Frederick passion fruit dropping while nearly completely green. Is this normal?

[frostyT]

As the title says, my frederick passion fruits are dropping with just a faint amount of purple visible on the fruit surface. I suspect I was misguided in thinking they'd be completely purple, and they seem to continue to transition towards purple after falling. Is this normal? We get a lot of afternoon wind, so it's possible they're being knocked off early. I believe the plant is receiving plenty of water and fertilizer.



^These dropped a 1-2 days ago. In this state, they are slightly sweeter than the day before, but still don't taste quite ripe.


^This one dropped today. I ate one in this state and it was quite sour/dry (tannin kind of dry, there was plenty of liquid).

[xesoteryc]

As the title says, my frederick passion fruits are dropping with just a faint amount of purple visible on the fruit surface. I suspect I was misguided in thinking they'd be completely purple, and they seem to continue to transition towards purple after falling. Is this normal? We get a lot of afternoon wind, so it's possible they're being knocked off early. I believe the plant is receiving plenty of water and fertilizer.



^These dropped a 1-2 days ago. In this state, they are slightly sweeter than the day before, but still don't taste quite ripe.


^This one dropped today. I ate one in this state and it was quite sour/dry (tannin kind of dry, there was plenty of liquid).

This is normal. You need to let it ripen on the counter first, once it's slightly wrinkled and purple it's perfect. Enjoy

[vnomonee]

How long have they been on the vine? If its been long enough, they should be ripe. You can let them wrinkle a bit on the counter

[seng]

I think it is the heat and age of the vine.

[frostyT]

This is normal. You need to let it ripen on the counter first, once it's slightly wrinkled and purple it's perfect. Enjoy

Can do. I was actually just talking to my wife about the fact that they are always wrinkly in the store/produce market. I wasn't sure if this was the preferred state or the byproduct of early picking/forced ripening/long distance shipping/etc.

How long have they been on the vine? If its been long enough, they should be ripe. You can let them wrinkle a bit on the counter

I neglected to mark the exact time of flowering/pollination, but I did some math and they seem to have been on the vine for the correct amount of time (assuming the internet has given me a good estimate for comparison).

I think it is the heat and age of the vine.

The vine is definitely young, though it's gone from a scraggly 4x1ft to a bushy 8x8ft this year, so not too small now. It's also been hot recently, but the vine is in the single spot in my yard which gets sun between sunrise and ~1-2pm, so it's got some reprieve during the hottest part of the day.

All in all, it sounds like there isn't much to worry about here. I've started marking the "drop dates" of each passion fruit so the wife and I can experiment with different durations of tabletop ripening.

Thanks everyone!

[sc4001992]

I bought a few Fredricks vine from Home Depot this year, they were in 2–3-gallon pots, about 3 ft long. Both of the vines are growing fast, they had a few fruits already and the fruits stayed on the vine until it was purple, and one started to wrinkle on the vine. Maybe you have something trying to eat the fruits. I bagged my fruits so they couldn't be eaten.

[Epicatt2]

Interestingly enough, in Wilson Popenoe's epic book on tropical and sub-tropical fruit
Popenoe describes passionfruit cultivation as acomplished by running the vines along
horizontal wires like grapes in parallel rows with the soil mounded towards the center
of each row so that when the fruit is ready it falls and rolls into the aisles between the
rows where they can easily be seen and collected.

In the book it also states that if passion fruit is picked before it is ready to fall off the
vine by itself, then it often has an unpleasant woody taste. 

Allowing the fruit to fall off the vine naturally does make sense because then you can
know that it will finish ripening up, becoming wrinkly when it's at its best tastng.

Just FWIW . . .

Paul M.
==