Subject: Re: How would one pollinate a Kiwi plant?

From: [email-masked] (Mark Dames)
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 09:30:18 GMT

[email-masked] (Richard Cline) wrote:

>I have a large lovely Kiwi vine that is covered with blossoms.  The male
>Kiwi plant (note that I always indicate that this is a plant.) is smaller
>and it has never bloomed.  If I were to find someone else with a male kiwi
>plant I assume that one could bring about a pollimation.  How long does
>the pollen remain active?  Should one rely on the bees to do all the work
>or would one rub the blossoms together?  

Yes you can "import" male kiwi flowers from elswhere.

Generally the male plant is more vigorous in growth than the female
plant and bears larger [and often more] flowers than the female. As
you may have guessed you MUST have both a male and female to produce
fruit. If your plant is infact  a female then you can simply pluck
open flowers from a nearby Male plant and manually brush, touch, or
prod the open male flowers into the open female flowers to cause
pollination. 
If you have never seen any type of fruit on your vine then the chances
are you have a male plant which will only flower and never bear fruit.

The female vines can be pollinated as long as the flowers remain open.
Generally the male flowers first [before the female] and finishes
flowering before the female.
Prune the male back hard after flowering so as to leave  good new
primocanes [one year old wood] for next seasons flowering.

I hope this is of some help 
regards Markd

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From: [email-masked] (Richard Cline)
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 12:46:24 -0800

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Mark Dames) wrote:

> >and it has never bloomed.  
> 

How does one really knot the sex of the kiwi plant?     When I purchased
them the tags clearly identified them - one male and the other female. 
The one which is identified as female produced about 10 little fruit last
year.  They grew to about half the size of a regular Kiwi and they never
softened to become edible.   The plant spreads about 20 feet on an
overhead trellis.  

The male plant has reached the height of the trellis but it is much
smaller than the female.

____________________________________________
[email-masked]
"My words mean exactly what I choose them to mean."  Humpty Dumpty
____________________________________________

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 04:41:59 GMT

[email-masked] (Mark Dames) wrote:
>plant 

... interesting... I have two different pairs (zone 5 winter hardy variety)
and in both cases, the female is more vigorous and the male is much
smaller..?... Ingrid