easy to cultivate the soil under the plants;
- convenient to pick berries;
- the tree looks very decorative and serves as a decoration for the area.
Among the disadvantages of standard gooseberries are:
- high cost of seedlings;
- the need for constant removal of root shoots;
- dependence of the strength and yield of the plant on only one shoot;
- To create a form, winter-hardy varieties are needed.
How to make standard gooseberries on your site
Thanks to the advantages of standard forms, they are becoming increasingly popular. The prices for such seedlings are quite high, so gardeners are looking for ways to reconstruct shrubs with their own hands. One method is as follows:
- Choose the most powerful, straight, vertically growing gooseberry shoot.
- All branches except the selected one are deleted.
- The side shoots of the abandoned shoot are cut off to the height of the trunk.
- Place a polyethylene tube on the future trunk that does not allow light to pass through.
- The lower end of the pipe (10 cm) is buried in the ground.
- Install a peg for support.
- The root shoots are removed annually.
- Over the next years, the crown is formed, leaving no more than 5 branches.
Important!
If a standard gooseberry is formed without a pipe, then all side branches are removed up to the height of the standard (about 100 cm). You can get a tree not using your own rooted seedling, but by grafting onto golden currants. Some gardeners who are good at this method graft several varieties, creating an elegant, interesting tree with different types of berries.
How to grow standard gooseberries
Before you start forming a standard gooseberry, it is worth remembering that this procedure will take quite a lot of time. After formation, the real harvest can be harvested for about 6 years. By this time, a replacement for the “dying” gooseberry should be grown.
The standard plant must have support in the form of a peg located on the side of the prevailing winds.
To obtain the correct shape of the gooseberry on the trunk (photo), pruning is carried out, shortening powerful shoots that are awkwardly and unsightly located.
Standard forms require more careful attention. Despite their winter hardiness, they should be placed in areas of the garden protected from northern winds. If the climate in the region is harsh, then for successful wintering it will not be superfluous to create a reliable shelter.
Which varieties are suitable for growing gooseberries on a trunk?
Unlike ordinary bushes, standard gooseberries cannot be covered with snow in winter. In the frost-hazardous zone, the trees are above the snow cover. For this reason, it is worth carefully selecting varieties for specific regions of the country.
It is important that the plants are weakly branched, with a small amount of basal shoots. These gooseberry varieties include:
Generous
This is a medium-sized spreading bush with many branches. Its foliage is small, its flowers are large, green-red. The fruits are of an uneven red-violet color, round in shape, and have a thin skin covered with hairs. The taste of the berries is sweet and sour.
Redball
A new thornless gooseberry variety. Its berries are large, red, hard, with green streaks on a red background. The taste of the fruit is pleasant, sweet and sour.
Harlequin
Medium spreading shrub. Its fruits are of medium size, oval, dark cherry, with a peel of medium thickness, without hairs. The taste of the berry is original, sour-sweet.
Invicta
It is a variety of English selection, the ripening period of which is medium. The berries are large, weighing 6 - 8 g. Bushes with thorns, vigorous. The standard gooseberry Invicta receives resistance to powdery mildew and other diseases from the bush gooseberry.
Spring
This is an early variety with excellent fruit taste. The height of the bush is 1.5 m. Its berries weigh 5 g and are yellow in color.
Red triumph
A fast-growing variety characterized by long and strong fruiting. Recommended for industrial cultivation.
Experts and amateur gardeners who left their reviews of gooseberries on the Red Triumph bole noted its positive aspects:
- the tree looks very beautiful;
- he has rapid growth;
- excellent yield;
- ease of care.
How to grow gooseberries on a trunk
The easiest way to create a standard gooseberry is to form the plant into one trunk. This method is easy to use and accessible even to novice gardeners:
- When planting a bush in a permanent place after rooting, leave the strongest upright shoot, removing the rest.
- They carry out the “blinding” procedure - remove all the buds from the bottom of the shoot, leaving 4 to 5 at the top.
- The shoots that developed from the left buds are shortened by half in the first year of formation of the standard gooseberry.
- In subsequent years, old, fruit-bearing, damaged or diseased branches are pruned.
- The root shoots are periodically removed.
Growing standard gooseberries using the grafting method
To grow standard gooseberries using grafting, you need to prepare consumables. For this purpose, cuttings (scion) are cut from a varietal plant, and the thorns are cut off from them. Storage is carried out in damp sand, sawdust or peat at a temperature of about 3 ⁰C.
Golden currant is most often used as a rootstock.
Grafting is carried out on pre-planted plants in the spring, during the period when sap flow begins.
The most common methods of vaccination are:
- into a split - let's allow different diameters of the scion and rootstock;
- improved copulation – the slice sizes are the same;
- in a side cut - suitable for grafting different varieties;
- in the butt - a well-known method that allows different sizes of scion and rootstock.
Methods for obtaining stamps
Standard gooseberries can be obtained in two ways: by special step-by-step formation of the plant itself on a short (20 - 60 cm) or higher (90 - 120 cm) standard, as well as using grafting. In the first case (when growing a standard gooseberry without grafting, on its own roots), after planting in a permanent place, one, strongest, upright shoot is left from a well-developed seedling, the rest are cut out at the soil surface. All buds are removed from this shoot along the entire length of the intended trunk, leaving the top 3-4, while the top is shortened. In the first and second years, the developed conductors are shortened by half to the bud, oriented upward. In subsequent years, during the period of full fruiting, the branches are not shortened; pruning of plants consists of selective thinning by removing branches that are too powerful, intersecting and interfering with each other, broken, diseased and weakest branches. All growths that appear on the trunk are cut off. In this way, they achieve the formation of a rounded crown with branches of different ages.
This method of growing berries was well known to gardeners back in pre-revolutionary Russia, and it is still widely used in Western Europe. However, standard gooseberries are most often obtained in a different way - by grafting a cultivated variety into a golden currant standard (Ribes aureum). Currant rootstock is grown for 1–2 years from rooted cuttings or layerings, pushing one strong shoot vertically upward. If currants are propagated by sowing seeds in the spring, they are subjected to preliminary stratification. The rootstock can also be currant-gooseberry hybrids (for example Yoshta), black and red currants, as well as some species of gooseberries. Rootstocks for subsequent grafting are planted in spring or autumn - at the end of September - the first ten days of October, and if there are 2 - 3 branches, one of them is left - the strongest and straightest. The side shoots that appear on it during the summer are pinched, which contributes to the thickening of the stem.
The grafting height varies from 60 to 130 cm. For varieties with straight and thick shoots, it is recommended to create low-standard plants, and for varieties with thinner and hanging shoots, the standard is formed at a height of 120 - 130 cm.
Gooseberries are grafted in summer, winter or spring, using different methods. Grafting with cuttings onto previously prepared and well-rooted rootstock seedlings can be carried out during the growing season: from July to mid-September - in a side cut, and in late summer - in a butt cut or with an oblique wedge. You can do budding with a peephole with a piece of wood in July–August. Good results are obtained by spring grafting (especially improved copulation) and winter grafting, which is carried out in late February - early March indoors
Rootstocks for winter grafting are dug up in the fall and stored in the basement in damp peat, sawdust or sand at a temperature close to 0°C. In the fall, cuttings of varietal gooseberries (scion) are harvested and stored under the same conditions, from which the thorns are cut off for convenience. The grafted components for fusion are placed in boxes filled with a mixture of sand and peat in a 1:1 ratio and kept for a short time (no more than 10 - 14 days) at a temperature of 18 - 200C. After this, the boxes are transferred to a cold basement, where they are stored until planting. With the beginning of field work, the grafted seedlings are planted in the nursery. After about a month, the harness is loosened and later removed. When the shoots on the scion reach a length of 10 cm, they are pinched to create a more voluminous crown. In this case, you can get well-formed plants in the fall.
High-quality standard gooseberry seedlings, suitable for permanent planting
Planting and caring for standard gooseberries
The most favorable time for planting standard gooseberries is autumn. Spring - can lead to the death of the tree, because after the onset of heat the soil becomes dry and the roots do not have time to take root.
Important! Before planting, it is worth dipping the plant’s root system into a solution of a root formation stimulator.
When placing standard gooseberries in a permanent place, it is necessary to dig planting holes at a distance of at least 1 m from each other, with row spacing of 2 m.
The site should be protected from northern winds and well lit. The soil for the plant is fertile and light.
Advice! You should not choose a place for standard gooseberries where raspberries grew before. The best predecessors will be vegetables.
For proper landing you need:
- Dig a hole 50 cm deep and 60 cm wide in advance.
- Fill it 3/4 with fertile soil, mix with fertilizers (200 g of superphosphate) and ash.
- Fill the hole with 20 liters of water.
- Trim the damaged parts of the roots and dip them in clay mash.
- Place the seedling in the hole, straighten the roots, fill in the voids and compact the soil a little.
- Deepen the root collar by 5 cm.
- Water again.
- Mulch the tree trunk circle with peat.
Description of the genus
Gooseberry (Grossularia) is a wild shrub native to North-East Europe. In its wild and feral state, the prickly berry is distributed throughout the European and North American continents. The lifespan of a gooseberry bush in one place reaches up to 30 years, the plant’s ability to bear fruit remains up to 15-20 years. Among the wild varieties growing in our country, there are: Far Eastern (Bureinsky), Needle (Altai) and European (Rejected or Ordinary).
Common gooseberry (Ríbes úva-críspa) is the ancestor of most varieties cultivated by summer residents in their garden plots. Selection followed the path of increasing the mass of berries from 2-3 to 50 grams. Some inexperienced gardeners, when they see a large-fruited shrub, seriously think: “Is a gooseberry a berry or a fruit?”
It is noteworthy that for their excellent taste and shape of the berries, gooseberry fruits in Rus' were called northern grapes.
Gooseberry
Rules of care
Although gooseberries are considered a drought-resistant crop, regular abundant watering, especially during flowering, will ensure a good harvest of berries. The roots of standard gooseberries are located at great depths, so water should saturate the soil at least 40 cm deep. The rate of one-time watering under a tree is about 50 liters. The plant needs loosening of the soil and further mulching, after which a crust does not form on the surface, weeds do not multiply, and moisture is retained in the soil. Sawdust can be used as mulch. straw, mown grass, peat.
In the year of planting, fertilizers are applied to the planting hole. The next feeding is carried out in the second year of growth during the appearance of buds, then during flowering and the last one during the setting of berries. A mixture of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus is used for this.
The standard gooseberry needs constant support in the form of a peg installed on the wind side. It is cleared of bark, treated with a special impregnation to prevent rotting, and painted. Important! The plant is tied in two places in a figure eight pattern - in the middle of the trunk and at the level of the crown, so that constrictions do not form.
Periodic pruning is necessary to obtain a beautiful and functional crown of standard gooseberries. During the first, they try to give it a rounded shape. After five years, pruning is carried out to rejuvenate the plant, removing old and diseased branches.
Important! Annual growth should be carefully monitored, shortening shoots that are too long.
It is very difficult to cover standard gooseberries for the winter. Experts advise carrying out the simplest measures before the winter cold - increasing the layer of mulch on the tree trunk, hilling and covering the trunk with spruce branches.
Growing with grafting
To get a standard plant, you can use grafting. To do this, in the summer the gooseberry crop is grafted using lateral grafting. This procedure is performed as follows:
- all mature sprouts are cleared of foliage and thorns, leaving only small petioles, which are grafted at the base using a T-shaped cut of the bark;
- gooseberries are prepared for the grafting procedure in the fall; for this, the rootstocks are stored in sawdust in the cellar in winter;
- All grafted petioles must be stored in a room for several weeks, having previously buried them in a mixture of peat and sand; storage in room conditions allows the cuttings to quickly begin the process of merging. After living at room temperature for two weeks, the petioles are sent to the cellar for the winter.
As for spring grafting, it is performed in a split or in a cut from the side, as soon as the plant begins to flow sap. At the same time, do not forget to care for the bush so that the trunk fully develops. To do this, try to regularly feed the gooseberries with organic matter and do not forget about watering.
In addition, the crop should be mulched and carefully inspected to identify various defects and parasites.
