Topic: Kiwi - Can any one help???........

[Spanner]

I have a Kiwi vine that I planted this spring and that has grown to about 2.5m tall this year. It said self fertile on the label so I assume it is a 'Jenny' type. Some of the advice says to train lateral shoots along wires and then pinch out the growing tip when they get to the required length, but some also sid they didn't need pruning for the first few years. Mine seems to have not produced any laterals ???, dispite me pinching out the growing tip on the end of the main vine when it grew out through the roof of the fruit cage earlier this year.  Does anyone have any experience of growing kiwi vines?  ???This one was only a few quid from Woolies, but the main stem is very healthy and I don't know how to procede. Any advice gratefully received.

[star]

I dont know too much about them, but going on the thinking that side shoots will readily develop from a stem on the horizontal or a 45 deg angle. If your Kiwi has still got some flexability in the main stem, can yuo bend it over........kinda like a cordon.

This is only a guess, on the other hand because you only planted it this spring, it may well need to develop a stronger root system before the top growth branches out......



Im interested now.......

[Kea]

I've never grown them, though having just read through the history I was eating them before they became popular even in NZ. I don't eat them much any more because the flavour has been breed out to make them more palatable for the American market ( i was at the conference where papers were presented on this topic!). Here is one link to some cultivation advice though if you search for NZ growers you'll probably get different and more high tech advice which is probably not applicable to just growing one plant.
http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0607/kiwifruit.asp