I have a 2 yr old Frederick Passionfruit vine growing in an Earthbox.
Although the plant looks vigorous and healthy, it only produced one fruit this year.
It gets about a 1/2 day or more of sun. Does it need more sun to produce? I have grapes growing next to the passionfruit and the grapes had no problem ripening fruit.
Or is a pollinator needed? This variety is advertised as self-fertile.
Or maybe the plant just needs more time to mature?
Or maybe it needs more heat? Our summers are cool to warm – not excessively hot.
Thanks for any thoughts.
1 Like
Frederick is self fertile.
Did you have many flowers on the Fredericks? And pollinators visiting the flowers? I don’t think this is a great time of the year for pollinators, so hand pollinating may be required. I have the same problem, three Fredericks in containers, plenty of flowers a few months ago…but I wasn’t very diligent about hand pollinating this year and I have just one nice plump fruit to show for it. These plants are a few years older than yours, but when I did try to hand pollinate there didn’t seem to be as much pollen as in previous years. That may be because of the time of year, or that I was doing it late in the day. But in previous years there’s always been lots of pollen on my brush.
I’m not sure when the Fredericks is supposed to bloom, but I’ve read it can bloom throughout the year. I didn’t have any flowers until after I fertilized sometime in Oct/Nov, so next year I’ll try fertilizing earlier and more frequently.
Summers here in Topanga Canyon are hot, often lasting into November.
Late Spring. It requires significant root volume to produce crops. Susceptible to scale. Typical in-ground lifespan is 7-12 years.
Well, my Fredericks bloom was way off. I had actually given up on them blooming, but not long after fertilizing them all three plants started blooming. Since they are in containers (1 in 15gal and 2 in 5gal), their root volume must be small…but the two older ones bore fruit last year and the one with the most fruit was in a five gallon container. I do want to move them all into 15 gal containers, they need to be watered too often in the smaller containers.
They were happy!