If this is an established plant, it should be fine, assuming the inchworms were the cause. Even if you planted it bare root this spring, it still has a good chance for recovery. If you want to make it a bit easier on the plant, remove any remaining berries, as they may compete with leaf buds for nutrient reserves.

Alex

My gooseberries have occasionally lost all leaves early in the season due to stress or disease. In my case they did not re-leaf that summer but went dormant until the following year. Several of them never got going well again and eventually died. In general I have found the gooses to be quite finicky in my climate, in four years I have only one plant that has established well, three more I am trying to get going now, and 4-5 ones that have died.

Scott

nygardener:

I don't think anyone can predict whether your defoliated gooseberry will survive this experience, but the important thing is to understand that occasional picking off of persistent pests is often not enough. Next season, at the first sign of green inchworms, or whatever they are, you should get a little hand trigger sprayer and use it either with an insecticide, or, if you are organically inclined, with Bt.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I have terrible defoliation problems from little green worms on my green gooseberries, Oregon Champion, but they don't bother my Red Velvet gooseberries at all, which taste better anyway but might not be as productive if I ever actually had a crop from Oregon Champion. I wouldn't mind using Bt, I guess I should try it next year. My bushes do seem to recover and look good the next year, with lots of fruit until the caterpilars hit. I think most falls of instead of ripening though from the impact of losing the leaves.

Thanks for all the perspectives. I have a couple of other gooseberry plants nearby, a Poorman and a Hinnomaki Red, and neither has lost any leaves. I think I'll finish the harvest this weekend on the affected plant and see if it comes back. Bt sounds like a good option. I might thin the fruit next year to give the plant a chance to establish itself a little better.

We have little green worms that defoliate our gooseberries aswell, however BT does nothing to them as they are not catepillars but actually the larve of some sort of saw fly, BTK does nothing to them. they nearly defoliate every 6 weeks unless we keep ontop of them, quite a pain in the neck, I havent forund the solution but we still get okay crops from the goosberries, as they send out spurs later on to add foliage and deal with the loss.

I caught just a few of the green worms, but another plant has lost a bunch of foliage in just a week. Also, the leaves are eaten clean off  no veins left. Are there any bigger critters that like to eat gooseberry leaves?

The little green worms came back to the same plant and just in the past few days, while I was away, they stripped its foliage clean. Does anyone know what these are, or have a good organic solution?

Brendan, how do you stay on top of them? Do you pull them off and squish them? Does anyone know if there are birds I can attract who like eating them?

Sounds like gooseberry sawfly, if you have that in the States. If the bushes are otherwise healthy they should be ok next year. Some years are worse than others. This year (fingers crossed) there has been no problem. When I get it I hand pick if possible. But I only have half a dozen bushes.

Yes, it looks like that's it. What an annoying pest. Thanks for the ID, flora.