Captivator is one kind of spineless gooseberry. I think there are a few other names that are spineless as well.
Nearly spineless cultivars have been developed, but the most popular cultivars, such as ‘Welcome’, and ‘Pixwell’ have short spines. Here's a tidbit I found on the web:
One of the main goals of breeding is obtaining spineless gooseberry cultivars. The results of distant interspecific hybridization within genus Grossularia Mill. have been the most promising ones. In the result of crosses between European cultivars and derivatives of North-American species the following weak spiny and basically spineless cultivars have been obtained: Chernomor, Chernoslivovyi, Slaboshipovatyi 3, Shalun, Sirius, Yubilyar, Grossular, Serenada. Convergent crosses, backcross and inbreeding are considered to be the main up-to-date methods of breeding.
The most promising parents and cross combinations have been selected out of the 6700 seedlings. Spineless cv. Chernoslivovyi seems to be the best donor for spinelessness.
The analysis of spineless trait changes in ontogenesis has shown spiny seedlings predominance in the first year after seeds sowing. A significant increase of the share of seedlings with parents traits among hybrids from spineless and weak spiny cultivars is observed in the 2nd and 3rd years. Therefore a rigid discard of hybrids for spiny trait should not be made in the first year of vegetation. I've got a question for you: Would I be wasting my time growing and maturing seedlings from my Josta plant? They would be josta F2's, since they developed without any other currants or gooseberries around. What would you expect from such seedlings? BTW, the seeds lasted the whole winter in the ground, then sprouted under my josta plant, I'd say these are pretty hardy :) Could you arrive at another sort of 'josta' by crossing a spineless gooseberry with a red or white currant? I've always wondered about that. And why the true Josta had to be made with black currant? Ribes are very interesting eh? |
