My Neighbor has Fuzzy kiwi and a similar story. About 20 years in... only we finally figured out she's got 2 females. I haven't pruned her vines yet but need to get to it before too long, as they'll start to push and 'Bleed" as they do, that could complicate the graft union joining, but you'd be welcome to try. I'd also give a go at doing some top working with some of your male, if you're willing to swap.
I'm in the NE, Cully neighborhood. You could try to private message to me.
on closer look: Actinidia deliciosa (fuzzy), and Actinidia arguta (hardy) do not pollinate each other.
Tim, disregard my pm. An exchange meet up it seems would do neither of us any good.
John, thanks for the offer. Seems the information ranges from not cross compatible to... but purchased Deliciosa pollen may be used to pollinate arguta (OSU Extension... https://catalog.extension.oreg.....pnw507.pdf page25). Nothing said about Arguta>Deliciosa
Tim, John, might be the two of you could carry this on further as you both have growing Aguta.
My experience has been with A. deliciosa pollinizing A. arguta, and it works just fine. My fuzzy male flowers open on average just two days after my hardy female flowers. I have no trouble getting a good set on two hardy kiwis and my fuzzy female (with the exception of 2022, when we had no spring and winter didn’t end until July).
JeanW, how do you support your kiwis? Yours look lovely and orderly, not an easy task to accomplish with hardy kiwis.
tpepper, I have an extra Anna female hardy kiwi that you can have. I live in Battle Ground, WA, but I could probably arrange to meet you in Portland one day, if you're interested.
GH,
Thanks for the compliment. My husband welded up the kiwi trellis out of steel in 2012. There is a large, welded-on foot of 6” wide channel well underground at the bottom of each leg and also a brace. The wires are aircraft cable held in place at the ends of each bay by Wirevises. The trellis is 60’ long and 8’ wide. We stepped it down the hill a foot every 15 feet so that all the vines are reachable, making four 15’ by 8’ bays—enough for 4 kiwi vines. It looks like more than 4 vines in the picture because it is an old nursery row. There were still a few apple trees that got moved later when dormant. There were still a few miscellaneous T-posts in the picture too.
Kiwis can grow from cuttings very easily. In fact, it may be better than a transplant, because folks at One Green World told me that kiwis are more sensitive to transplanting than any other type of fruit. Even a bit too high or too low and they won't fruit properly. I have experienced this.
Anyone want to trade either arguta for a female fuzzy? Let me know.
John S
PDX OR
JeanW, very nice system! The common complaint from those who have planted kiwi seems to be that the support structure they installed wasn't sturdy enough and/or widely-enough spaced to handle the mature plants. That obviously isn't an issue with yours.
One goal this year is to finally plant Anna and Ken's Red hardy kiwis, along with the male. Since they're two of the easiest to locate and buy, they are likely to be the most commonly grown hardy kiwis. How do they rate, in ease of growing, taste, and productivity?
At a HOS event before it closed, one recommendation to keep kiwi more manageable was to drastically cut it back periodically. It would grow back over a certain number of years (one, two,??) and then start producing again. If there are multiple kiwis in your orchard, rotating this job keeps you supplied in kiwis. Of course the male poses a bigger problem, since cutting it back would mean no kiwis at all until it could flower again.
John S, thanks for the information about planting depths. It's easy to be a little careless with that.
I have Ananasnaya and Jumbo hardies. They are both incredibly vigorous and can easily grow 40-50 foot canes in a season without any management. This is year 11 in the ground, and they have been very productive every year since starting to bear with the exception of 2022, when the weather won. If I manage keep the squirrels, deer, and other marauders out, I get trays and trays of them. They taste similar to Hayward kiwis. The Anna is a little sharper than a Hayward or a Jumbo. I have not tasted a Ken's Red.
I wouldn't cut back drastically only periodically. Kiwis, like grapes, need to have at least 70% of the growth removed EVERY year so that you get a decent crop every year. Overcropping the vine just leads to even smaller fruit. You need to keep the fruiting zone close to the trunk that feeds it. Flowers are produced on current-season shoots that grow from buds developed on last year’s canes. Those buds produce shoots that bear flowers from nodes 6 to 12. Fruiting canes should be about 8-12 inches apart on the cordon. There is no reason to keep the enormous length on the canes as they are growing. I cut 10-15 feet off the ends of the new canes a couple of times during the summer and then when I am dormant pruning, each cane I keep for fruiting is cut back to 4’ in length. Extra canes are removed. Here’s a before and after shot looking up from the ground at one side of a cordon pruned and one not. I don’t have a wide enough angle lens on my phone to get the whole width in the picture, but this gives an idea what it should look like when done.
After ten years of waiting for my kiwis to bloom and finally produce some fruit it looks like they have contracted root rot and are doomed. I planted them in an area that used to have soggy soil in the winter but I cut a drainage ditch to alleviate that problem. Apparently there’s some residual issues from the raspberries that didn’t like this area before I planted the kiwi. Lesson to pass along is make sure your kiwi have good drainage. 
JeanW, My understanding is that kiwis can be occasionally cut to within a few feet of the ground. They then develop new shoots, and this helps to keep them smaller. This is in addition to the normal yearly cutting that needs to be done. 40-foot growth in one year is astounding!
Dubyadee, that is so disappointing! It's a lot of money, sweat, and tears for no return.
I'm committed now to planting hardy kiwi, since the plants have already been purchased. After reading a few of the comments here, though, I'm beginning to question that decision. They require a great deal of space and pruning, not to mention a substantial trellising system, which I knew. Add to that the lack of production that some posters have mentioned, the transplanting sensitivity, and the disease issues, though, and they may end up not being worth the trouble.
We had several beautiful fuzzy kiwis when we purchased our property. Unfortunately the fruit was terrible, with no flavor at all. I tried all of the methods that I could find to ripen/store them, but nothing resulted in any fruit worth eating. The previous owner told me that he had experienced the same bland taste, and that he had stopped harvesting them. I read that there is a flavorless variety of fuzzy kiwi, so that may have been what we had.
GH, sure, you could cut them down to the ground occasionally, and they would resprout (well maybe not Dubyadee’s sad looking one—sorry to hear about yours, Dubyadee). I prune mine down to the same 15’ by 8’ size every year, so I have a hard time seeing the reasoning behind cutting it down to the ground to keep it smaller and losing a whole year’s crop. The extension publication “PNW 507 Growing Kiwifruit” does recommend replacing the cordons every few years but in a manner so as not to lose a crop. Knock on wood, but so far they have set good crops, and I have not had any disease issues—just issues with critters stealing the fruit. Go ahead and plant some kiwis, and keep us informed how they do in your area. Best of luck to you.
I wonder if your flavorless fuzzy kiwis were picked too soon before reaching peak carbohydrate accumulation. Do you remember if the seeds had turned black yet? Black seeds indicate physiological ripeness. The fruit attains its best potential eating quality at the peak of carbohydrate accumulation or when physiologically ripe. They will still need to soften before eating. Fuzzy kiwis need to be 6.5 Brix before picking. That doesn’t happen until late October or early November in Oregon and late November here in NW Washington. I normally pick my fuzzies around Thanksgiving unless we get a real hard cold snap before that. A few light frosts will not hurt them at all and probably make them better.
Dubyadee, I wonder why your kiwi never bloomed in 10 years. I’ve heard that from others also. Did you train the vines to the standard recommended structure? Commercial growers get a crop by year three according the extension publication “PNW 507 Growing Kiwifruit” and are in full fruit production by year five. Mine started blooming in year three—as soon as their permanent vine structure was established.
https://content.libraries.wsu......w507.pdf Original version
https://catalog.extension.oreg.....w507.pdf Updated 2021 version
JeanW, The seeds were black. I usually picked them around Thanksgiving. There were varying instructions about how to store/soften them - I tried every method I could find, although the details are vague now. Thanks for the encouragement; the plan is to get one male, one Ken's Red, and one or two Anna planted soon. My mother's name was Geneva, and I would have purchased that variety had it been available.
Quite a few people have commented on the lack of flowering, so it seems to be a fairly common occurrence. Let's hope that root rot is a less common one.
Idyllwild
jafar
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Viron
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