Department: Fruit
National Collection of Ribes.
Helped finish pruning gooseberries trained as cordons, cutting any long side shoots from current season's growth down to roughly 5 lvs/ 5 nodes. Taking off bottom branches approx. 2 inches from the ground, as fruit from these will just be likely to be lying on the ground. If the plant hadn't reached the full height of the cane it was trained on, then an unshortened leader branch is left for training in, in winter (it is often tied to the cane to help this be identified). You can see that the fruit tends to sprout from where it has been cut - which makes sense because they grow mainly on older wood.
A lot of the gooseberries are riddled with gooseberry mildew, so we cleared the ground of fallen fruit as much as possible. The mildew on the fruit appears first as a white fungal mould which then turns brown, patches that become bigger and bigger. This can be rubbed off though and be fine for consumption. It also affects the leaves and branches, distorting them and causing them to die back. This perhaps was apparent on some bushes than just any kind of branch die back because the fruit would still be hanging off the dead branches. More useful info of gooseberry mildew from RHS website: https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=739
Fruit are also affected by Drosophila suzukii, so fruit from clearing/ pruning process were put in a plastic bucket with a lid. Lid has a fine gauze circle. This is to get the waste to a hot temperature which kills off the larvae (the adults don't live long), this helps control the mildew also. They have to be kept in these buckets for at least 48 hours, the fruit team often leave it for longer, before it is put in the main compost skip.
For winter pruning like red & white currants trained in this way - sideshoots are cut down to a further two buds. The leader/ tip is cut back to one third - this helps stimulate growth and side shoots to grow.
Generally winter pruning - stimulates growth, summer pruning restricts vigour. The principle of this summer and winter prune is to expose fruit and fatten up buds.
Oiled strimmer heads.
Pear thinning. For pears we leave two to a bunch every palm's width. Jim's advice is to feel the fruit rather than even to look at it.
Useful RHS link re fruit thinning:
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=340