How to Plant Passion Fruit? The Latest Cultivation Techniques and Methods Tutorial
Passion fruit is a perennial evergreen climbing woody vine of the genus Passiflora in the family Passifloraceae, also known as maypop, Brazilian fruit, passion fruit, and passionflower, among other names. It originated in Brazil and was later cultivated in South America, South Africa, various Southeast Asian countries, Australia, and the South Pacific region. In China, it is cultivated in Guangxi, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, and other places. Now let us take a look at the cultivation techniques for passion fruit!
Growth Habits of Passion Fruit
Passion fruit originated in South America and is commonly cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions. It is a tropical and subtropical fruit that prefers light, sunny, and warm climatic conditions. It has strong adaptability and is not demanding about soil. It can be planted in front of and behind houses, on hillsides, and along roadsides, but grows best in sunny plots facing the sun with soil rich in organic matter, loose, deep, and well-drained. It dislikes waterlogging and is not drought-tolerant, so the soil should be kept moist.
Cultivated Varieties of Passion Fruit
1. Purple-fruited variety: The fruit of the purple-fruited passion fruit has purple-red skin and green branches and vines. It is suitable for planting in places with cool summers at an altitude of 300 to 500 m, and is not suitable for cultivation in the Pearl River Delta or areas further south where summers are hot.
2. Yellow-fruited variety: The yellow-fruited passion fruit has strong adaptability, larger fruit, higher yield, excellent quality, and a higher juice yield, but it has poor cold tolerance. Some varieties also exhibit self-incompatibility and require artificial supplementary pollination.
Propagation Methods of Passion Fruit
1. Sowing: Seed propagation can be carried out all year round, but sowing in spring and autumn is best. Generally, plants that are robust, free of pests and diseases, and high-yielding and stable-yielding are selected as mother plants. Fruits with a regular shape, slightly heavy, and fully ripe are harvested, the seeds are taken out, washed to remove residue, and dried before sowing. When sowing, mix 1 kg of seeds with 10 to 20 g of carbendazim for about 20 minutes, then evenly broadcast the seeds on the seedbed, cover with a thin layer of grass, water thoroughly, and transplant when the seedlings grow 4 true leaves.
2. Layering: Layering propagation is best done in spring from February to March. The branches on the mother plant are pressed into the soil or wrapped with soil and other materials to form adventitious roots, and then the branches above the adventitious roots are separated from the mother plant to form an independent new plant. During layering, to interrupt the downward translocation of organic substances such as sugars, auxins, and other substances from the leaves and upper branches, so that these substances accumulate in the upper part of the treated area for use during rooting, ring barking can be carried out.
3. Cuttage: The best time for cuttage is spring from February to March, and autumn cuttage is also possible. Select robust, mature one-year-old vines as cuttage material. After cutting the cuttings, soak them in a 25 mg/kg aqueous solution of Abr rooting powder for 30 minutes, then insert them into nutrient bags with a diameter of 8 cm × height of 12 cm for cultivation. The insertion depth should reach 2/3 of the cutting length, and it takes about 3 to 4 months from cuttage to leaving the nursery.
Cultivation Methods of Passion Fruit
1. Soil: For passion fruit cultivation, sandy loam soil that is fertile, loose in texture, and well aerated should be selected. Heavy clay soil, tight sandy soil, cold sandy soil, and places prone to erosion are not suitable for planting, or may be planted after improvement. The soil pH should preferably be neutral to slightly acidic below pH 7.0.
2. Field planting: When planting passion fruit seedlings, old leaves should be appropriately pruned off, and the nutrient bag should be torn open and removed, not buried in the soil. When setting the seedlings, mix an appropriate amount of decomposed organic fertilizer with sandy loam soil to use as planting soil or covering soil. When planting, straighten out the root system, fill soil in layers, and tread firmly. After planting, water the roots promptly. For newly dug planting holes, the root collar of the seedling should be about 8 to 10 cm above the ground surface when planting. After planting, tidy the tree basin and cover it with a small piece of film measuring 50 × 50 cm.
2. Fertilizer and water: When passion fruit is first planted, the application of base fertilizer should be combined with digging holes for planting. Apply 10 to 15 kg of decomposed farmyard manure per hole, backfill the hole with soil, and then plant. After fruit harvest each year, sufficient base fertilizer should be applied in combination with pruning and weeding, with 8 to 10 kg of decomposed organic fertilizer per plant. Topdressing for passion fruit is generally carried out after the plants survive field planting, once a month, first light and then concentrated, with diluted manure water being preferable.
3. Vine training: When young passion fruit trees grow to 40 to 50 cm, supports should be set up promptly to guide the young vine onto the trellis. When the main vine of the young tree grows to 70 to 80 cm, keep 2 side vines and guide them separately onto the trellis as the first layer of main vines. When the plant grows to 150 to 160 cm, keep 1 strong side branch, which together with the extended branch of the main vine serves as the second layer of main branches, and guide them in opposite directions onto the trellis, forming a double-layer, four-branch vine training shape.
4. Flowering: Passion fruit flower buds are of the current-year differentiation type, differentiating while shoots are growing, and it takes only about 30 days from flower bud differentiation to flowering. Newly planted cuttage seedlings in the same year can flower by June, and a small amount of fruit comes onto the market in August. The second year enters the formal fruiting period, and from March to November each year it can flower multiple times. Each node on the base of the flowering branch vine can form 1 flower, and in production 4 to 6 normal flowers can be formed continuously, after which normal developed flowers can be formed every 2 to 3 nodes.
5. Fruiting: The time required for passion fruit to mature varies depending on the flowering season. Flowers that open in May to June mature 50 to 60 days after flowering, flowers that open in August to September need 70 to 90 days to mature, and flowers that open after October need 100 to 120 days to mature. Its self-pollination fruit-setting rate is high, and ripe fruit can be picked from mid-June each year to early February of the following year, with the most concentrated harvest periods in early July and late October.