4x the Vitamin C of an Orange: Why Was It Illegal to Grow This Berry Until 2003?

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In 1933, government crews walked into the forests of New England and the Great Lakes with orders to tear a common garden fruit out of the ground by the roots. It wasn’t poisonous. It was one of the richest natural sources of vitamin C on earth. And for most of a century, it was illegal to grow across much of America.

This is the true story of the currant, the dark superfood berry Britain fed to its own children during World War II while the United States pulled it out of the soil. Blackcurrants, redcurrants, and their close cousin the gooseberry all belong to the genus Ribes, a tough, cold-hardy shrub that thrives in the kind of cool, damp backyard corner where most fruit refuses to grow. Ounce for ounce, the black currant carries roughly three to four times the vitamin C of an orange, along with the deep purple anthocyanins studied for eye and immune health.

So why was this forgotten fruit banned? Why did it stay illegal to grow currants in New York until 2003? The answer has nothing to do with your health, and everything to do with timber.

For two hundred years, the most valuable tree in North America was the eastern white pine. When a fungus called white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola) arrived from Europe around 1900, it threatened the entire timber industry. The fungus needs a second host to survive, and that host is Ribes, the currant and the gooseberry. Rather than fight the imported disease, the government went after the berry.

Beginning around 1911, state and federal governments moved to restrict and destroy currant plantings. The Plant Quarantine Act of 1912 gave Washington the power to act, and by the 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps crews were combing the forests, pulling out currant bushes by the millions. In state after state, it became a crime to grow this berry.

The federal ban passed to the states in 1966, but many held on. New York, once a heart of American fruit growing, kept its ban into the 21st century. A fruit grandmothers once grew by the back fence vanished from American tables, even as Britain built an entire industry, and the drink Ribena, on the same plant.

The turnaround came from horticulturist Greg Quinn, who spent years proving the ban made no sense. Breeders had already bred blister-rust-resistant varieties like Consort, Crusader, and Titania. In 2003, New York lifted its ban, and currants are now making a comeback in Vermont, Connecticut, California, and Oregon. You can buy a bush off the shelf at a nursery, something unthinkable within living memory.

Plant one cold-hardy shrub and it feeds you dark, vitamin-rich berries for years, in a shady corner where nothing else will grow. This is not an exotic superfood flown in from another continent. It grew in American gardens long before anyone decided it was a threat.

📚 Sources:

– Barney, Danny L., and Kim E. Hummer. Currants, Gooseberries, and Jostaberries: A Guide for Growers, Marketers, and Researchers in North America. Binghamton, NY: Food Products Press, 2005.

– Benedict, William V. History of White Pine Blister Rust Control: A Personal Account. FS-355. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 1981.

– Geils, Brian W., Kim E. Hummer, and Rex J. Hunt. “White Pines, Ribes, and Blister Rust: A Review and Synthesis.” Forest Pathology 40, no. 3 to 4 (2010): 147 to 185. doi:10.1111/j.1439-0329.2010.00654.x

– Maloy, Otis C. “White Pine Blister Rust Control in North America: A Case History.” Annual Review of Phytopathology 35 (1997): 87 to 109. doi:10.1146/annurev.phyto.35.1.87

– United States Congress. The Plant Quarantine Act of 1912. Public Law 62 to 275. Washington, DC, 1912.

– Hummer, Kim E., and Danny L. Barney. “Currants.” HortTechnology 12, no. 3 (2002): 377 to 387. doi:10.21273/HORTTECH.12.3.377

– Brennan, Rex M. “Currants and Gooseberries.” In Temperate Fruit Crop Breeding, edited by James F. Hancock, 177 to 196. Dordrecht: Springer, 2008. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-6907-9_6

– Cortez, Rodrigo E., and Elvira Gonzalez de Mejia. “Blackcurrants (Ribes nigrum): A Review on Chemistry, Processing, and Health Benefits.” Journal of Food Science 84, no. 9 (2019): 2387 to 2401. doi:10.1111/1750-3841.14781

– New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Regulation of the Planting of Currants and Gooseberries, 6 NYCRR Part 192. Albany, NY.

– U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central: Currants, Black, Raw. Beltsville, MD.

#Gardening #Homesteading #Foraging #SelfSufficiency

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