Hi all! I was in a meeting with our project manager the other day discussing various plant possibilities. She likes the idea of having lianas (we have a huge amount of room to fill and want to do so as quickly as possible, with no practical limits on how much weight the (steel, concrete) structure can bear) but she wasn't sure about how quickly we could get them established. I was able to answer her questions about a lot of other vining species, but I really have no clue with the big liana species like you find in Apocynaceae. Based on other tropical vines I'd WAG it around 3m a year once established, but what do you growers find? And how quickly do the vines thicken up? I know this is a really broad category, but any datapoints you can add would be great
We'll have a mix of full sun, partial shade, and full shade; summer sun is 24/7 here, while winter would receive an artificial "sun" of nearly half a megawatt of lighting
And we have both dry and wet domes to fill, with various microclimate zones in each. No winter, and dry seasons only where needed..
Note that while the potential of fruit is important, even if it ultimately fails to fruit, that's fine; we just need to get some things large and impressive established in the early years. Actual yields in the earlier years would be from smaller, precocious plants, while plants that need time to grow large get their chance to do so. Any initial fast-growers that ultimately "fail to perform" would be on the chopping block down the road to make way for other species that want their sunlight
Of course, if they yield fruit that goes over well, then they can earn their keep