Gooseberry Amber

Amber is a very unpretentious gooseberry variety. Thanks to this, the plant is very popular among beginners, who often prefer it.

Amber cannot be called a young variety, because it is already over 50 years old. The author of the variety is M.A.Pavlova. The variety was obtained using English yellow, and the technique included free pollination. The experiment to create a new variety turned out to be so successful that the culture quickly became popular not only in the Russian Federation, but also in a number of other countries.

The height of Yantarnoye is from 1 to 1.5 meters, the gooseberry grows slightly spreading, but dense. There are single thorns on powerful shoots of the culture. The foliage is quite high, the leaves are medium, green. The edges are jagged.

Yantarny's fruits are rather large in size. A single berry can reach 5 grams in weight. The shape is a classic oval with a slight thickening of one of the ends. The color of the berries is yellow-orange, which is why the variety got its name. The veins on the fruits are light, and the skin is very dense, with few hairs. Ripe berries do not crumble, so you can take your time with the harvest.

Amber has a rich honey aroma. The taste is close to sweet and sour, but what exactly will dominate it depends on the weather. In hot summer conditions, the fruits are sweeter, and if the weather was mostly cool, then the berries will grow sour.

This is an early gooseberry variety, so the harvest in most regions is already harvested at the end of June. Sometimes the dates are shifted to the beginning of the second month of summer.

Proper care of this gooseberry variety provides high yield rates - up to 10 kg per bush. And thanks to the dense skin, the fruits are also transported for sale without any problems.

Amber gooseberries can be planted both in the sun and in partial shade, but the first option is still optimal, since this way the berries will turn out sweeter. The acidity of the soil should be at a low level, slightly alkaline soils are allowed. In general, experts recommend fertile loam for this variety. Like most plants, Amber does not like excessive moisture.

Planting time is usually determined by the climatic parameters of the region or the desire of the gardener himself. Early spring and late autumn types of planting are acceptable. Carrying out the procedure, do not forget about the introduction of fertilizers into the soil. So, in each hole it will be necessary to put two full buckets of humus and wood ash (1 glass). The roots need to be dipped in a chatterbox (a mixture of manure and clay).

Unlike many other seedlings, this one is planted without tilting, in an upright position. The growth point is left above the ground (5 centimeters). It is important to remember that it is impossible to ram the earth in the Yantarny circle near the trunk. But abundant watering is a mandatory stage of planting. Shoot pruning should be carried out up to 6 buds. The distance between bushes and rows is one and a half meters.

As already mentioned, growing Amber does not involve any complicated procedures. But young seedlings will need to pay more attention.

The plant needs regular but moderate watering. In the first year, you will have to water it once a week, always with warm water. Then the frequency of irrigation can be reduced. The amount of liquid in this case will be 3-5 buckets per bush. Water-charging irrigation is mandatory; it is carried out in the fall. For him you need to take about 7 buckets. If there is a whole gooseberry plantation on the site, it is better to give preference to a drip irrigation system.

In order for the roots of Amber to receive a lot of oxygen, the soil in the trunk circle must be loosened. The depth of treatment should be no more than 15 centimeters, otherwise the root system will be damaged. Often, loosening is carried out at the same time as weeding.

Without top dressing, the quality and quantity of the crop of this variety suffers greatly, therefore it is imperative to perform them. At the end of March, ammonium nitrate is applied under the bushes. The solution is easy, for this you just need to mix 20 grams of the product with a bucket of water. When flowering ends, it is recommended to use a mullein. It is diluted with liquid in a ratio of 1 to 8. After fruiting, the Yantarny bushes are fed with potassium chloride.

In addition to watering and fertilizing, you will also need to form a crown. In the case of this variety, this is done after the end of the leaf fall. First-year seedlings are shortened by 6 buds. The next two years, the shoots are cut by two-thirds. From the fifth year, you can only focus on sanitary trimmings.

Another mandatory point is the construction of a support. These can be trellises or pegs. You will need to tie up branches to them. So they will not suffer from the load of berries, and the harvest will be easier.

Amber, with good and proper care, will not have a tendency to disease at all. It resists American powdery mildew especially well. In rare cases, the plant gets sick with anthracnose and rust. Preventing such diseases will allow prophylactic treatment with fungicides.

In order to prevent pests from entering the site, it is recommended to plant herbs with a pungent aroma next to the gooseberry. A good solution would be to water the bushes with boiling water until the buds awaken. If pests do appear, then these are mainly sawflies and aphids. But again, parasites come only when the conditions of agricultural technology are violated.

Amber has a very high frost resistance, so it is almost never covered for the winter. Exceptions in this case will be seedlings 1-2 years old and bushes growing in very cold regions with snowless winters.

The responses about Yantarny are overwhelmingly positive. Summer residents praise the early ripening and long-term fruiting of culture bushes. They also like the taste of berries, a dense skin that makes it easy to transport the harvested crop. Gardeners did not ignore the ease of cultivation, resistance to the main diseases of berry.

The variety also has disadvantages, but without it, nowhere. The following disadvantages were noted:

• during heat treatment, the berries quickly boil, lose their taste;

• the bushes must be tied up, constructing supports next to them;

• the plant has sharp thorns, so care must be taken when harvesting;

• in cool summer, the berries grow sour;

• the rich shade of the fruit is a "beacon" for birds, and gardeners often have to spend money on repellents and other means to preserve the harvest.