North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Alan Haigh <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

Richard noted "At the New Hampshire NAFEX meeting we visited a small fruit grower who
had several long rows of 'Consort'.  Turns out it was wasted space as
he could not sell the fruit, even to those who had tasted other
cultivars of black currants."

 

I would suggest that this was due to poor marketing and a lack of understanding of the fruit by the grower.  Of course most Americans would have no desire for the raw fruit of Consort.  It needs to be cooked and sweetened in some way to be pallatable to most of us.  Consort and Crusader have a very strong cat pissy taste and odor when raw and are much too tart for most people.  Flash cook a bunch of them and put in a blender with fresh apple cider, pass the mixture through a strainer and drink.  If that doesn't immediately reveal the possibilities of even the strongest tasting black currants to you nothing will.

 

I am still not convinced that the fact that the ribes that are particularly susceptible to PBR are necessarily likely to infect nearby white pines.  I'm not saying they aren't but some actual evidence of infection rates being increased on white pine in the vicinity of susceptible ribes would be convincing.  I admit to being largely ignorant on this issue and am asking for some more specific evidence out of curiosity. 

 

My susceptible black currants and many white pines continue to coexist without any disease.  Maybe I've just been lucky.