What's wrong with my blackcurrants?

[DarrellMakepeace]

The currants never ripened up and are now covered in this whitish bloom, looking like sad blueberries!

And the leaves are looking less than healthy even though I might expect some discolouration at this time of the year.

These plants are grown from cuttings off plants I had before moving house a few years ago. The parent plants were perfectly healthy.

I'm wondering if it could be a virus?

The bloom is likely to be mildew, usually the result of too little water and not much air movement. Leaf discolouration is often mineral deficiency. So moving into better quality soil, making sure they get enough water may be the solution.

It's strange how they never ripened and just fossilized on the stem. Air movement isn't that much of a problem where they are and I can lift them and improve the soil.

A friend has one of the same series of plants which I gave him. It's been left in its pot. Not very fruitful this year but leaves are good and healthy so it's kind of a control for the others.

Is that definitely a black currant? Those look like the berries I get on my flowering currant. Does it have lovely flowers in spring?

Well I did wonder if some of my plants/cuttings had got mixed up because in the spring, 2 plants had pink flowers on and one had white. I think that blackcurrants always have white flowers?

Anyway now all the plants look the same.

The reason I asked is because I have a habit of mixing up my own cuttings I guess wait until spring and separate out the ones with pretty pink flowers (black currant flowers are pretty unnoticeable compared to flowering currants).

Blackcurrant flowers are fairly nondescript and greenish