Any recommendations on hardy kiwi varieties? I am interested in Ken’s Red and Anna, would love to hear about their production, flavor, and overall care. Additionally to any one growing Issai, how well does it self pollinate?
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A friend has Issai- very productive and he has never felt the need for another variety. Tastes great, but I have only had Issai and some variety unknown. (vine existed when house was sold). Starting from dormant cuttings was a bust, buy or graft, or root green. Layering works well, too well according to owner of Issai vine. That’s why he had some to give away. Advice is to have male vine way above usable height, so it’s out of the way, but I don’t know why it couldn’t be a ground cover-type very low. I don’t know how attractive vines are to deer.
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My favorite is Anna. It tastes great and is reliable. Ken’s Red has not fruited much at all for me. I have heard inconsistent reports on Issai, would not recommend from what I heard.
Once the trellis is built all you really need to do is prune once a year and harvest.
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Deer find kiwis irresistible.
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UNH put out a very good guide for growing hardy kiwi-
http://unh.edu/halelab/kiwiberry/
I’ve visited the trial vineyard there several times, the female variety they recommend most highly is Geneva 3.
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Good to know- fruit only, or foliage?
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They prune everything that sticks over the fence.
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I have grown issai for a couple of years. I didnt have any male pollinator, however I had two issai kiwis side by side. They were productive. The flavor is average. Im sure with a male pollinator it would be even more productive. I had Anna it was similar to ken’s red. I prefer kens red, its very sweet inside but the skin isn’t my favorite, it was more productive than Anna. Im hoping my other hardy will be fruitful this summer to compare.
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Kiwi vines are deer candy as I like to call it. If it is in reach they will chew it down and I have a high population in my area despite being in a suburban area.
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Anna seems like the most safe pick. I have heard mixed reviews of issai as well and of kens red not producing as much. Thanks Scott.
Thank you, I think it will be between Anna and kens red. Not going to lie the red color is pretty cool! I already have a trellis constructed.
I really like issai. I dont have a male kiwi and it produces just fine.
I wish it had seeds in the fruit but they are still delicious. I thought about getting a male but figured the birds would start spreading fertile kiwi seeds everywhere.
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In middle Tennessee, Kens Red was my most productive hardy kiwi. Full sized berries weighed in at 18 grams, with a nice flavor. Only negative was the skin was rather nasty looking from sooty blotch and fly speck. It didn’t affect the taste, just not very attractive. The performance of different cultivars can vary a lot in different areas, so try to choose those that are proven in your area, if possible.
I really like Issai because it is very precocious and fruits abundantly in a 5 gallon container. I have Flowercloud as the pollinizer, which also blooms abundantly in a container. They bloom at the same time, and Flowercloud has been shown genetically to be an open pollinated seedling of Issai (4x version). There are two different genotypes available as ‘Issai’. One has smaller roundish fruit (6x) and the other larger, long fruits (4x). The latter has been much more productive for me. Nice thing about containers, is you can move them into the garage during late freezes. I don’t know of any other hardy kiwis that will fruit in containers, other than kolomiktas.
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Wow, I had no idea for the potential to grow them in containers. How do you trellis them? I imagine you have to prune quite heavily.
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Here is a photo of a couple of the vines. They are very compact, and don’t require much pruning. Left is long fruit Issai, right is small/round fruit Issai. Container size is probably closer to 3 gallons.
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Wow! I wanna try this.
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I haven’t noticed deer going for kiwi the few times they have ventured into my yard. Thankfully it isn’t often. I’ve actually let the male vine grow wild and it has formed what looks like an impenetrable barrier in that corner of the yard. Hopefully it will keep any deer from going around my fence in the area.
Mine has produced only a few fruits, even though I planted it in 2011.
Agreed- Issai was very quick to start producing and has always had quite a bit of fruit. I do find it among my least favorites though. Maybe that is because there is only so much sugar to spread amonst the fruit and it makes too many…I definitely don’t thin hardy kiwi…
I have a large Cordifollia vine in the front yard. probably spread 50-60 linear feet on a trellis. There was a male vine close by, but it got accidentally cut down a couple years ago when I had a tree removed. It’s been growing back and is now quite large as well, but no flowers this year.
My understanding is that hardy kiwi are wind pollinated, so the other male vine at the back of my yard (200+ feet away) probably wouldn’t get there.
So, when the kiwi were blooming, 3 times over about a week and a half, I cut a couple branches from the male. Then I walked up and down the un-pollinated female in the front yard shaking it like a magic wand.
Several weeks later, it seems that it was enough to produce a decent set.
The manually pollinated Cordifolia:
The naturally polinated Cordifolia from the back yard (grafted 4 years ago, to replace Jumbo):
Neither Cordifolia has as much set as Rossana (back yard, near the male):
When I first started growing Rossana, it was one of my favorites. But over the last few years, I’ve been less and less impressed. I wonder if it is because it has had such heavy fruit-sets that it isn’t able to fully ripen the large crop. While Cordifolia is a bit shyer in terms of set, but produces great fruit. Which is why I let the one in the front to expand from it’s initial 10ft of trellis to 50+ feet.
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This might reflect something about your male pollenizer, such as timing or perhaps sone other compatibility issue. Kens Red is a great variety IME. Excellent complex flavor, verging on spicy. The flavor profile deepens as they color up. The fruit does vary in size quite a bit. Probably 30% are BIG, almost as big as MSU (another great one) with another 30% pretty tiny, the rest somewhere in the middle.
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Does anyone know if ‘Jumbo’ is the same variety as MSU?
Raintree seemed to claim it was an Italian variety. I ordered one several years back to compare, but it has yet to really take off.
I remember reading that UNH was going to determine something of the genetics of each cultivar, including which cultivar names are redundant. They rated MSU very poorly in their trials, which i don’t understand at all. I get that commercial production has its iwn requirements, but MSU seems to have excellent traits. Its my earliest (my Dumbarton Oaks isnt fruiting yet), fruit are consistent size (massive!), and ripen all at once. I wondered if there might be a terroir issue at their trial grounds or something since theyre description seemed to contradict almost everything i just said.
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