Since a lot of members of this forum not only grow figs, I was wondering if some of you also grow golden kiwifruit.

Golden kiwi (Actinidia chinensis) looks a lot like green kiwi (Actinidia deliciosa), but the fruit, leaves and stems are less fuzzy. The vines grow less vigorous, which makes pruning easier.

Kiwi vines are cold hardy, but the young shoots are frost sensitive. Since the fruits grow on the new shoots, late spring frosts after bud break can ruin the entire crop. In my climate, bud break starts by the end of March. Luckily last winters have been mild and we don’t have that much frosts in April.

I have 4 Soreli vines in ground. This Italian variety was developed by the university of Udine. My oldest vine was planted in ground in 2013. It produced for the first time last year. The others are still too young. The vines are very productive. I had about 60 golden kiwis, which is not bad for a young vine. The kiwis started to ripen by the end of October, the beginning of November. Two weeks later I had to harvest them all, because the birds started pecking them.

 
 
 

Thank you all for your comments.

kiwis can be grown in ground in my country because winters are mild and late spring frosts are rare. Our summers are cool and we have a lot of rain, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for the kiwi vines.

Tyler,

Seedlings can take a long time before they start to bloom. But you can speed things up by grafting them onto an established rootstock. Then they will only need 2 years instead of 7 years to start producing flowers and fruits. I believe this is what they do in research programs. But if you do the grafting, you might as well graft a known variety with good qualities, like Soreli. You will also need a pollinator that blooms at the same time. Normally Zespri Gold blooms very early - earlier than Soreli. Do you know when your male Zespri seedling blooms?

Meg and veggie_girl,

For some reason, I forgot to take pictures of the inside. Once you cut these golden kiwis open, they just look so good. The only thing you want is to taste them :-) This year I will try to take some pictures of the inside.

Soreli kiwis have a nice yellow flesh, just like the Zespri SunGold kiwis you can buy in the grocery store. This year they also had Soreli kiwis in the store for the first time. They were imported from Italy. I bought some to compare with mine. I couldn’t find any difference in color, size or flavor.

Phil,

Soreli can withstand temperatures of -14°C when dormant: http://soreli.uniud.it/characteristics

I’m not sure if kiwis will fruit well if grown in a pot. Their root system needs to be well established first. Soreli starts fruiting typically 2 years after planting in ground. But Kiwiberries (Actinidia arguta and A. kolomikta) can easily be grown in a pot.