North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Mauch1@aol.com]

>This brings up a question I have had.....I bought a josta 3 years back, it 
>is now5 feet tall, hasn't so much as bloomed yet. When do these things 
>produce?
>I propagated a bunch from sticks this last spring and they have grown 3 
>times as much as any other ribes I propagated, impressive growth.
>Would not they make a good rootstock? Are they worth grafting to?  If so,  
>what kind of graft?  Del

First my experience:
I started two jostaberries from cuttings, but later lost one
to Roundup poisoning :-)

I get a "decent" crop.  One thing I do is to thin out the 
branches and prune to the weakest branches.  I think (on
Jostas) the weaker branches are more fruitful.  Not all
the blossoms set.  And they are hard to pick as the come in
small strigs (3-4) that do not ripen evenly.  They don't have 
a very strong blackcurrant flavor (which is a benefit for 
fresh eating [raw blackcurrants I would compare to eating 
dirt, although I admit I've never eaten dirt], but they would
probably not be as flavorful in jams or jelly.  Spacewise 
they are huge (3-4 ft high and nearly as wide) because of that 
hybrid vigor.  I would say that Gooseberries are far more
fruit/volume efficent than jostaberres (but they have no 
thorns) and do not taste as good as gooseberries.  They do 
ripen before the gooseberries, and I didn't lose their fruit 
to animals like I did my gooseberries this year.

Second I remembered that Ed Mashburn had said something about 
Jostas and grafting a while ago (msg 3056 in yahoogroups 
[April 11, 2000]):
<<Jostaberries

There has been a lot of discussion of Jostaberries recently, so I will
throw in my .02 cents worth. I have been growing Jostas for a number of
years and feel that I have seen a lot of what everybody has said about
them, the good and the bad. 

The "real" Jostas, that started the interest were bred and released by Dr.
Bauer in Germany some years ago. They were selections of crosses of
gooseberry and black currant. They were supposed to have many of the good
points of both. There are no spines, they were robust upright plants that
were not susceptible to mildew nor Blister Rust, and they were to bear
great quantities of large, delicious berries. As part of the aftermath of
the announcement there were a flurry of "Jostas" that were offered in this
country with each claim better than the last. These were, for the lack of a
better term, generic jostas. They were in fact, crosses, but not the
selections that Dr. Bauer had made. Any fruit breeder and most growers will
tell you that just because a seedling has the same parents it may not
produce the same results. Dr. Bauer named and patented the best of his
Jostas and they have not been available in the US, they have been hung up
in the plant quarantine system for a number of years. Some, or at least
one, has now been released from quarantine and may become available in the
near future. The issue of patent and protection of breeders rights has not
been established and is complicated because Dr. Bauer died and his wife now
has those rights. The paperwork of this may take some time to resolve.

The "Jostas" that I have grown have given very mixed results. They are NOT
mildew resistant, they do NOT generally produce heavy crops (though there
have been some high yields at times), the berries are have averaged about
1.5 to 2.0 grams (the size of large black currants), and are not easily
picked. They are best processed into jams, pies and other products. I have
not been inclined to recommend them. I have used them as rootstocks for
grafting gooseberries for about ten years. I find that they certainly are
not ideal, the best results are obtained grafting to small young rooted
cuttings. Many of these cutting sucker badly, even though I have removed
all buds below ground level. I have found that when the suckers appear they
should be removed at once, otherwise they will grow large, tall and
rapidly, and once a plant suckers, it tends to continue to do so. 

Jostas have been compatible with all the gooseberry scions that I have
used, however, the grafting is a bit more difficult than on pomes, the
gooseberry cambium is much thinner and the unions not as stable for several
years. Jostas do produce a large, much deeper root system and seem to
induce slightly earlier fruiting and maybe a little larger fruit. I have
had better success grafting to Jostas than to the Pelaggi II rootstocks
that are used in Europe.

In conclusion, my feeling is the present stock that is available is only
fair and I will be growing and evaluating the "real" Jostas as they become
available.

Ed Mashburn
Northumberland BerryWorks
(570) 473-9910
Ed@c...
WWW.Currants.com

>>

Chris Mauchline
SE PA, zone 6