Various people have it, ask me this winter if you can’t find it.
I’m hopfully going get some cuttings for HongYang and a compatible male this winter too from ramv. I’m still looking one or two others, HORT16A and I’m considering Soreli. I’m planning on grafting them onto my Saanichton and a fuzzy male from OGW. Will this work or do I need something else? Could Bruno work?
Thanks
Bruno seedlings were used at Auburn because they tend to not sucker much. However, they have experienced major hardiness issues with these rootstocks. Unless you have a climate similar to NZ, Bruno is not a good choice.
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What is a good early ripening variety that is not small and somewhat hardy? One that can be found easily.
The found easily part is still an issue. As far as fuzzy kiwi go, I have not found one that was reliably hardy for me, but I haven’t tested many. Fuzzies are also very late to ripen. I have not tried it, but Saanichton must be relatively early for people to grow it in the Pacific NW. I don’t know how it would handle a more continental climate with lots of winter warm spells.
Yellow kiwi are far more consistent for me, but they also vary a lot in hardiness. The AU Golden Sunshine has been weak on it’s own roots, and not very hardy. The pollinizer AU was offering, Golden Tiger, is 3/5ths fuzzy kiwi and much less hardy than Golden Sunshine. I have found that Sungold seedlings are quite hardy overall, so I’m hoping I’ll have something to offer soon. I have two males that are very hardy, having survived our flash freeze unscathed in Dec 22 when most other things were severely damaged. They also handled -8F last winter with zero damage. I have a couple others that suffered a bit during the flash freeze, but had no issues with -8F. Hopefully one or more will turn out to be good females. These males should pair well with known females like Soreli, which has done very well for Scott.
I’m testing some hybrid rootstocks now. I have one that is very promising. It is very easy to root and likely much hardier than any A. chinensis, just need to make sure it is consistently graft compatible.
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Saanichton has survived here. Scott is about an hour north of me and he has had it for a while also. Not the earliest one though.
Kiwi survive the cold just fine, it’s the fluctuating warm/freeze in spring that they don’t do so well.
Those others you mentioned are next to impossible to find. Didn’t the AU kiwi program go under? I don’t think anyone else sells gold kiwi either. I did find one the red ones for sale, but they wanted a ton of money for them. @kiwinut
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I also heard the AU golden kiwi program went under reading this forum. Luckily, Agristarts has apparently picked it up and hopefully plants will become more available this spring. It is discussed here: AU Golden Kiwi update - #109 by Smashsquatch. According to that thread, OGW is also due to carry some golden kiwi plants come spring.
@scottfsmith Question: My fuzzy kiwi got zapped by the cold night and I lost all my new growth. Has that happened to you before? Did it grow back?
I had the same thing last night. A few shoots are ok so I will get a few fruits. It will re-sprout where it all died back but it takes some time and there will be no flowers there.
Here it was only 28 which is usually fine, but it lasted for five hours…
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28F is about what we got a little less than 2 hours south west of you. I noticed that my hardy kiwi are fried also (thought it was just fuzzy). Still assessing the stone fruit damage. It’s really weird, as in the past snow has hit everything with no damage. As a matter of fact this is the first time a cold spell has ever damaged anything here.
I had temps drop to ~28F for 20 minutes right at sunrise. A couple of dozen new shoots on yellow kiwi and hybrids had leaves blackened. Other hardy kiwi in another area had no damage at all. Luckily, three hybrids with first buds after 5 years were spared. They only have a couple of buds each, so I really want to find out the sex on these. I already lost some buds during the recent storms.
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