Mine is on Qinmei. You sent me seeds a long time ago, they were all males when they grew out but they have served well as rootstocks.
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My Qinmei seedlings suffered severe trunk injuries the first 2-3 winters, but no issues since. I think they are about 60% males, and the females produce pretty small fruit, maybe 50 grams at most. They have grown into gigantic vines now.
Did I send you Hongyang? That one has been great here, even with it’s early bud break.
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I’m curious to know how these will do in low chill areas. I’m willing to be the guinea ping.
They where developed in the state of Alabama a very low chill area of the US.
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These varieties do need a moderate amount of chill. For maximum bud break and bloom, Golden Sunshine needs 700 hours and Golden Dragon needs 800 hours.
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Nope… maybe I should try that one. They are actually all pretty good for me, no duds amongst the yellow kiwis. It is another reason why they are my favorites.
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Scott,
I’d love to see how you have these kiwis trained with their trunks 4 feet apart. Any chance you have a pic of it in full leaf?
Scott
Will a green fuzzy kiwi male pollinate the Golden Sunshine? i.e. is there sufficient blossom overlap for this to happen? I’m trying to avoid getting another yellow fuzzy male when a green fuzzy male is already present.
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Impossible to tell you that. One release is apparently diploid with 2 sets of chromosomes and the other tetraploid with 4 sets. Kiwinut believes the patents also have them reversed.
Seconds Kiwi’s bloom for about 2 weeks, and the Male needs to be in bloom at least 80% of the time. The two AU selections bloom about 3 weeks apart. Also there bloom times in Alabama might not correspond with the times where your existing males are planted.
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Golden Sunshine is presumably a tetraploid that blooms between the diploids and the fuzzy kiwi in central Alabama. For me in middle TN, the yellow tets bloom nearly at the same time as the fuzzy kiwi, so here they definitely work, at least with my seed grown fuzzies. My diploids have bloomed anywhere from 7 to 28 days earlier than the tets, depending on how warm or cold it was in March. A long blooming, early male like Matua would probably work for GS in other areas, as it also works for some hardy kiwi, but we really don’t know how GS will perform in other areas. You should ask Kiwibob if his ‘Bliss Yellow’ (a tet female) blooms with his fuzzy males (I think it does). That should give you an idea if it’s likely to work in your climate.
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I have been fortunate to have pollination by random luck, enough chinensis and deliciosa seedlings I grew out were males and I kept a few. But I am a bit concerned as my main early male died late this summer. The two big males I have left are both tets (deliciosas). So I am letting a few of my other males I grafted over grow out some sprouts … more early males I hope!
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Scott, I have a Hort16A male that is an excellent pollinizer for the early females. Remind me later this winter, and I can send you some cuttings, along with Hongyang.
Not that it matters, but A. deliciosas are hexaploid. I guess it would matter if you are keeping seeds, but makes little difference for fruit production.
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I had a long conversation this morning with someone involved in the kiwifruit program at Auburn. What I learned is that they only used A. deliciosa seedlings from AU Fitzgerald as rootstocks for the grafted vines. The reason for this, is that the yellow kiwis can sucker badly when used as a rootstock, but the fuzzy seedlings do not sucker. If you plant 20,000 grafted vines, that results in a huge amount of labor needed just removing suckers.
The seedlings vary a bit in hardiness, and they see about 14% of the grafted seedlings have hardiness issues. Because of this, they have to protect the trunks for first two years, until they become more mature and hardy. Seems to me, removing suckers is less work, as long the rootstocks stop suckering. I found that my grafted vines on Hort16A seedlings usually stopped suckering after the first year.
The other issue with the grafted vines being sold, is that the grafts are typically about 1.5 to 2 ft above the soil line, so burying the graft is probably not an option. Once the vines are cut back to less than 48 inches for shipping, there will be about 12-18 inches of scion above the grafts. I would suggest that anyone buying these in a climate with winter warm spells, takes extra precautions to protect the stock. Painting white latex on the trunks is one option that may help. I plan to layer the new growth next spring to get the scion on it’s own roots so I don’t lose it. They may be able to find plants for me that are grafted lower, or even some older vines on their own roots, but I won’t know until they take a look.
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Thanks Hal.
I am probably going to graft them to a mature stock as backup… then if the root doesn’t work out I will still have the variety. For $50 a pop I don’t want to lose 'em! For me the deliciosa stocks do well but I have several trunks with monster splits on them… I thought the vines would die but they kept going.
Thanks for the info
I guese everything is sufficiently dormant orders are shipping tomarrow.
They are here, now I need to find some boxes to reship in. Unlike what I was told on the phone the plants are bear rooted not in soil. Massivly overcharged for shipping. I requsted a ground shipping qoute for 22lb and this size box and it came back $80.
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Sorry buddy, Shipping right now is pretty insane cuz of holidays and live transport always costs more. For shipping of bugs (i know much different) that would be a good price for 2 day or 3 day shipping that is guaranteed not to freeze.
yes but was charged $250 for shipping.
Robbery!