[lordthanatos]

hi all,I'm rather confused as I've read various conflicting bits off advice about prunning currents and gooseberry.

they arrived as bare canes last year and this year was first fruiting reason.

some advise no pruning in the first year but some say to remove a third new growth on gooseberry and old wood on currents ?

can anyone advise as totally confused

many many thanks

[Stevens706]

I don't grow currents but I would prune back the gooseberries new wood by 1/2 (as recommended by Dr Hessayon) for the leaders and to 2 inch for the side shoots.

[sunshineband]

You won't have any old wood yet so don;t worry about the currants.

Are they blackcurrants? I assume so from 'cut out the old wood'

Just that redcurrants are pruned the same as gooseberries.

Prune your gooseberries in two stages - reducing new growth, as Stevens said - around now, and then in Spring cut out any branches that drag on the ground of cross in the centre.

The idea is to end up with a goblet shape with fruiting branches all around

Hope that helps

[mumofstig]

I found this helped, I got my goosegogs from them

Gooseberry Pruning
1.Pruning Gooseberries after Planting: After planting, trim all the branches by one half of their length, as described above.
2.Year Two: The following winter, around November, shorten all the main stems that you trimmed last year by one half of their new growth. Now inspect the new side shoots that appeared this year: use your judgement to choose the best placed ones (outward and upward facing, not congested with other branches) and shorten these stems by half as well, removing all the others. If there are any suckers or shoots low down on the trunk, remove these too - do this every year from now on (some bushes will do it more than others).

Pruning Whitecurrants & RedcurrantsAll pruning carried out in the first couple of years creates the form of the plant. Most pruning is done in the late winter or early spring when it is not freezing. A bush, grown on a leg which is 10-15cm of bare stem from the ground up, with an open centered, bowl shaped plant is the favoured form. This is done in the same way as for Gooseberry bushes, with one small but important difference: where gooseberries are a bit droopy, making it wise sometimes to prune them back to an inward and upward facing bud, Red and Whitecurrants should always be pruned back to an outward facing bud, as is normal for most plants.

quoted from http://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/