GrowingHQ

Ben Connan

A compact blackcurrant with unusually large berries and a heavy crop for its size. Blackcurrants fruit best on one-year-old wood, which is why about a third of the oldest stems are cut to the base each winter — a different rule from red currants and gooseberries.

A cultivar of Blackcurrant. Everything on this page is about the cultivar; how to grow the species is on the plant page, and how big the tree gets is on the rootstock page.

Names and origin

Origin
Scotland, late 20th century

Pollination

What this cultivar needs before it will set a crop.

Self-fertility
Self-fertile
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Blackcurrant — pollination

Checked 2026-08-13

Partner
No partner needed
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Blackcurrant — pollination

Checked 2026-08-13

Ploidy
diploid
source

Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence

  • NIAB — National Institute of Agricultural Botany: Cultivar ploidy records

Checked 2026-08-13

Partners needed
none

Partners for Ben Connan, from the 3 blackcurrant cultivars GrowingHQ holds

Computed by the pollination engine from the flowering groups, ploidy and recorded pairings on each record — not a hand-written list. The scope is exactly what the heading says: these are the answers that exist in this catalogue, not the answers that exist.

No partner is required

Ben Connan sets a crop on its own pollen. The table below is still computed, because a compatible neighbour does no harm and a grower planting two trees may want to know which pairs work.

No compatible partner in this catalogue

That is a statement about GrowingHQ’s coverage rather than about the cultivar. A nursery list will contain compatible cultivars this catalogue does not hold — the pollination mechanisms page explains how to work one out.

2 further cultivars return no verdict, because a flowering group or an incompatibility group is not recorded on one side. The engine reports that rather than assuming a value: Ben Lomond, Ben Sarek.

The fruit

Season
Early
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Blackcurrant cultivars — season

Checked 2026-08-13

Use
Cooking, Preserving, Juicing
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Blackcurrant cultivars — use

Checked 2026-08-13

Keeping
Eat within days
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Blackcurrant cultivars — storage

Checked 2026-08-13

The plant

Vigour
Average vigour
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Blackcurrant cultivars — vigour

Checked 2026-08-13

Habit
Compact
source

Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Blackcurrant cultivars — habit

Checked 2026-08-13

Cropping
Crops regularly
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Blackcurrant cultivars — cropping

Checked 2026-08-13

Fruits on
Wood made last year
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Blackcurrant — pruning

Checked 2026-08-13

Why that decides the pruning

Fruit forms on stems produced the previous season, which then decline. Pruning removes the oldest wood at the base each year to force new stems.

What it is prone to

Cultivar behaviour, not a diagnosis. Every level here is relative to other cultivars of the same species.

ProblemThis cultivarWhat that means
Powdery mildewSome resistance
source

Sourced guidancemoderate confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Cultivar disease susceptibility

Checked 2026-08-13

Less affected than average, but not reliably free of it.

Cultivar record reviewed 2026-08-13.