Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, a biologist and founder of scientific selection, who bred many varieties of gooseberries, called it a grape from the north.
A perennial shrub has been pleasing gardeners for many centuries., but for improper care or inattention to themselves, gooseberries pays, at best, with a low yield, at worst with their death from diseases and pests.
What gooseberries suffer from
The plant itself is picky, gooseberries can die in two cases if pests attacked it or it got sick.
If you want the shrub to grow and bear fruit, then you should constantly monitor its condition.
More often, gooseberries suffer from fungal diseases.which spread quickly as the spores of the fungus are aided by natural phenomena in the form of rain and wind.
Insect pests - aphids, mites and caterpillars - cause irreparable harm to gooseberries. And even worse, if these two problems are "combined", then the bush should be saved immediately.
First of all, gooseberry diseases need to be treated, there are not very many of them, but they are all fatal to the plant.
Diseases and treatment
White bloom is powdery mildew or spheroteka
This is a disease that affects the entire bush, first on the berries or on the lower parts of the leaf, a white bloom forms - already during this period it is urgent to take action.
The peak of the disease is late spring – early summer, at this stage spores of the fungus settle, new bushes are affected. In the summer, the fungus strengthens, creates conidia in several tens of generations, by autumn - the plant is completely affected.
At first, plaque is easily removed from the fetus, but if untreated, it darkens, coarsens and becomes like felt. The whole plant is covered with this felt, it is completely deformed and after a couple of seasons it dies safely.
What to do? You can cure it; for this, several methods are used:
- mix a solution of soda ash with a small amount of laundry soap (50/50), dilute in ten liters of water, spray the bush until budding;
- mix hay dust with greenhouse soil, make an infusion (the infusion should stand for about three days), dilute 1/3 with water, spray the whole plant 3 times per season, before flowering, after flowering and in autumn, before the foliage falls off;
- dry mustard powder (2 tablespoons), young garlic shoots and horsetail - boil for 30 minutes, cool, process the whole plant;
- tincture of tomato stepsons with laundry soap (50 grams) - spray the bush, cover the plant with tomato stems for the winter.
Powdery mildew harms not only the gooseberry itself, many nearby growing plants suffer from it.
What to do with anthracnose?
Small brown spots that grow and affect all leaves, they fall off, young shoots stop growing, the harvest practically dies out.
With this ailment, it is necessary to burn the entire leaf, the fungus will remain on unharvested leaves in the spring.
Further struggle:
- spray with copper sulfate at the rate of 10 liters of water 40 grams;
- spray with Bordeaux liquid - 4 times per season, before flowering, after flowering, two weeks after the second spraying and the last time after harvesting;
- you can apply cuprozane, colloidal sulfur or chomycin.
How to get rid of septoria disease?
The most suitable moment for its development is from late spring to the beginning of the summer season, the lower parts of the leaves are covered with white bloom or gray spots, therefore it is also called brown spot, or white spot.
If the plant is not treated, brown seals form on the tips of the leaves, and black dots appear on the leaf itself, and shoots on the bush are also affected. Leaves dry and fall off within a month.
How to get rid of: affected branches and fallen leaves should be immediately cut off and burned, because the fungus does not die with the leaves. After removing the affected areas, the bush must be treated with fungicides.
With septoria, the bush needs in copper, manganese, zinc and boron, they need to be fertilized and mixed with the soil around the bush!
Goblet rust, or why fruits fall
It affects gooseberry leaves with rusty, orange, glass-shaped spots. The plant also becomes infected at the end of spring, at the beginning of summer the plant outwardly changes, deforms. The berries become ugly and fall off.
Treat:
- universal solution - crystalline hydrate (30-40 grams) per 10 liters of water, process everything completely, up to the soil under the bush and around the bush;
- constantly apply fertilizers based on phosphorus and potassium.
Remove sedge if present in your area, or plant the gooseberries to a higher place where water does not stagnate.
How to deal with gooseberry mosaic?
A yellow pattern along the veins of a leaf causes the leaves to wrinkle and the plant stops bearing fruit.
The bush should be immediately dug up and burned, since such a gooseberry cannot be treated.
Only prevention will help, quarantine, sucking insect treatment and garden tools disinfection.
Does the bush shed its leaves? Columnar rust!
Occurs on a plant due to the proximity to coniferous trees... The leaves are covered with orange pads, these are spores formed over the summer.
As a result, the bush can shed its leaves, the growth and yield are reduced. The fungus tolerates the winter period on fallen leaves of currants and on conifers.
Treatment:
- columnar rust is treated in the same way as for diseases with anthracnose;
- be sure to dig up the soil around the bush and burn the fallen leaves.
It is important not to plant gooseberries next to conifers.
Garden pests and control measures
Gooseberries can also die from pests, there are no less of them than diseases, and if you do not pay attention to them, you can be guaranteed to lose your country berries.
For instance:
- caterpillars - the "parent" of the sawfly butterfly or moth, eat the ovaries, envelop the bush with cobwebs;
- aphid - affects both leaves and shoots, pierces blood vessels, can harm for a long time, since it is difficult to immediately detect it;
- glass case - eats the core of the shoots;
- currant gall midge - the larvae eat flowers, shoots, leaves;
- mite - enters the gooseberry buds, feeds on the juice of young foliage, in addition, it is a carrier of the terry virus.
You can fight these pests with the same drugs, the main thing is that you do not need to stop at one spraying.
As soon as the kidneys open, immediately treat with karbofos or actellik and continue to spray until buds appear, next treatment after flowering.
Remove and destroy all damaged shoots and leaves if the bush begins to shed them.
Useful tips and prevention methods
In order to be able to drink tea with gooseberries on a winter evening, you should constantly monitor its condition, observe agrotechnical rules, and carry out mandatory prevention.
All these measures will help to save both the bush and the crop, and so that it is regular, the plant must be watered on time, especially if the summer is hot - this berry respects the coolness.
It is necessary to change the preparations that destroy pests annually, do not forget the folk methods of cleansing the bushes from "tenants", for example, why not gather up ladybirds and let them go to aphids. Or in early spring, pour boiling water over the entire bush.
It is necessary to feed the bushes on time... This requires organic and mineral fertilizers, for example, in the spring, before the buds dissolve, add ammonium nitrate (25 grams) and urea (30 grams) per square meter. meter.
A year later, in the fall, potash-phosphorus fertilizers are rotted manure, potassium chloride and superphosphate.
Standing with your back to the bush, scatter fertilizer around at a distance of about two meters, loosen the earth, because the root system is at a depth of up to half a meter.
Potassium-phosphorus fertilizers and their use in the autumn:
Fruit bush: both watchman and diet berry
Berry culture is used for making stewed fruit, jelly, and jam, it is not the last place in cosmetology and dietetics, because the berry has a high content of fiber and vitamins.
It is enough to eat half a kilogram of berries a day in order to replenish the diet with all micro and macro elements, free the intestines and influence the process of losing weight.
A mature gooseberry bush reaches 1.5 m in height and two meters in width, the plant is perennial, multi-stemmed and, if well looked after, it will still be fruitful. Sometimes from one bush you can collect up to 25 kg northern grapes.
On a personal plot, it can be planted along the perimeter of the fence, at a distance of about 1.5–2 m from the fence, the gooseberry will grow and will also play the role of a watchman, because no stranger will pass through its thorny jungle.