Gooseberries are a fairly common berry crop. Its advantages are high-fertility, high annual yield, early maturity, useful properties, nutritional value, therapeutic and dietary qualities, multifaceted use. Useful properties of gooseberries are that vitamin C in berries is in harmony with vitamin P, which is very important, since these vitamins most effectively work together.
.- Useful properties of gooseberry
- Botanical and biological features of gooseberries, its characteristics
The homeland of gooseberry is Canada, where its wild species grow almost to the Arctic Circle. The first information about him appeared in France in the XIII century. In the beginning, it was used as a shrub for hedges. Only in the 16th century gooseberries were introduced into culture in France, from where it spread throughout Europe. In America, it began to be cultivated much later.
According to the famous breeding scientist Claudia Dmitrievna Sergeeva in Russia, gooseberries were bred in monastery gardens as far back as the 11th century. However, this culture in Russia was widely developed in amateur gardens only in the XIX century due to the cultivation of the best European varieties.
Currently, the culture of gooseberries is widespread in Russia, Poland, Germany, England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and other countries. For example, in Hungary, the harvest of berries of this culture is 8-13 thousand. tons for a year, here cultivate varieties Zeld aroiash, Pallagi Oryash, Santendrej Feher, Piroš Izletesh. In the southern regions of Ukraine, it occupies 8-10% of the total area of the berry. On the territory of Russia gooseberries are widely distributed in the North-Western, Central, Central Black Earth, Volga-Vyatka, Volga region economic regions.
.Among berry crops gooseberry is the highest annual yield.
↑ back to content ↑Useful properties of gooseberry
The berries are beautiful, diverse, useful, have high taste, are rich sugars, acids, minerals, calories, well preserved when transported to distant distance. By transportability, it surpasses all other berry crops.
Berries contain organic acids up to 3, and sugars up to 13%. One hundred grams of fruits contain 200 mg of potassium, 75 - phosphorus, 30 - calcium, - iron, mg - 10% nitrogen compounds. The composition of biologically active substances of berries of gooseberry includes vitamin C (30-40 mg%), vitamin P (100-250, and its varieties with cherry coloring contain up to 700-1000 mg%), vitamin B, folic acid 05 5 mg%), vitamin A (carotene mg%). A high content of iron (, mg%) and serotonin (, mg%) - a compound that increases blood pressure in hypotensive patients and decreases in hypertensive patients is noted.
Berries of gooseberries are rich in P-active substances (kakhetins, anthocyanins). Due to the high content of pectin substances, they have the ability to bind in the human body, as well as remove radioactive elements from it - strontium, cobalt, others. This is another useful property of gooseberries.
Berries are recommended for the prevention of kidney, bladder, anemia. They promote the strengthening of blood vessels, are used for diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, with beriberi.
Gooseberries are a good raw material for making juices, jam, jelly, jam. Its fruits can be salted, they are an excellent ingredient in a combination of jam from apples, irgi, mountain ash, currants.
The most useful, valuable products from gooseberries are juice (plenty of pectins, prevention of radiation diseases), raw jam (significant content vitamin P, prevention of hypertension, vascular sclerosis) and jam rich in oxycoumarins (prevention of blood clotting, clotting of blood vessels with blood clots, heart attacks).
Berries of dessert varieties of gooseberries are distinguished by high qualities, great variety of taste, aroma. They are useful for fresh consumption, are recommended by medicine as a dietary product for preventive medical purposes. In addition, they can be used green or ripe.
Leaves of gooseberries are used as a hemostatic. Decoctions from leaves are used as a diuretic, with gastrointestinal colic, stomach disorders.
.Watch a video about the beneficial properties of gooseberries and the characteristics of some varieties.
↑ back to content ↑Botanical and biological features of gooseberries, its characteristics
Gooseberries belong to the family of gooseberry - Crossulariaccoe Dumont, genus - Grossularia Mill. The genus includes 52 species. We have only three species: rejected (to the European) - G. reclinata (L.) Mill., acicular - G.aciculatis (Smith) Spach and Burei (to the Middle East) - G. bureienses (Fr. Schm) Berger. However, a number of American species have been used to obtain many varieties cultivated in our country.
Among berry crops gooseberry is the most diverse morphological features.
Plants are a typical long, medium-to-large-shrub shrub in height, sometimes, m and, as a rule, of the same diameter.
According to the habitus, the crowns are distinguished by straight, compact, middle-sparse, spreading bushes. For the technology of mechanized cultivation, harvesting is more acceptable spongy and slaboroskidistaya forms of bushes.
.The root shoots of gooseberries are straight, deflected, bent, in many varieties with a hanging top, in the color of the upper part in summer - green, red, violet, different shades, in autumn after lignification - grayish, brown, dark brown, with or without waxy coating, pubescent or undressed, matte or shiny.
An important approbation feature is the spiky branches of gooseberry. Spines are single, 2-4-separate, long, short, thick, medium, thin, light or dark-colored.
The buds are pressed or deflected from the shoot, conical, oblong, with a sharp or blunt tip.
Leaves of gooseberry are simple, regular, 3-5-lobed, with deep or shallow notches, blunt or pointed apex, large, medium or small. The color is green, light green, yellowish green. The surface of the plate is straight, convex or concave, wrinkled or smooth, leathery or soft, shiny or dull, with or without pubescence. The base of the sheet is straight, convex or with a notch. Teeth short, medium or long, obtuse or pointed, bent or unbent.
.Leaves of vegetative shoots and fruit-bearing branches of gooseberry are not the same. They vary in size, shape, color. More permanent, typical, distinctive features are the leaves of the middle part of annual vegetative shoots.
Inflorescence (flowering brush) is located in the sinuses of the leaf. They are reduced, in them 1-3, sometimes 4-5 flowers.
Flowers up to, cm. They consist of a nondescript pericarp, a bell-shaped calyx formed by five crooked sepals, and five very small petals. The sepals are greenish or greenish-red, pale or bright, fused at the base into the tube. Petals are white, greenish, pink, reddish or yellowish, alternating freely with five stamens. Pestle is one pakarapny, consisting of two carpels, at the top bifurcated. Ovary inferior, single-cavity, many-seeded, including 25-16-ovules. Fruit is a false berry, in the formation of which the receptacle participates.
The main distinguishing feature of gooseberry varieties is fruits (berries). The size of the fruits are divided into large (weighing 4 grams or more), medium (weight from 2 to 4 g), small (weighing up to 2 g), in shape - round, round, round-oval, oval, pear-shaped, oblong and others.
The color of the berries is whitish, green, yellow, red, purple, pink, golden, dark red, black.
In this case, each color may have different shades, the skin of the fruit - thin, medium, thick, tender or dense; pubescence of the skin is simple, glandular, sometimes mixed.
In the American gooseberry varieties, the berries are covered with a waxy coating of different density, color (more often gray or purple). The venation is distinguished by the nature of branching. Habits can be parallel, without bridges or (in most varieties) branched. Pedicel can be long, medium, short, conical or cylindrical in shape. The calyx, which remains dried on the top of the fruit, can be open, half-open, covered.
To taste, berries are distinguished by sweet, sour-sweet, sour.
An adult bush of gooseberries consists of several axial radical branches that are formed from sleeping and adnexal buds located at the base of the stem. Basal (zero) shoots in the first year reach a height of up to 1 m and almost do not branch. Kidneys on annual shoots are growth. In the second year, the branches of the second, third and subsequent orders are formed in the lower part of the annual shoots. From the apical bud develops a continuation shoot, which in its length is much less than the growth of the previous year. Then the value of annual increments along the central axis and lateral branches decreases. Thus, the developed basal shoots, forming lateral branches, turn into branches, and then begin to bear fruit.
The first flowering buds of gooseberries are more often laid on the third year of life on second-order ramifications, sometimes on one-two-year, even on zero shoots. In their structure they are mixed. After fruiting from the same kidney, a small replacement shoot grows. Thus, short (about 3 cm) fetuses (rings) are formed. In a number of varieties they live, bear fruit for 2-3 years, in others, with the formation of the next lateral branches, they turn into bouquet twigs (up to 5 cm in length) that can live and bear fruit for 10-15 years. In most cases, the maximum yield gives 1-2 years of growth on branches of 4-7 years of age.
A bush of gooseberries should have 15-25 branches. Branches grow well and bear fruit until a certain age, then their growth weakens or ceases altogether, the berries become small, the yield decreases, the branches grow old, die. In order to avoid a significant decline in yields, old branches are cut out, replaced with new ones.
In one place with good care, gooseberries can grow, yield for 25-30 years. However, the greatest productivity of this crop is observed within 12-15 years.
In internodes of shoots of gooseberries are formed altered leaves - thorns. Most of them at the base of the kidneys. Depending on the type of spikes, there may be from 1 to 4 pieces, up to 2 cm in length. There are varieties (Russian, Finik, etc.), in which, for the second year of life, the branch, up to half its length, self-cleanses of spines. In summer, in the axils of the thorns, as well as in the interstice of the shoots, kidneys are formed, from which new shoots are formed, and then branches.
The root system is gooseberry, vertical direction. The main mass of roots is concentrated in a 50-cm layer of soil, only individual roots penetrate to a depth of up to, m. In Kuban on superhumid little humus chernozem - up to 2, m. Roots, as a rule, spread under the crown of the bush at a distance to, m from it center.
Among berry crops, gooseberry, along with the currant is distinguished by the earliest bud opening. Its vegetation begins even at an average daily temperature above 5 ° C. The most intensive growth of radical shoots occurs during the flowering period, as well as at the beginning of the formation of berries.
The vast majority of species, varieties of gooseberry are self-fertile. However, the degree of their self-fertility varies significantly. According to the degree of self-fertility (binding of berries during self-pollination), varieties of gooseberry are divided into four groups:
- with good self-fertility (30-42%) - Moscow red, Russian, Russian yellow, Plum, Malachite, Shift;
- with average self-fertility (20-30%) - African, Northern grapes, Houghton, Prunes, Finik, English yellow, Jubilee, Brazilian, Pink early;
- with low self-fertility (5-14%) - Chelyabinsk green, Slaboshishovaty 3, Chernomor, Bureinsky;
- self-fruit (less than 3%) - variety Record and wild species - Powerful, Spreading, Dyeing, Beshipny, Altai mountain.
Despite the self-fertilization, the presence of several varieties of gooseberries on the site improves pollination, increases the yield. Pollinators are bees.
.After the flowering and fertilization of the flower, the ovary of gooseberry begins to increase rapidly. The length of the period from tying to full ripening of berries depends on the variety, meteorological conditions. This period lasts 2 a month. Terms of full ripening of berries are (roughly):
- Leningrad region - the first half of August,
- Tambov region - the first days of July and beginning of August,
- Krasnodar region is the middle of June.
