Black Currant (Ribes nigrum) KARINA

Blackcurrant 'Karina' (syn. BRi 9502-1A, Karin)

'Karina' is a modern, highly productive blackcurrant variety resulting from a successful international breeding program. It stands out primarily for its very large fruits with good taste, high yield, and comprehensive resistance to diseases and pests.

Blackcurrant 'Karina'

It is a robust and reliable variety, ideal for both commercial plantations and home gardens.

Main advantages of the variety:

• Very large fruits (ideal for hand picking and the fresh market).
• Very high yield.
• Good taste.
• Comprehensive and very good resistance to fungal and viral diseases.
• Good resistance to the blackcurrant gall mite and spider mites.
• Good separation of berries from the stem.
• Long strigs.

Origin and Breeding

• Origin: Latvia / Sweden / Lithuania. The variety is the result of a joint international breeding program (1995-2001) involving institutes from Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia.
• Breeders: Sarmīte Strautiņa (Latvia), Viktor Trajkovski (Sweden), and Audrius Sasnauskas (Lithuania).
• Crossing: Created by crossing the Russian large-fruited variety 'Lentjaj' (Lentyai) and the Swedish variety 'Intercontinental'. During testing, it carried the designation BRi 9502-1A (the originally proposed name was 'Karin').
• Registration: The variety passed official DUS tests in Latvia (2009-2010) and was granted plant variety protection in 2012 (valid until 2037).

Detailed variety description: Bush and Growth

• Vigor: Medium to strong (tall bush).
• Habit: Medium diameter and bushy habit. Forms a medium number of skeletal (basal) shoots.
• Shoots: Young shoots have weak anthocyanin (reddish) coloration.
• Buds: Vegetative buds have strong anthocyanin coloration and a weak wax coating.
• Leaves: The upper side of the leaf has a medium green base color with strong gloss. The base of the leaf blade is very open. The petiole has strong anthocyanin coloration that is evenly distributed.
• Flowering: Flowers early. Inflorescences usually contain more than two flowers in the leaf axil.

Fruits (Berries) and Chemical Composition

• Size and weight: Very large. The weight of 100 berries is rated as very high (score 9 out of 9 in DUS tests).
• Shape: Elongated (long round / izstiepti lodveida).
• Color: Black.
• Strigs: Long. The berries are characterized by good (easy) separation from the stem (well separated from the pedicel).
• Flesh and firmness: Medium firmness.
• Taste: Good taste.
• Chemical composition: Contains 16.7% soluble solids (Brix), 3.3% titratable acids, 115.0 mg/100 g of vitamin C (ascorbic acid), 271.1 mg/100 g of phenols, and 150.0 mg/100 g of anthocyanins.

Cultivation properties and characteristics

• Phenology:
  • Ripening: Mid-season ripening variety.
  • Yield: Very high productivity. A typical trait of this variety (inherited from the parent 'Lentjaj') is a slower but stable increase in yield in the first years after planting.
• Resistance and requirements:
  • Diseases: Characterized by very good resistance to leaf spots (e.g., Drepanopeziza ribis, Mycosphaerella ribis), rust, and blackcurrant reversion virus. In tests, it had the lowest score for leaf spot damage.
  • Pests: Has good resistance to the blackcurrant gall mite and also showed low damage from the two-spotted spider mite in tests.
  • Frost resistance: Showed good adaptability to climatic conditions in tests.

Drawbacks of the variety:

• No obvious cultivation drawbacks emerge from the available materials. (A slower onset of full fruiting in the first years is a natural trait inherited from the parent variety).