North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Thomas Olenio <tolenio@sentex.net>]

Hi Ed,

I have had great luck with my jostas here in Ontario.  The crop is large,
the berries are large, and very flavorful.  I see no disease in my plants
at all.

Sorry to say, I do not know the variety as the plants were supplied by a
friend who does not recall the variety.

Taste is very subjective, so I dare not comment on it.  But I find the
smell of black currants (Titania, etc.) to be invigorating, and we enjoy
black currant jelly, and tea.

We usually mix our currants when making jelly, and black currants are the
lowest percentage in the recipe, but what a wholesome smell they give a
jelly.

Don't all currants sucker?  Isn't the removal of older canes (3-4 years)
and allowing younger more fruitful canes to grow the standard for pruining
currants in general?

I also note that on Crandall (buffalo currant) the berries on the weeping
canes are larger.

Later,
Tom

--
Southwest Ontario
Canada Hardiness Zone 6a
(similar to US zone 5)

On Fri, 30 Aug 2002 Mauch1@aol.com wrote:

> >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
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