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How to grow delicious blackcurrants despite climate change

Blackcurrant bushes struggle with increasingly warmer winters brought on by rising temperatures, but there are new varieties that will fare better, says Clare Wilson

18 November 2020

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Irina Naoumova/Alamy

IF YOU think your garden or gardening skills aren’t up to growing fruit, think again. Blackcurrant bushes are very easy to care for and they take up little space – perhaps a couple of square metres each.

I do little to my own plant, apart from throwing some garden netting over it every summer for a month or so to stop the birds from stealing the crop. I hold the netting away from the fruits with a ramshackle structure of bamboo canes, which can be taken down once the berries are picked.

Blackcurrants’ weakness, though, is a potential vulnerability to climate…

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