North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[anton ptak <antonptak@gmail.com>]

the description of these currants does match my experience.  I should 
say that I have only a couple years experience with these currants.  
They are upright and compact.  I have them at 3' spacing and that seems 
good, though could probably go down to 2' if one were constrained with 
space.  I eat them out of hand but certainly there are those that would 
think I was nuts.  I do think their taste ranks up there, at least as 
good if not better than Titania (of course, that's completely 
subjective).  Their major distinction, as far as I have experienced, is 
their extreme precociousness, fruiting for me (quite surprisingly) very 
heavily in their 2nd year, and thus far, their immunity to disease.  I 
have several other varieties that seem to be at least somewhat 
susceptible to anthracnose/leaf spot at my site, if not very 
susceptible, but these have shown no signs of the disease or any effect 
whatsoever with many new canes every year.  They can be a little tricky 
to pick, as there are usually fully ripe currants and completely green 
currants on the same, tight cluster, making picking in the first couple 
weeks of production very time consuming.  If I were to delay picking 
until more of them come ripe, I'd lose a decent amount dropping of the 
plants, so selective picking seems necessary.

They also make a great dry wine with champagne yeast.

Now to search for the gooseberry that is resistant to leaf spot. . . . 
pixwell is horrible in that regard.  I'm currently trialing colossal, 
invicta, and black velvet, and soon to be planted hinomaki red.

Anton Ptak
zone 4a W. Wisc


PS> I have no idea what is meant by underground blooming. . . .???