Why is gooseberry white? The raid on berries is curable!

Seeing gooseberries, white plaque on berries, gardeners, faced with this problem for the first time, drop their hands in perplexity. Yes, it is a bush disease called "powdery mildew". At first, the raid is less noticeable: on the berries and leaves you can see an almost invisible "hoarfrost". This is a fungus spore disease that grows and affects the plant more and more. If the bush is not treated, the white coating becomes more expressive and gathers into whole fluffy flakes, hitting berries and leaves. Then it changes in color - it becomes brown with black dots (the fruiting bodies of fungi). The shrub starts to lose its shoots - they dry, berries crumble. The following summer the disease progresses even more, as spores reproduce more intensively, and as a result the plant dies.

What if the fruits of gooseberries were covered with a white powdery mildew?

If, after examining gooseberries, you notice a white raid on the berries only in the initial stage, you need to take the necessary measures to stop the development of fungal disease. At the initial stage (as in our case) the best way is spraying. Active substances for this purpose can be ordinary household soap and copper sulfate. Take 20 g of copper sulfate and 150 g of laundry soap per 10 liters of water. Copper sulfate is best diluted in not too hot water. Thoroughly mix the mixture with a trickle into the prepared soapy solution. Household soap can be rubbed on a large grater. When spraying, special attention should be paid to places affected by spores. To prevent the onset of the disease, it is desirable to spray completely gooseberry (white coating in this case does not appear at all), And also the soil around it.

Gooseberries are naturally unpretentious, but it should be prevented against fungal diseases regularly, every spring. If we talk about the currant, the spores of fungi are often affected by its leaves and young shoots, on the gooseberry the berries are damaged: they frown, dry and fall off. If the bush is running and your gooseberry is white, the raid on the berries is already well discernible, you need to act immediately. All shoots, strongly affected by mushrooms, should be cut off and burned. Do not be afraid that the bush will not give you fruits this year. But you will save him from an insidious disease - powdery mildew.

Prevention of the onset of the disease

In order that the raid on the berries did not appear the next summer, in the early spring, carefully treat the bush with the above mixture or use for spraying special ready-made preparations - "Cumulus", "Tivit Jet" or "Vectra". You can buy them at any hardware store or supermarket.

For the purpose of prevention, start spraying the plant at the time when the first young leaves appeared. Treat not only the young shoots with the selected preparation, but also the soil around the bush itself. The second spraying should be done during the flowering period, the third - during the formation of the ovary. When ripening berries, use for the prevention of more sparing drugs.

If you follow our recommendations, then your gooseberry will be healthy, a white raid on berries will not bother you, and you will certainly gather the harvest!