7 Step Blackcurrant Pruning Routine with Felco 2 Secateurs on Ben Lomond Bushes

Ben Lomond is a Scottish-bred blackcurrant, released by the Scottish Crop Research Institute in 1975, and it fruits best on young wood. One-year-old shoots and two-year-old laterals carry most of the crop. Three-year-old wood produces less, while older stems fill space and shade the centre. The Felco 2, a bypass secateur with a 25mm cut capacity, handles most blackcurrant stems cleanly. A crushed cut heals slowly and gives coral spot an easy entry point.

Read the stool before cutting

Circle the bush before the first stem comes out. A mature Ben Lomond that has been in the ground three or four years often has eight to twelve main stems rising from below soil level. Blackcurrants are stooled plants, sending shoots from the base, so renewal happens at ground level.

Growth from the last season is pale, tan and smooth. Two-year-old wood is darker and carries side shoots. Older wood turns near-black, grows gnarled and develops cracked bark.

In poor January light, scrape a sliver of bark with the Felco blade. Bright green tissue underneath marks productive wood worth keeping.

Choose the removals before cutting, because the shape of the bush changes quickly once whole stems leave the stool. The usual target is about one third of the oldest wood each year, with a spread of ages left behind for cropping and renewal.

Steps one to three: remove dead, diseased and damaged wood

Start with wood that comes out regardless of age. Dead stems are brittle and grey, with little flex when handled. Diseased stems include those carrying the orange pustules of coral spot or the swollen buds associated with big bud mite. Damaged stems are the ones broken by wind or snow load, especially where tissue has split and torn.

Cut each affected stem flush to a healthy junction, or take it right down to the base if the whole stem is involved. Big bud deserves particular attention. The mite, Cecidophyopsis ribis, swells dormant buds into round, soft balls in place of the normal pointed bud.

If more than a handful of swollen buds sit on one stem, remove that stem at ground level and bag it. Do not compost it. A heavily infested bush past saving is sometimes better grubbed out entirely, because the mite carries reversion virus, reversion has no cure, and yields collapse over a few seasons. In the UK, big bud mite is the single biggest threat to a blackcurrant planting.

These first three cuts usually remove two or three stems from a healthy bush. A neglected bush can lose considerably more. Sterilise the Felco blade between bushes after cutting diseased material. Surgical spirit on a rag takes only seconds and helps stop coral spores moving from one plant to the next.

Step four: cut out a third of the oldest stems

Move on to the productive pruning once the obvious problems are gone. Find the oldest near-black stems, the three-year-old and older wood, and cut about a third of them out at the base. On a bush with nine main stems, that means three stems.

Reach down with the Felco and cut as low as possible, ideally below the soil line where the stem meets the stool. Leave no stub to rot.

The bush responds by pushing new basal shoots, using energy that had been supporting tired wood. Those new basal shoots become next season’s fruiting wood. Choose cuts that open the centre, especially stems leaning inward or crossing others, so air can move through the bush. A damp, crowded middle gives American gooseberry mildew a foothold, and a blackcurrant fruiting in those conditions loses part of the crop to mildew most years.

A note on blade angle

Place the thin blade against the retained side of the cut. That position leaves the smoothest face on the stem that stays in the bush.

Steps five and six: thin weak growth, leave strong young wood

After the old wood is out, check the base again. Remove thin, whippy shoots crowding the stool, especially anything thinner than a pencil. They will not carry decent fruit and they compete for light. Take them out at the base, leaving strong, well-spaced stems around the stool.

The next cut should be minimal. The remaining one-year-old shoots, the pale tan growth kept for next year’s crop, generally need no shortening. Blackcurrants are not spur-pruned like apples, so healthy young wood stays full length.

The exception is a tip that is spindly or frost-damaged. Snip that back to the first plump, healthy bud. Leave the rest alone. Every bud removed from young wood could have become a fruit truss in July, and Ben Lomond is generous with trusses because it fruits along the length of the previous season’s growth.

At this stage, a well-managed bush may have lost a quarter to a third of its visible wood. The centre should be open, with stems of three ages spaced around the stool. Once the age of the wood is easy to read, one established bush usually takes ten to fifteen minutes.

Step seven: clean and service the Felco 2

Wipe both blades before the secateurs go back in the shed. Blackcurrant sap dries into a hard varnish on the blade and gums the pivot. Remove dried residue with a little WD-40 or methylated spirit on wire wool, working with the grain of the metal.

The Felco 2 is built for maintenance. The blade is replaceable, the spring is replaceable, and the bolt adjusts. If the cut began to drag during pruning, the blade may need honing on a Felco 600 sharpening stone, or the pivot bolt may need a quarter turn tighter.

Put a drop of oil on the spring and pivot. Check that the locking catch still seats cleanly. The same secateurs will often be needed for rose pruning a few weeks later. A sharp secateur cuts on the push with little effort, and a clean blackcurrant wound can callus by spring, while a ragged one sits open to fungal spores through winter.

Timing, cuttings and new bushes

Dormant pruning runs from leaf fall in November through to bud break. On Ben Lomond, bud break is usually late February or early March, with the exact timing shaped by how far north the garden sits.

That pruning window overlaps neatly with hardwood cuttings. One-year-old stems removed during steps four and five make excellent propagation material. Trim them to roughly 20cm lengths, each with four or five buds, then push them two thirds deep into a slit trench of gritty soil. Most will root by the following autumn. A mature bush thinned every winter can quietly supply enough cuttings for a new row.

For newly planted Ben Lomond, one established approach is to cut the bush hard to two buds above ground in the first dormant season. That sacrifices the first year’s fruit to build a stronger stool. If using that approach, make the cut during dormancy and count the lost first crop as part of establishment. In practice, the payback from that first sacrifice shifts with the generosity of the planting hole, leaving one question unresolved: how much of the stronger stool comes from the pruning cut itself, and how much from the ground beneath the stool?