Seeing gooseberries, white bloom on berries, gardeners, faced with this problem for the first time, give up in bewilderment. Yes, this is a shrub disease called "powdery mildew". At first, the plaque is less noticeable: an almost invisible "hoarfrost" can be seen on the berries and leaves.
These are fungal disease spores that grow and infect the plant more and more. If the shrub is not treated, the white bloom becomes more and more expressive and gathers into whole fluffy flakes, hitting the berries and leaves. Further, it changes in color - it becomes brown with black dots (fruiting bodies of mushrooms). The shrub begins to lose its shoots - they dry, the berries crumble. The next summer, the disease progresses even more, as the spores multiply more intensively, and as a result, the plant dies.
What should I do if gooseberries are covered with white powdery mildew?
If, after examining the gooseberries, you notice a white coating on the berries only at the initial stage, it is necessary to take the necessary measures to stop the development of a fungal disease. At the initial stage (as in our case), the best way is spraying. Activesubstances for this purpose can be ordinary laundry soap and blue vitriol.
Take 20 g of copper sulfate and 150 g of laundry soap for 10 liters of water. Copper sulfate is best diluted in not too hot water. Pour the thoroughly mixed mixture in a stream into the prepared soap solution. Laundry soap can be grated on a coarse grater. When spraying, special attention should be paid to areas affected by spores. To prevent the onset of the disease, it is advisable to spray the gooseberries completely (in this case, a white bloom will not appear at all), as well as the soil around it.
Gooseberry by its nature is an unpretentious shrub, but it needs to be carried out regularly, every spring, for prevention against fungal diseases. If we talk about currants, then fungal spores often infect its leaves and young shoots, while on gooseberries the berries are damaged: they wrinkle, dry and fall off. If the shrub is running and your gooseberries are white, the bloom on the berries is already clearly visible, you need to act immediately. All shoots heavily affected by fungi should be cut and burned. Do not be afraid that the bush will not give you fruit this year. But you will save him from an insidious disease - powdery mildew.
Prevention of disease occurrence
In order to prevent bloom on the berries next summer, carefully treat the shrub with the above mixture in early spring or use special ready-made preparations for spraying - Cumulus, Thiovit Jet or Vectra.
You canpurchase at any hardware store or supermarket.
For the purpose of prevention, start spraying the plant at the moment when the first young leaves appear. Treat with the selected preparation not only young shoots, but also the ground around the shrub itself. The second spraying should be carried out during the flowering period, the third - during the formation of the ovary. When the berries ripen, use more gentle preparations for prevention.
If you follow our recommendations, your gooseberries will be he althy, the white bloom on the berries will not bother you, and you will definitely reap the harvest!
