Common diseases and pests of blackcurrant, treatment and prevention

Blackcurrant is a popular shrub in the garden. Not only its delicious berries are useful, but also fragrant leaves and twigs that are added when brewing tea or when preserving. But the lack of care and treatment of bushes increases the likelihood of diseases and pests, which leads to a significant decrease in the yield of berries.

Blackcurrant disease

Fungal currant diseases often develop during prolonged rains and inclement weather. If the summer was cool and rainy, then the gardener should pay special attention to the currant plantings. Viral diseases of blackcurrant are more dangerous than fungal ones: they are more difficult to treat and prevent and can lead to the death of the entire bush.

Common fungal diseases

The most common fungal diseases affecting blackcurrant are:

• anthracnose;
• Septoria (white spotting);
• rust;
• powdery mildew.

Anthracnose is a disease that is common in rainy summers. Isolated yellow-green spots appear on the leaves, which then turn brown, grow and merge with each other, forming necrotic areas. After some time, shoots and berries become sick.

If you do not take any measures, the affected leaves, starting from the lower tiers, completely turn brown, dry and massively fall prematurely. Green berries crumble, shoots give a weak growth. Affected bushes are unstable to frost, and their productivity is reduced by 50-70%.

Blackcurrant leaves in the initial stage of anthracnose damage

Septoria (white spotting) is also most likely to occur in rainy, cool summers. Brown spots appear on the leaves, which eventually become whitish with a brown border. With severe damage, the spots increase and merge with each other. The leaf dries and dies. The yield of diseased bushes is reduced by 1.5-2 times.

Septoria blackcurrant leads to a decrease in productivity by 1.5-2 times

Rust - red tubercles on the back of the leaves, which, when the disease spreads, merge into orange stripes. The fruits may be affected. Excessive spring watering can provoke the disease. Pathogens of rust live on conifers or on a marshy plant - sedge. If next to the garden plot there is a swampy pond or coniferous planting, then for breeding currants it would be better to choose varieties that are resistant to rust.

Rust tubercles during the spread of the disease merge into stripes

Powdery mildew is a rare disease of blackcurrant. It appears white plaque on the tops of shoots. Leaves do not grow, deform and die. If untreated, it also applies to berries.

Powdery mildew if untreated can spread to berries

Viral diseases

The most dangerous blackcurrant viral diseases:

• striped mosaic
• terry (reversion).

Striped mosaic is a dangerous disease in which you can completely lose the black currant plantings. It appears as a yellowish pattern around large veins of leaves. Carriers - aphids, ticks. Infection will occur if you plant a diseased stalk on a healthy bush or cut healthy and diseased bushes with the same non-sanitized tool.

Striped mosaic appears with a yellow pattern on the leaves.

Terry is a disease in which blackcurrant becomes infertile. The disease can be detected only during the flowering of the bushes, although the leaves are also subject to change. They become more elongated, pointed, darker in color, coarser. The teeth are less and larger, without a specific currant smell. The diseased shoots bloom a week later than healthy ones, the flowers acquire a dirty pink or purple hue, the inflorescences are elongated, crumble, not forming fruits.

Terry blackcurrant: a - an infected shoot and a modified flower; b - healthy shoot and flower; c - affected branch (photo)

Prevention and treatment of blackcurrant diseases

Unfortunately, bushes infected with terry or striped mosaics are not treatable. You cannot cut only diseased branches of a plant, hoping to stop the spread of the disease. Affected bushes must be completely uprooted and burned.

For the prevention of the disease, it is necessary:

• Choose healthy planting material. Take grafts for vaccination only from those bushes on which there are no signs of disease. Do not purchase seedlings from dubious sellers.
• Periodically inspect all bushes. Initially, only a few branches can be affected by the disease. The sooner you remove a diseased plant from the garden, the more likely it is to keep the rest of the blackcurrant planting healthy.
• Regularly fight the carriers of infections. Spray the bushes with chemical or biological agents, as well as plant compounds to prevent the appearance or destruction of aphids and ticks.
• Make the right feeding. Excess nitrogen-containing drugs can trigger the development of viral diseases. Potassium-phosphorus fertilizers increase the resistance of plants.

To prevent fungal diseases, remove all fallen leaves under the bushes and burn them. At the first signs of illness that usually appear in early summer, spray plants with Fitosporin.

In early spring, before the buds opened, currant bushes and the soil under them are sprayed:

• solution of copper sulfate,
• Bordeaux mixture
• HOM drug.

Copper sulfate is an inexpensive but effective drug. Take 100 g of powder in a bucket of water. Copper sulfate does not dissolve well in cold water, so it is better to first stir it in a liter of warm water, and then pour it into a bucket.

Bordeaux mixture is a popular remedy in most gardeners. For spring spraying you need a 3% solution. To prepare it, you need 3 packs of the drug. The composition includes the same copper sulfate and hydrated lime. Bordeaux mixture can be prepared independently. For this, each component must be dissolved in a separate container in 5 liters of water, and then mixed. When mixing the components, be sure to carefully pour the solution of copper sulfate into lime.

When making the mixture, you must always adhere to the rules indicated on the packaging of the drug!

Blackcurrant pests and control

Blackcurrant bushes can infect more than 70 insects. Some are very rare or do not cause significant damage. But the most harmful are:

• gallitsa
• fire-lamp
• kidney tick
• kidney moth
• spider mite,
• blackcurrant
• currant glass;
• shoot aphid
• scale shield
• berry sawfly.

How to get rid of gall midges

Gall midges are mosquito-like insects that lay eggs under the bark or in the cracks of the stem, flowers that have not developed leaves. Larvae hibernate under currant bushes in spider cocoons. In affected plants, reddish swellings appear on the leaves.

Gallitsa and currant leaves affected by it with reddish swellings

Control measures:

• spring and autumn tillage around the bushes;
• processing plants Bordeaux mixture;
• cutting and burning affected branches;
• spraying currants with Fitoverm before and after flowering.

How to deal with a firearm

Puppet fireflies winter in the ground under the bushes. In spring, butterflies come to the surface and lay eggs directly in flower buds. Hatched larvae eat the ovaries. The berries on the affected shoots are braided by cobwebs and dry out.

To prevent damage to the bushes with a firearm, the soil under the bushes is dug in the spring and autumn, mulched with a thick layer of cardboard so that the butterflies could not come to the surface.

Control measures:

• spraying bushes with insecticides in early spring (Actellik, Lepidocide);
• collection and destruction of affected branches and berries.

How to deal with a kidney tick

A kidney tick is a serious pest of blackcurrant. If the fight against him is not started on time, then you can lose both the crop and the bush. The main symptom of a kidney tick is swollen, rounded kidneys. At this stage, you can still fight for the plant: cut and burn all the shoots with the affected buds.

Affected kidneys become rounded and do not bloom.

Ways of struggle:

• treatment with sulfur-containing drugs (Neoron, sulfaride, Kinmix);
• spraying in the fall with drugs Neoron, Apollo.

Sulfur-containing drugs are used three times a season: during budding, before flowering and a month before the berries ripen. The first spraying is carried out when the air temperature is at least 15 ° C. Drug solutions are prepared according to the attached instructions. A suspension of colloidal sulfur (sulfaride) can be prepared independently: 100 g per bucket of water. This solution is effective at temperatures from 20 ° C.

How to get rid of kidney moth

Pupae of the kidney moth hibernate under the currant bark, and with the advent of spring, the flying butterflies lay their eggs on the ovaries, which subsequently destroy the hatched larvae.

To prevent the spread of this pest, you must:

• destroy fallen leaves;
• thin out bushes and plantings;
• to spray with Karbofos, Actellik.

How to deal with a spider mite

The spider mite activates in hot, dry weather. The presence of a tick on the plant is indicated by light dots on the top of the leaf plate. On the back of the leaf a thin spider web is visible, on which the tick lives. Tick-currant leaves dry and fall in mid-summer.

To combat the spider mite during the growing season, the drug Fitoverm is used.

How to get rid of currant goldfish

Years of currant goldfish beetles occur in May-June. At this time, pests lay eggs under the bark of young shoots. The larvae bite into the shoots, eating them from the inside, and remain there to winter. The plant weakens, gives small yields of small berries.

The main ways to deal with currant goldfish:

• trimming to a healthy part and burning affected shoots;
• treatment with preparations from leaf-eating insects: Lepidocide, bromophos, Alatar.

How to deal with currant glass

The use of any drugs against currant glass is practically useless. The larvae are inside the stem and protected from external influences. The most effective way to deal with glass at the butterfly stage. The appearance of insects with transparent wings indicates that you need to spray the plant with Fitoverm or Lepidocide.

Leaves on infected shoots wither, berries crumble. In the center of the cut branch you can see the move. Such shoots need to be cut to healthy wood with a light core. Glass larvae do not penetrate the roots of the bush.

A glass-butterfly, a glass-caterpillar inside the shoot gnaws at its own course, a damaged core is visible when pruning a branch

How to deal with shoot aphids

Aphids are a sucking insect that ants spread. Aphid colonies can be observed on the underside of young leaves and shoot tips. The leaves of infected bushes are twisted and deformed, shoots cease to grow. Before budding, spray the plant with Karbofos, Actellik, Nitrafen. At the time of ripening, berries can be used for processing the biological product Actofit.

Affected by aphid shoots are deformed, cease to grow, leaves are curled

How to get rid of scale insects

The gradual drying out of an apparently healthy bush indicates the presence of a pest that feeds on the juice of the bark - scutellaria. If no action is taken, the bush will die. The pests merge with the stem, but looking closely, you can see them. They look like small flat growths.

The shield feeds on the juice of the bark, from which the shoot dries out over time

For spring treatment from scale insects, the drug Nitrafen is used. With small areas of infection, you can wipe the bushes with water with the addition of laundry soap and a few drops of kerosene in a bucket of water.

How to deal with a berry sawfly

Caterpillars of a berry sawfly eat out fruits from within. Berries ripen ahead of time, but eating them is impossible. But it is necessary to collect the affected fruits so that the pests do not get out. Pour the collected berries with water and boil to kill the larvae. If you just throw away the berries, then the caterpillars will continue to live, moving to the soil. Transforming into an insect, the berry sawfly will continue to harm currants.

You can get rid of the pest by digging the soil, mulching and hilling the bush. Plants are sprayed with insecticides before flowering.

Folk methods of combating diseases and pests of blackcurrant

The most common way that many gardeners use is to scald bushes with boiling water in early spring. This should be done as soon as the snow melts, but until the kidneys swell. Heat the water almost to a boil, then pour into a watering can and water the bushes on top of the branches. This procedure will not only help get rid of existing fungi and pest larvae, but also strengthen the plant's immunity.

Many gardeners now care about organic farming and prefer to use either industrial biological products or self-prepared infusions for spraying. Against gnawing and sucking pests, infusions of garlic, yarrow, calendula, dandelion, mustard, bitter pepper, wormwood, onion and other insecticide plants are used. Prepare solutions based on the calculation:

• herbal - a kilogram of crushed raw materials per 10 liters of water;
• garlic - 100 g of garlic per 10 l;
• onion - 200-200 g of onion mass per 10 l;
• pepper - 500 g of crushed pods of hot pepper per 10 l;
• mustard - 30-40 g of dry mustard powder per 10 liters.

Insist solutions from 12 to 24 hours. For better adhesion add soap or liquid soap. Be sure to spray the leaves from below. But these solutions can not be used during flowering.

To prevent fungal diseases, bushes process:

• a weak solution of potassium permanganate;
• ash solution (3 kg per 10 l of water);
• soda solution (40 g per 10 l of water).

Varieties of blackcurrant resistant to diseases and pests

New blackcurrant varieties are relatively resistant to certain diseases and pests. It is optimal to plant several varieties on the plot with different ripening periods and resistance to most diseases.

Table: Blackcurrant varieties resistant to common diseases and some pests

Photo gallery: main currant varieties resistant to diseases and pests

Video: centaur blackcurrant harvest

Reviews

Perhaps this is a spider mite. Damaged leaves first lighten, become mosaic, then turn brown, dry and fall off. It spreads with the help of wind, rain, insects and birds, and hibernates under fallen leaves. It is necessary to treat currants immediately after flowering with Neoron, Apollo or use colloidal sulfur (Thiovit, Cumus), as well as any other insecticides recommended for tick control.

Tatuniki

//www.forumhouse.ru/threads/6036/page-4

There is a tick in the kidney. Its presence is indicated by rounded buds in early spring, which will never bloom. This very tick, eating currant juice, spreads a terry virus whose flower brush will never give berries. Boiling water on a kidney tick - it helps a lot. Red swelling on the leaves of black currant - red-gall aphid, the muck is still that. Spraying the bottom of the foliage after picking berries is a good thing, and even better - when it first appears.

Lobelia

//www.forumhouse.ru/threads/6036/

I liked Titania. It is a winter and drought tolerant variety. Medium berries, good yield. What more could you want. Titania is also immune to certain fungal diseases.

Young farmer

//forum.prihoz.ru/viewtopic.php?t=5155

The best blackcurrant is the Tart. This summer I finished the test of this blackcurrant variety, which I was very pleased with. The most difficult thing was to get this variety first-hand, to be 100% sure that it was he. Got it, multiplied and tested. Indeed, it is the largest-fruited of all existing varieties that are now available, berries the size of a five-ruble coin, all as one, and this despite the fact that this season there was a severe drought. The variety belongs to the late, the taste of ordinary blackcurrant berries. I say this because I still grow another sort of blackcurrant - Pygmy, in our conditions it is early, and its berries are very sweet, they can be eaten and eaten without leaving the bush, but their size is inferior to Yadrennaya - this season the fruits barely reached ruble coin, although berries the size of a ruble coin are also considered large. I managed to grow the fruits of this variety with both a two-ruble and a five-ruble coin, but there were very few of them, and on Yadrenoy they are all one to one. Moreover, the variety is very productive, the bush is completely covered with fruits, the branches must be tied up, otherwise they may break under their weight. When we bring to the market berries of this variety, they are picked up instantly, and precisely because of the large-fruited.

labs

//fialka.tomsk.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=16709&start=15

There are a lot of diseases to which blackcurrant is subject, there are even more pests, but you can and should fight them. When choosing varieties of currants for a site, remember that with proper and timely care, the stability and yield of currant bushes significantly increase.