Peewee Kiwis and Other Sweet Delights
(Page 3 of 6)
June/July 2004
By Lee Reich
Shorten the cordons each dormant season, leaving 2 feet of the previous season's growth, until they reach their allotted length of about 7 feet in each direction along the wires. After that, cut back the cordons each dormant season to a length of 7 feet.
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Fruiting arms will grow out perpendicular to and drape over the wires. The arms should be spaced a foot apart on opposite sides of the cordon; prune away any excess arms during the dormant season. Tie the arms to the side wires to keep them from blowing around, unless they are too stiff to be brought to the wire. The first crop will form on shoots directly from these arms; future crops will form on shoots from laterals, then sublaterals growing off these arms.
After training is complete, annual pruning consists of shortening cordons each winter, as described above, and then maintaining a supply of fruiting arms. Cut laterals on fruiting arms to about 18 inches long. When a fruiting arm with its lateral, sublateral and subsublateral shoots is 2 or 3 years old, cut it away to make room for a new fruiting arm.
Summer pruning keeps the vines in bounds, maintains order and lets the shoots bask in light. Repeat summer pruning as needed through the growing season, and pay special attention to the vine during the critical, early days of the growing season each year. Keep trunks clear of shoots, cut back excessively rampant shoots to short stubs and cut away tangled shoots. Male plants are needed only for their flowers, so severely prune them right after they bloom: Remove about 70 percent of the previous year's growth.
Hardy kiwifruits need annual pruning for maximum fruit production, but vines will fruit with yearly, undisciplined whacking aimed at keeping them in bounds. That was all the pruning imposed on those hardy kiwifruits planted as ornamentals that you still find growing on old estates. These vines happily and haphazardly clothe pergolas with their small, green fruits hanging — not easily accessible nor in prodigious quantity — beneath the leaves.
The Harvest
A harvest of 100 or more pounds of fruit is possible from a single hardy kiwifruit plant, and harvests of more than 200 pounds from a mature vine are not uncommon. Harvest the fruit slightly underripe for storage: Clip off whole clusters just as their first fruits ripen. Not all fruits on a plant, even in a single bunch, ripen together, so it's best to sample a few fruits for maturity. Picked soft, with their stems attached, hardy kiwifruits keep for a couple of weeks; firm, they'll keep six weeks or more, slowly ripening to a tasty stage.
Uses of these plants need not end with the fruit. What to do with all those prunings? The leaves reputedly are good food for pigs, and the stalks are rich in a glue that leaches out with water, leaving fibers that can then be made into paper.
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