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Fruit & Orchards

No flowers on male Kiwi

13 years ago

I planted my hardy kiwis in early 2008 and this year all 4 of my females flowered, but my male didn't. I assume this means that no pollination occurred and no fruit will form. Is this correct, or do the male flowers not look like the female flowers at all?

I'm fearing the worst, but hoping that someone will say, "male kiwis don't produce flowers, they produce pollen from their leaves" or something like that!

Thanks,

Bart

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Comments (6)

Scott F Smith
13 years ago
No, they produce flowers like other kiwis. I am surprised your females flowered so soon, mine took many more years. One thing you might want to try is to graft a different male to one of your females, to up the odds you will get pollination. I have found kiwi grafts to be about the easiest, they always seem to work for me.

Scott
bart1
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks Scott, that's what I figured. I was thinking of trying to get a branch of a flowering male to use as a pollinator but I don't know anyone who has them.

I got all my plants from Edible Landscape....they sell potted plants not bare root, so maybe that accounts for the difference in flowering time??
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denninmi
13 years ago
Yeah, 2 years is kinda young -- they'll be more likely to bloom in another 1 to 2 years.

The male flowers have big, fluffy black stamens in the middle against the white petals. Female flowers have big, chartreuse/yellow/green pistil with mini baby kiwi at the base.

I know it's frustrating, but hang in there. You might want to threaten it with death - I told my stupid Shipova tree that it was going to get cut down if it didn't finally bloom this year, and, after something like 10 or 12 years, it finally did and set a few fruit, albeit not as many as I had hoped for due to a freeze on May 10th right as it was opening its buds.
austransplant
13 years ago
This is the fourth year for my Hardy Kiwi. The male flowered last year but not the female. This year both flowered and the female has set a heavy crop. Looks like it takes the male and female a little time to get coordinated -- but such is life!
Scott F Smith
13 years ago
My Ken's Red and Myer's Cordifolia still have not fruited and they are in their 8th year, sigh. Geneva 3 fruited much earlier than the rest.

Bart, I also got several of my plants from Edible Landscaping and they grew just like the other ones. Looking at where I got stuff from, the early fruiting ones came from Tripple Brook and the Meyer's and Kens were from EL.

Scott
theaceofspades
13 years ago
Last season my hardy female kiwis bloomed first time. Last week the male and females both bloomed but the bloom was over in less than a week. Many clusters are dropping already. Not a large set I hoped for because the kiwi plant is getting monstrous in size.

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