Can I graft male hardy kiwi cuttings on female plants?

I have 4 different kiwi vines that have been in the ground for a while and are starting to mature. All of the male vines I planted have died. I’m wondering if it works to graft a male cutting onto a female vine?

You can graft kiwi, but I would suggest making more than one graft since it’s not unusual for a graft to fail after a number of years.

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Yes you can, but similar to grapes they bleed quite a bit once they are budding out. I grafted kiwi successfully and made some incisions below the union to relieve sap pressure

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What is the optimal time to graft kiwi? I assume spring prior to budbreak? I have heard they don’t graft easily

Graft kiwis super early or late. It depends on your location.

Here, I prefer May or later. Otherwise the sap flow kills the graft. Kiwis have been quite easy for me. But as Johann says, they could die from delayed failure.

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I strongly recommend that you wait until well after budbreak when temps are warm and graft to vigorous new green shoots. The green shoots are tender so you need to be careful not to break them, but they will heal very fast and bleeding will be very minimal.

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Really good to know for the future. If my male dies or want to add another variety

I’ve done it, relatively low take rate. The one I have still growing is relatively low vigor - like the male vine I already had :frowning:

edit: the last pair I did, which includes the survivor, was when there was a lot of sap flow. I cut some relief cuts FWIW, upstream of the grafts.

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