Everything Kiwiberry (Hardy Kiwi)

Your male probably had a hidden flower somewhere, you might not have found it, but the bees are much better at finding flowers than you are!

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was too good to be true :sob:

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my male and 2 females done want to continue extending down their trellis lines:

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Vines are wired to climb. They have no incentive to put on vigorous growth from horizontal branches. If you want them wider, it would likely be easier to wait till they push some vigorous vertical shoots and then bend them sideways once they have grown long enough.

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My Issai kiwi vines have no problem growing horizontally or even downward. I’ve been pruning off multiple feet of excess growth hanging downward several times already, and this will continue until cold weather arrives.

Some of the leaves on the vines in the photo look a bit yellowed; it might be a sign of insufficient nitrogen.

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I suspect you are mistaking vigorous shoots which initially grow up and then flop under their own weight for shoots growing vigorously downward from the get go. The best way to keep shoots growing vigorously for additional widening after their first year of elongation is to ensure they are at least angled slightly up. Fully horizontal or downward leaning shoots will put much more focus on producing short side branches in subsequent years instead of further vigorous elongation.

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What are the chill requirements for hardy kiwis? Are there any low chill cultivars?

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can you circle where youre seeing that? ill get some close up photos when im out there next.

i made a mistake this spring in pruning my arctic kiwis. the buds had started to swell and i pruned them anyway. the cuts weeped sap for a week. the 2 others i pruned in full dormancy are fully leafed out and vigorously sending out vines. my big mature one i did later has weak leaf growth and still hasnt sent out new vines yet and also hasnt flowered while my other 2 are loaded with blossoms. dont prune kiwi if they are partially out of dormancy.

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left most female and the bottom/middle/top tiers:

male:

they dont really seem to be putting out new canes on the horizontal cordons from last year. they did on the vertical trunks, though. i dont really see how i can let something grow vertical to then train it down, like espalier, if there arent any new growths on the cordons. not sure how you would accomplish that on the top tier anyways. i threw down 10-10-10 at the start of the season but i tossed them some more just in case.

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If I remember correctly, the kiwiri videos do that, picking shoots to bend down as suggested, essentially like you would do with a grape.

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if you happen to run across the video again please post it :folded_hands:

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@xendula linked their videos in a thread about growing espalier kiwis. I don’t have it on my phone because we could only get the subtitles to work on a separate computer.

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@kinghat, look at the difference in color between the leaves on the lowest wire of the vine on the left and the leaves on the (male?) vine in the middle of the photo. The latter vine’s leaves are much yellower. I’m used to seeing dark green leaves like those on the former.

The yellowing could be the sign of a nutrient deficiency, or perhaps the vine is putting its energy into growing roots instead of leaves, which often happens with young plants.

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I agree that upward growing shoots will always be more vigorous than horizontal ones, due to apical dominance. But my point is that a vigorous vine will produce long horizontal shoots without any special training upward. My kiwi vines always produce more horizontal growth than I need, but it probably helps that I remove any excess upward growth all season long.

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I can’t tell you anything exactly, but I ate red “kiwi berries” from South Africa, so low chill varieties definitely exist, maybe even normal cold hardy kiwi is fine

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anyone doing this style of summer pruning to their vines? they are cutting everything back to 3-5 leaf nodes:

they have a winter pruning video but translations arent working on that video for some reason:

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This video looks like a click-scam content that is just content.

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reason i asked is because those summer pruning videos seem completely at odds with what the universities say outside of summer pruning males after flowering:

speaking of summer pruning males after flowering, should i prune the new canes back even though they didnt flower this year?

male is the middle trellis: