My Sungold seedlings are all ready for it to be spring, though the one with the most reddish leaves seems slowest to bud out. Here are a few of them:
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So @swincher, are you just rolling the dice that you end up with a few females?
From what I’ve been reading no one had been able to get the golden kiwi plants stateside.
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Yeah, I figure with six seedlings, hopefully at least a couple will end up female, but if not then I can always graft them over to something else later. I believe Sungold is mostly pollinated with not so great pollen, so it’ll probably be a crapshoot even for any females. It’s more just for the fun of it.
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I have about 30 seedlings in a 5 gallon container. Funny thing, several hundred more seed germinated in the last 2 weeks. Older seedlings are from last year.
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Good luck!
I’m starting kiwi this year…don’t know how it will do here. Elmwood and Saanichton.
I’d love to grow the golden type. If they don’t start selling the vines here, you might end up with a nice side business I a few years!
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There are a lot of golden kiwi plants stateside. Maybe not the sungold variety but numerous others are around.
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Ah.
I’m just remembering a kiwi thread this past summer.
Now that I think of it, it was some being developed state side but they never came to market
There are several female yellow kiwi available, but no good tet males until recently. Many Sungold seedlings are starting to bloom for people. Here is one that I have that has been completely hardy. I brought in a few cuttings before the 23F last Tuesday to make sure I get to see the flowers. The vines got hammered but I think maybe 50% of the buds survived. This 3rd year seedling was covered with buds before the freeze. It’s probably male, but I’ll know for sure in a few days.
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I went out and check today and I think I see flower buds. It only takes 5 years. It’s too bad I only have 1 flowering plant
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Ouch!!!
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You have a large, healthy rootstock! And can leave a bit of the male to pollinate whatever you graft onto it.
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I agree with @swincher. Kiwis, for me, have been easy to graft. I enjoy seeing how quickly they callous compared to other species.
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I’ve gotten a male every time, I think 6 males 0 females is my record. It hasn’t stopped me though, I have half a dozen seedlings going now which have not flowered yet.
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I am going to try to root them this year to see how easy they root. Since I bought rooted cuttings of green fuzzy kiwi. I am hoping they aren’t hard to root.
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This one of my SunGold seedlings is mad at me for not giving it a proper structure to climb this year:
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Sorry to hear about your seedling!! I gave up on this project a while back. Recently got the urge to start germinating every seed I get my hands on again. I might give this another go. Any other vines or trees grown from seed?
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I grew out a bunch of sungold seeds last spring and have about 30 seedlings now. A few of them grew 10 ft in one summer and a few are less than a foot tall. The game plan is to graft each one onto my established AU golden kiwis in spring
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You are still waiting to see if you have any females?
Yeah im thinking i can get flowers next spring for sure if i graft. They have only been growing for one summer. Can sex be determined before flowering?