Author Topic: No pollen on passionfruit flowers  (Read 4769 times)

shinzo

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No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« on: September 28, 2019, 11:25:26 AM »
Hi all, I want to ask you folks about my passion fruit vines. I have 3 vines planted in the ground, vigourous vines with already many fruits setting. I noticed since 1 week ago that all the flowers have no pollen on them (each day i have around 20 or 30 flowers), in the begining i managed to find 2 or 3 flowers with pollen which are usually hidden under the canopy, but today i couldn't find a signle flower with pollen to make the hand pollination.
Here are some information that may give some clues to this mystery :
- It has been windy for 3 weeks in a row here (could it the wind that is shaking the anthers and the pollen falls ont the ground? even though i doubt this could be the origin of the problem. i find a little trace of pollen on some petals but it is traces only).
- I find a lot of ants on each flower (around 10 ants on each flower), and bees as well (i don't know if ants can eat or transport the pollen and leave the anthers pollen free as if they were washed?) to me this the more likely cause since it is present in the three vines.
- I am witnissing this phenomenon on 3 separate groups of vines in 3 different areas of the garden (each one is formed from 4 or 5 seedling plants so we may consider as they were 12 vines). If it is something related to nutrition, the chances that it happens to all the vines at the same time are very low i think.
- I didn't ferilize the vines this year, but the soil is rich clay and the vines seem to grow well.

Today i didn't find any pollen so i didn't hand pollinate. I profited from this fact and i marked many of today's flowers to see if they will set fruit later. in case the ants turn out to be doing the job for me. I will keep you updated.










« Last Edit: September 28, 2019, 11:35:53 AM by shinzo »

Jct

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2019, 03:26:37 PM »
I do not know the reason for this, but I saw the same thing a couple of weeks ago on my vine.  It was hotter than normal for a couple of weeks, so perhaps our heat had something to do with it.  I didn't do as much supplemental watering either.

I'm in Southern California.
LaVerne Manila Mango; Pixie Crunch, Honeycrisp & Gala Apple Trees; Violette De Bordeaux & Black Mission Fig; Santa Rosa Plum & Snow Queen Nectarine; Nagami Kumquat, Pixie Tangerine, Lemon, Australian Finger Lime & Washington Navel Citrus; White & Red Dragon Fruit; Miracle Berry Plant

pineislander

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #2 on: September 28, 2019, 08:40:11 PM »
Check for pollen early in the day just after opening. If you can assure a good population of bumblebees they are the best pollinators. In Florida I found this plant draws in bumblebees like a magnet, but in your area a naturalist may be able to identify other local species which attract them. Ironically, sometimes small flowers attract the bumblebees but their body size is the most ideal for pollinating passionflowers.
https://www.south-florida-plant-guide.com/porterweed.html


spaugh

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #3 on: September 28, 2019, 10:06:36 PM »
Is your fruit a yellow type?  They seem less fertile than purple type.  Your flower and fruit looks like flavicarpa.
Brad Spaugh

shinzo

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #4 on: September 29, 2019, 12:31:56 PM »
Thank you all for your comments.
The flowers open around midday. Today i checked them at that time, and it seems that the culprit is the bees. I found lots of bees on each flower dealing with the pollen (it sticks to their feets by chunks), rapidly they cleaned the anthers from the pollen. I hope they will pollinate effectively, because the short time i stayed watching, they don't seem to touch the female parts of the flower except sometiemes when they start fighting over the pollen lol.



@ Spaugh : Two of the vines are yellow. The third one was planted from seeds of a purple fruit, but last year the flowers didn't set fruit when i pollinated them by their own pollen which gives me doubts ( i started wondering may be it was anoverripe yellow fruit even though i don't think they turn purple when they get overripe). Anyway, this year it has many fruits so i will figure out rapidly, but if you can tell from the early stages fruit and the flower please give me your opinion whether it will be purple or yellow (the flower is the one in this post with the bees) and here is another pic of a fruit (it is light green compared to the dark green one in my other pic of the yellow vine) :


pineislander

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #5 on: September 29, 2019, 02:47:05 PM »
Honeybees are not what you want for passionfruit. Have a look at the photo here and you will see why.
https://blog.uvm.edu/fntrlst/2016/06/27/a-passionate-pollinator/

shot

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #6 on: September 29, 2019, 03:33:43 PM »
Honeybees in my area strip the pollen at some times of the year, so fast that I have to beat them to it so I can collect to pollanate.

spaugh

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #7 on: September 29, 2019, 05:24:02 PM »
My vines are loaded with bees and they set every fruit.  The neighbors have bee hives.  I wouldnt worry about it, just let the vines get very mature and the bees will pollinate them just fine.  They roll around and go nuts on the flowers.
Brad Spaugh

spaugh

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #8 on: September 29, 2019, 05:26:27 PM »
Thank you all for your comments.
The flowers open around midday. Today i checked them at that time, and it seems that the culprit is the bees. I found lots of bees on each flower dealing with the pollen (it sticks to their feets by chunks), rapidly they cleaned the anthers from the pollen. I hope they will pollinate effectively, because the short time i stayed watching, they don't seem to touch the female parts of the flower except sometiemes when they start fighting over the pollen lol.



@ Spaugh : Two of the vines are yellow. The third one was planted from seeds of a purple fruit, but last year the flowers didn't set fruit when i pollinated them by their own pollen which gives me doubts ( i started wondering may be it was anoverripe yellow fruit even though i don't think they turn purple when they get overripe). Anyway, this year it has many fruits so i will figure out rapidly, but if you can tell from the early stages fruit and the flower please give me your opinion whether it will be purple or yellow (the flower is the one in this post with the bees) and here is another pic of a fruit (it is light green compared to the dark green one in my other pic of the yellow vine) :


The flower looks yellow but the fruit looks purple.  Maybe a hybrid.  The common fredrick is hybrid yellow/purple.
Brad Spaugh

spaugh

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2019, 04:15:14 PM »
I took this pic today every flower has 5 or more bees and there was also a wasp working on them.



Brad Spaugh

shinzo

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2019, 04:21:19 PM »
Thank you gus for your answers.
It is clear that carpenter bees are the most skilled for this but as Spaugh's experience shows, it seems that honey bees are not free riders when it comes to the pollination. I found this article that mentions that they are pretty effective for pollinating passionflowers as well :

https://beeaware.org.au/pollination/pollinator-reliant-crops/passionfruit/

PS : i am keeping track of saturday's flowers that i didn't handpollinate (which i marked with a tape), so far they seem still green and probably they will set fruit as well which confirm this point.

spaugh

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #11 on: September 30, 2019, 04:39:19 PM »
The article says most yellow types are not self fertile and require cross pollination.  That is my experience here also and they also dont taste as nice to me.  Its the same problem with with dragonfruit and annonas.  The less fertile types will all be replaced eventually, I do not want to have to hand pollinate anything. 


For passionfruits I have both purple and yellow and hybrid types planted near each other but yellow vines sets few fruit.  If it continues that way for another year, I will replace it with a red or purple type. 
« Last Edit: September 30, 2019, 04:43:03 PM by spaugh »
Brad Spaugh

shinzo

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #12 on: October 01, 2019, 08:09:29 AM »
@Spaugh : when you say the yellow Vine set few fruit, you are talking about which number, roughly speaking of course.
My yellow Vine (the one in the first picture ) gave me between 100 and 150 fruits last year, (with daily handpollination during almost 20 days) do you have an Idea how many fruits a purple Vine of that size can give?
« Last Edit: October 01, 2019, 08:21:47 AM by shinzo »

spaugh

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #13 on: October 01, 2019, 10:07:44 AM »
My purple vines both produced hundreds of fruit per year.  With no pollination.  Each purple plant is on a fence that is 9 meters by 2 meters and produced around 100 kilos of fruit each plant.  Quite heavy yield.  The yellow plant produced around 10 fruits total last year.  It needs pollinating but I am not going to be participating in that.
Brad Spaugh

shinzo

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #14 on: October 01, 2019, 12:40:03 PM »
Thanks for the info. It is obvious that with such a crop of purple passionfruit you have no incentive to bother yourself handpollinating the yellow one.

spaugh

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #15 on: October 01, 2019, 12:45:51 PM »
Instead of killing the plant, I may try grafting some purple branches in the yellow plant and see if that helps. 
Brad Spaugh

shinzo

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #16 on: October 01, 2019, 04:04:28 PM »
You currently have only one yellow plant? Maybe that is why it only set 10 fruits. Maybe if you plant another yellow Vine in the same spot it will help (my yellow Bush is composed of 5 plants). I saw in an article (see below) that yellow variety passionflowers are not réceptive to purple flowers' pollen. The opposite way is receptive according to the same article, thus grafting a purple branch would not benefit to the established yellow vine if this fact is true, while planting another yellow vine would benefit.
Reference : https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/passionfruit.html      (paragraph about pollination)
« Last Edit: October 01, 2019, 04:18:23 PM by shinzo »

spaugh

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #17 on: October 01, 2019, 04:26:36 PM »
Thanks, I have 1 yellow and 1 yellow/purple hybrid planted next to each other.  The yellow ones are not that common here, everyone is selling purple plants. 
Brad Spaugh

hademarqvce

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #18 on: June 24, 2020, 04:48:51 PM »
Hi, I found this thread during the search, thank you for sharing useful information. I am a novice gardener and it's very interesting and important for me to know about all the nuances related to growing plants. Thanks to your thread and this forum, I learned a lot about plants, thank you. And I'm going to grow lilies, I really like their smell and they are very beautiful. Please tell me if lilies compete with any plants to know where they cannot be planted? In the meantime, I read all the necessary information about the care and growing of lilies in the Hobby plants blog. Anyway, if you have some tips, please let me know.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2020, 01:15:27 AM by hademarqvce »

Vigo Carpathian

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Re: No pollen on passionfruit flowers
« Reply #19 on: June 25, 2020, 12:58:49 AM »
I noticed that the time of day matters for the loose/free pollen.  I started checking mine at various times of day and know that in most cases when there wasn’t pollen in the early morning, it was there by the afternoon or so. That being said, I hand pollinated about 15-20 flowers this year, but have over 200 fruits on it. In my opinion, with passionfruit (at least the purple variety) hand pollination is not really necessary (I do have a lot of carpenter bees though).
« Last Edit: June 25, 2020, 01:00:31 AM by Vigo Carpathian »