Purple Gooseberry vs Hinnomaki Red

Purple Gooseberry is an unidentified cultivar growing on our farm. The medium sized berries ripen purple in late summer.

The parent shrub grows beneath an old spruce in full shade. Rooted plants have also grown quickly in dry, neglected sites in full sun, suggesting useful drought and shade tolerance.

Hinnomaki Red Gooseberry is a hardy Finnish cultivar with small round red berries. The fruit has a sweet tart flavour with a hint of raspberry.

The compact bush has arching branches that can begin producing heavily in its second year. Hinnomaki Red has good resistance to common gooseberry diseases, including powdery mildew.

Hardiness reference: Cultivar reference: recommendation: USDA Zone 3 and warmer; cultivar table rating: Excellent to very good; table context: Hardiness (zone 5 to zone 3); This is a U.S. USDA-zone recommendation, not a Canadian plant-hardiness-zone conversion; No inference is made from Manitoba spring-frost tolerance.. Mature height: Cultivar reference: range: 1 to 1.5 m; Age, pruning regime and propagation/root system are not specified on the observed profile.. Fruit size: Cultivar reference: diameter: 15; qualifier: approximately mm; Retail description rather than a measured trial statistic; The same page gives a 3.4–4.8 g fruit-weight range, but its upper endpoint is not relabelled here as an observed maximum-fruit-mass statistic.. Flavour reference: Cultivar reference: attribution: University of Minnesota Extension cultivar table; description: sweet, flavourful berries with tart skin.. Ripening reference: Source trial: three year average date: 2 July; year dates: 2007: 23 June; 2008: 30 June; 2009: 9 July; comparison to pixwell: 8 days earlier on the reported three-year average date; Polish calendar dates are trial observations, not Manitoba harvest predictions; The 8-day comparator is simple calendar subtraction within this same trial, not a cross-source average.. Pollination: Cultivar reference: second cultivar required for fruit set: no; crop group statement: Most gooseberries/Ribes are self-fruitful; a second cultivar of the same type may improve productivity; insect visitation is still relevant to pollen transfer.; This is crop-group guidance rather than a controlled Hinnomaki Red pollination trial; No interspecific compatibility between Hinnomaki Red and another Ribes is inferred..