I attended an open house event down in Durham, NH at the research farm affiliated with the university, and got to see the kiwi field trial going there. Ate a bunch of fruit, too!
They have about .75 acre under trellis and planted out with various actinidae- arguta, kolomikta, and polygama. They are preparing an additional acre in order to begin testing results of controlled crosses and breeding work. This event was led by the prof overseeing the project, Iago Hale, his undergrad field tech, various grad and post doc assistants. Attending were some farmer/growers, brewers, wine and cider makers. Sorry, no pics of the field, but look at my assortment of take home fruit.
Was the fruit ripe? I picked a couple Geneva and Issai last weekend and they are far from ripe. The brix was only 7, while they can get well over 20 when ripe. Last year both were ripe for me around the middle of October. I would think that NH would be even later.
There were some varieties which had been picked and were either ripe or ripening in storage. Kiwis can ripen and sweeten off the vine once the fruit is mature and has black seeds. I did eat a couple that weren’t quite there yet, sour!
Kiwi Korner farm in PA picked their vines clean a week or so ago. This is the biggest hardy kiwi farm in the US with 20 acres planted in actinidia arguta cultivars. They seem to be doing quite well commercially from what I gather.
Jesse, that is interesting- mine had black seeds and started to soften a bit on the counter after 4-5 days, but were still very unripe. The have a very green flavor and an almost gooey juice. I learned from last year that when they are like that, it isn’t a good idea to even put it in my mouth
Maybe I should try ripening a few in the fridge instead.
I did get to try a variety of named and unnamed cultivars, not all were uniformly ripe so difficult to really compare. Quite a range of sizes as well,kidney bean to 1". There were about 10 or so varieties presented for tasting. I did have an interesting experience eating two actinidia polygama varieties, one had a spicy afterburn combined with sweetness.
It was instructive to see how the vines had been trained to the trellis, I think rigorous training is a prime reason they are getting yields after just 3 years in the ground. Lots of kiwis (mine too!) I see havent gotten that level of attention.
I cut down my kiwis because over the years I became less excited about the fruit and frustrated by unreliable cropping. The fragrant flowers were never tended by any of my very wide range of native pollinators. Did anyone discuss the problems this species has in attracting the attention of bees?
