My dad has an old gooseberry bush. A couple of years ago, he noticed that
after the gooseberries had finished, some dark berries formed near the top
of the plant. This has been happening for a couple of years now. Looking at
the bush, the branches near the top have slightly different leaves, that
looks like currant bush leaves.

I spoke to an horticulturalist at college and he said that this might be
some sort of reversion, and I need to find out the ancestor of the gooseberry
bush to find out what the berries were. He suspected that they were currants.

Has anyone else ever seen a gooseberry bush do this?

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/

On Sat, 9 Jul 2011 22:02:47 +0000 (UTC), Mark Hobley
wrote:

My dad has an old gooseberry bush. A couple of years ago, he noticed that
after the gooseberries had finished, some dark berries formed near the top
of the plant. This has been happening for a couple of years now. Looking at
the bush, the branches near the top have slightly different leaves, that
looks like currant bush leaves.

I spoke to an horticulturalist at college and he said that this might be
some sort of reversion, and I need to find out the ancestor of the gooseberry
bush to find out what the berries were. He suspected that they were currants.

Has anyone else ever seen a gooseberry bush do this?

Mark.

It's a hybrid. There are lots of hybrid berry bushes.

Steve

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The ancestor of the gooseberry was one of a number of wild gooseberry species, usually Ribes uva-crispa.

The theory that you have a sucker from a rootstock sounds more likely.

On Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:16:04 +0100, Chris Hogg wrote:

I know nothing about gooseberries, but a picture would be helpful. Is
there any chance it's a sucker come up from rootstock below a graft?

No. It's not grafted. The "currant" branches comes from the side of a single
stem. I have got some pictures on my mobile phone, but I can't upload these
at the moment, due to a fault on my system.

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/

On Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:07:49 +0100, Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:

It's a hybrid. There are lots of hybrid berry bushes.

Is it common for these to revert to give two types of fruit? So do you
reckon that the top ones are definitely currants?

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/

On 10/07/2011 17:47, Mark Hobley wrote:
On Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:07:49 +0100, Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:

It's a hybrid. There are lots of hybrid berry bushes.

Is it common for these to revert to give two types of fruit? So do you
reckon that the top ones are definitely currants?

Mark.

There is a Blackcurrant reversion virus but I don't think it affects
gooseberries. We need to see those pictures. You could have something
quite different.

On Sun, 10 Jul 2011 16:47:57 +0000 (UTC), Mark Hobley
wrote:

On Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:07:49 +0100, Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:

It's a hybrid. There are lots of hybrid berry bushes.

Is it common for these to revert to give two types of fruit? So do you
reckon that the top ones are definitely currants?

Mark.

It's not common at all but if it is propagated by seed rather than
cuttings anything could happen.

Steve

--
Neural network software applications, help and support.

Neural Planner Software www.NPSL1.com