Anyone here could sell seeds I know buying plants is quicker, but if I could of bought seeds many years ago like I wanted to I could of had some vines by now I also would like to buy open pollinated seeds , and see if it turns out good.
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Buying seeds off Ebay, etc., or from store bought fruit is a gamble, as the pollen parent is unknown, and you may get odd-ploid seedlings that are not very good. I should have some seeds available soon that I’m willing to send out to growers who are willing to help grow them out. I have been working on hybridizing argutas with tetraploid chinensis, and the only confirmed tet male in the USA seems to be ‘Bliss Yellow male’, but it has poor compatibility with most arguta females so far. I obtained pollen from Bliss Yellow this past spring, and it was used to set fruit on several large fruited tet chinensis females, so the seeds will produce tet seedlings that should be very good to excellent. It usually only takes 1.5-3 years to get blooms from seedlings under good conditions, with males blooming the fastest. Some of the fruits were just picked and are not ripe, so it may be another month to 6 weeks before the seeds are ready.
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Little more info. They planted A. deliciosa Tomuri (male) and Vincent (female) in 2008. These are known to be low-chill and fruit well here. They grafted several A. arguta varieties in 2014-2015 - 74-49, Issai and Anna on Vincent and Ken’s Red on Tomuri. All of them have been fruiting (without any hardy male) since 2018 with 74-49 and Ken’s Red being the most vigorous, Anna being the least and Issai in the middle. They have grafted some A. chinensis varieties which seem to ripen along with Vincent in Jan-Feb. The ripening season is perfect as citrus and possibly late ripening apples are the only options for fresh fruit here during mid-late winter.
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Interesting that the hardy kiwis are fruiting without a male arguta. Tomuri usually blooms way too late in most areas to overlap with argutas. If Tomuri is the pollinizer, I’m curious if it’s due to the climate or the grafting.
Anna is normally way more vigorous than Issai, so this suggests that grafting to the right rootstock could control the extreme vigor seen in many kiwis, provided the grafts are long lived.
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Looking to buy some cuttings from the golden kiwi variety both female and male. Let me know if you have any available please.
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I remember that @joehewitt also mentioned somewhere his hardy kiwi vines fruited without a male (in his Bay Area backyard few years back)
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A related question - in your experience, are arguta, kolomikta, eriantha and melanandra graft compatible with each other?
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I do have an eriantha vine with at least 6 other kiwis grafted on it, but all are chinensis or chinensis/arguta hybrids, and the grafts are all one or two years old, so I can’t say anything about the long term compatibility based on my experience.
The smooth skinned, hardy species like arguta, kolomikta, melanandra, macrosperma, and polygama are all considered graft compatible each other, and everything else is supposedly intergraftable. Arguta grafted with deliciosa/chinensis are really the only example I know of where incompatibility has been demonstrated.
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Do you get fruit on your A Polygama?
I put one in 3 summers ago and I’m still waiting, though this year was a bust for me for all actinidia as I pruned my male hard to try starting a better training system and it didn’t bloom this year.
Scott
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I don’t grow A. polygama. I had a male several years ago, but never had a female. What male Actinidia do you have? An A. polygama female will need an A. polygama male for fruit, as they bloom very late.
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I grafted Eriantha for kiwibob 2 seasons ago and they are surviving ok.
I believe Kiwibob has a grafted Eriantha that is atleast 15 years old. I am not sure what the rootstock is.
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Do you mean you grafted Eriantha on Arguta?
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I believe a few of the rootstock were Deliciosa. Maybe a couple on Arguta. I dont remember.
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Hey. I have been growing one plant of Hayward (female) and another Tomuri (male) for 3 years. So maybe this year they will bloom.
Two years ago I germinated seeds from Sun Gold fruit and two weeks ago I grafted buds of the 4 plants that survived. I still don’t know if they are male or female. I will see.
I’m very excited to plant other varieties including some golden kiwis and I’m looking for some red varieties of kiwi like HFR18 or Hongyang desperately in Europe. They are difficult to find here.
If anyone could send me some dormant cuttings next season to graft some kiwis I will be very grateful.
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I believe that the Puget Sound Lowlands is very promising for 
kiwi fruit.
From what little I know
Actinidia vines are somewhat shade tolerant and like higher rainfall than many fruits.
My biggest concern is the high vigor of the vines. They need a lot of room and a strong trellis.
Are they easy to root from cuttings?
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Arguta and Deliciosa are easy to root. So is melanandra.
Eriantha and Chinensis are quite hard to root — Better to graft.
Yes, they are vigorous but pruning is easy. And they don’t have thorns.
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Someone I know had very good success with seeds from the red fruited Chinensis. You may be happy with your results.
if only I had more room!
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You can grow one variety and graft all others including male on them.
There is some potential for graft incompatibility among species but in our location it is rarely a problem, I.e. deliciosa can be freely grafted over arguta and vice versa without trouble.
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Question on this grafting- can Actinida be the rootstock for deliciosa that is then buried to root itself? And can I do this while rootstocks are green later in spring, or do I wait til next winter?
I have lots of Actinida arguta that seems to be rooting and leafing out. If lots survive, then I don’t need all of them. I only know they are female and male, something that tastes good. But 20 females of unknown might be overboard.
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