Black Currant Problem

[sherwindu]

My neighbor has just planted a row of black currants, close to my south property line. While trying to find some advice for him on growing them, I came across several references that state this plant can cause white pine blister rust and for that reason, it is not heavily planted in gardens. I have a white pine tree at the northeast corner of my house. Should I be concerned about potential problems? If there are any, does anyone have a suggestion on how to minimize the problem? I see there are some disease resistant varieties of black currant, but since he got these plants from a friend who can't identify them, it's very risky. I live in the Chicago area.

Sherwin D.

[Henriette Kress]

Crush a leaf and smell it.

Heavenly scent? Congrats, you actually have a real black currant, Ribes nigrum, which can carry a disease.

No scent? You have a Ribes aureum with large black berries, of no consequence to any vegetation around them.

Henriette

[Ben Sharvy]

Ribes aureum is carrier for white pine blister rust. Virtually all Ribes species can carry the disease.

[sherwindu]

Yes, but aren't the black varieties more susceptible than the red? I am excluding the few variations of cultured currants where they have been bred to be resistant to this disease.

Sherw> > sherw> >

[theoneflasehaddock]

SImply don't plant them near white pines (or any other five-needle pine). According to most of what I've heard, you want them at least 30 feet away from pines.

A couple cultivars, most notably Titania, are immune to it.

Resistance may help the currant, but resistant currants can still spread the disease to pines.

-

theoneflasehaddock

[Ben Sharvy]

The currant isn't susceptible to the disease at all. It is strictly a carrier.

Planting 30 feet away is a poor solution. You can't control where the leaves blow, where the squirrels and butterflies go, and so on.

[Steve]

Ben Sharvy wrote: .............................

Well that certainly isn't true. Currants do get the disease and are damaged by it. It may not kill the currant as it often does the white pine, but it does get the disease. I just did a search and the first site to come up happened to be from the place where I spent the last 4 years of my college career:

response to the previous poster, how could resistant currants still spread the disease to the pines? The disease must live its life cycle to continue. How can a currant that doesn't get the disease and doesn't produce the orange fruiting bodies on the under side of the leaf spread the disease to anything? If it's not producing the fungus spores, how can the disease get over the the pines?

Steve

[Ben Sharvy]

[sherwindu]

If the currant is resistant to the disease, how can they spread it to the white pine???

Sherwin D.

the> >Subject: Re: Black Currant Problem