What is the prolific one all about?
Since we are loosening the definition of hardy a little, here is my lone Viktor kolomikta fruit. It’s getting soft and should be fully ripe in the next few days.
The “vine” is really just a small and neglected shrub in a 3 gallon pot. It sat outside all winter and stayed dormant until March. Most arctic kiwi will wake up in January here. It survived a couple of light frosts and then got hammered by a brutal hailstorm. The one surviving bloom ended up producing this fruit, with help from some frozen pollen. I’m hoping Viktor proves to have higher chill requirements than the other artic kiwi I have grown. Definitely a tough plant.
I’ve had anna and meader for 10 years now. They are both enormous vines now with trunks bigger than many of my trees. This is the first year they set fruit. It looks like I’m going to get loads of it if nothing goes wrong. Last year anna had some flowers, but meader did not, so no fruit. They better be good after making me wait 10 years.
Here’s Krupnoplodnaya and September Sun side by side. Krupnolodnaya was grafted on last spring. It has set a lot of fruit.
My arguta male overlapped enough with the rest of my females to set a good crop. I have a few grafts on a Ken’s Red that I’ll hopefully try for the first time this year.
Anna
MG2
Lili
Cordofolia
MG1
Ogden Point
Melanie
i think a rabbit is eating off the growing tips and laterals on the lowest cordons of my trellis. wasnt planing on having to fence in the trellis:
Looks like it… Are those high enough off the ground?
iirc my trellis levels are spaced 18" apart, so that far off the ground for the first level as well.
I forget what your trellis looks like. Is it several horizontal wires in a vertical plane? Is the plan to establish a permanent horizontal cordon on the lowest wire, and then run all the laterals up vertically across the other wires?
If so, I am curious how it works out. All mine are on T-bar. For a while I considered trying the low cordon/vertical laterals setup, since the kids won’t be able to pick kiwiberries at 5 or 6 feet high. Gave up on the idea for various reasons, though.
Once that cordon is well established, I’d like to think the bunny issue won’t be too bad? Vigorous growth goes from bud to shoot so quickly, maybe the bunnies would miss their window of opportunity?
after consulting with @vitog i decided to go with a vertical plane trellis with multiple cordons:
i hope so. its only a 20’ run so a short fence(i have plenty laying around) wouldnt be too terrible to protect it.
Where do the laterals and fruit grow on that type of setup, where each wire has a cordon?
Is the plan to let it bush out each summer, then winter prune every lateral back to short stubs/spurs for fruit formation?
no idea, havent done it yet laterals will form off the cordons and fruiting shoots/spurs off the laterals.
Those laterals would need to be supported or the fruit will be hanging down on the ground, I would think! But cutting them back short might be a work around, as they could just drop downwards under the weight but not be so long as to hit the ground. Or, perhaps you could (in the offseason) pick some laterals and tie them up parallel and under the cordon a few inches?
Unsure what cultivars you’re growing, but my arguta can easily throw laterals that are 6 to 8 feet long from the cordon. It’s ridiculous.
not sure what is going to happen but its all an experiment thus far. ive seen a company selling and showcasing their kiwi trellis on youtube and i based mine on their dimensions: