My passionfruit that I purchased from Bunnings has grown like mad and flowers profusely, however the flowers just fall to the ground and it doesn't produce any fruit, does anyone know why this would occur?
Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @Meloncat. It's wonderful to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about passion fruit vines.
How much fertiliser have you been giving it? Too much can cause the flowers to drop. You'll just need to fertilise early spring with Yates 1.5kg Thrive Natural Citrus And Fruit Organic Based Pelletised Plant Food and then hold off until late summer/autumn. The abundance of lush green growth tells me that most of the plant's energy is likely going into the growth of green material and not into fruit production.
How often do you water, and have you applied a mulch around the plant's base? Passion fruit vines don't like their soil to dry out completely, and mulch will assist with this. They also don't like wet feet, so don't over-water.
Do you happen to know the variety and if it is self-fertile? Some varieties require a second plant to cross-pollinate with.
See many ants on the vine? Ants can cause flowers not to set and, unfortunately, like to make passion fruit vines their home.
Many bees in your backyard? If you lack native pollinators, you can try doing so by hand with a paintbrush. Simply go around to all the flowers and twist the paintbrush in their centre. This collects pollen from the stamens and distributes it to the pistils of other flowers. A little potash can sometimes help fruit set as well.
Can I get you to check that this abundance of growth is not coming from under the graft line at the vine's base? If you're struggling to find it, please take another photo encompassing the soil to around 20cm up the vine.
You should find this guide useful: How to grow and care for passion fruit.
I'm looking forward to hearing more about your plant. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Mitchell
Hi Mitchell
Thanks for your reply.
As far as fertilizer goes I use an all purpose citrus and fruit one, I haven't fertilized this growing season yet as I thought that may have been the problem last year but it is doing the same thing this season anyway.
Watering wise it is on a drip system and gets watered around 3 times a week depending on the season. It is mulched so the roots wouldn't dry out.
See the pics below for the variety, not sure if it's self pollinating or not?
No ant issues on the vine itself other than the usual black ants on the ground.
The foliage is growing above the graft, see photo.
And although there are not a huge amount of bees around there are some and they did a good job on my fruit trees and love my Basil for some reason.
Hoping you could shed some more light on my issue now.
Thanks.
Hello @Meloncat
It's great that you've received excellent advice from @MitchellMc. Would it be possible for you to post a photo of the fertilizer you're using? If it has a heavy nitrogen content, this will often cause flowers to drop off. I recommend trying Searles 250ml Liquid Potash. It's a fertiliser formulated for promoting bigger and better flowers. It improves fruit and vegetable size, quality, and quantity, as well as promoting hard plant growth and disease resistance. Please note that this is a concentrate and must be diluted before use.
If you need more advice or information, please let us know.
Eric
@Meloncat,
The graft line and growth photo is a bit busier than what I would like to see. I'm looking for a definitive graft line and all growth being above that line with no suckers coming out from under it or at ground level. Can you show me at ground level in the one photo? We need to establish that all this green growth isn't just the rootstock.
If you haven't moved it, the tag is attached to the plant's main stem, but my concern is all that growth is from well below that line.
Thanks, I have applied this product. Hopefully it produces now
Keep us updated @Meloncat. We're looking forward to hearing of a bountiful harvest.
I have exactly the same problem, FOR THE SECOND TIME 🙁
I bought the big spotted variety from Bunnings a few years ago and it went crazy, huge healthy vine, hundreds of flowers, but NOT ONE passionfruit for about 3 years until I cut it out. I bought the same one again and am having the exact same problem AGAIN. I have a Passiflora edulis (Black Passionfruit) within 4 metres of this vigorous plant and it is loaded with fruit, so the problem has nothing to do with soil or water. IF the case is that I need TWO plants together to get fruit the WHY didn't Bunnings staff tell me that when I bought the second one?
Hi @Meloncat Welcome to the Workshop Community 😊
Ok , this is what I’m doing with our Passionfruit vines in our garden. This is just my opinion and it works for me. We are in Perth. I have two Sunshine Special Passionfruits which are suited for Perth growing conditions. They are Non Grafted so no suckers popping up everywhere. They are flowering and fruiting well.
I am NOT feeding them with any high nitrogen fertilisers, otherwise too much foliage and hardly any flowers. So I have only once at the start of Spring gave them some Richgro Rock Minerals. I love using this fertiliser.
I do apply Richgro Sulphate of Potash regularly, as a liquid application every 4-5 weeks. Started applying it at the start of Spring. This will promote more flowers and strengthen the flowers to stop them dropping.
I do have Perennial Basil growing right next to them to encourage and attract Pollinators to come in. I have heaps of Bees to help increase Pollination, I truly believe this is extremely important when you are growing an Edible Garden.
Also I only water as needed as I don’t like to overwater them. Irregular watering can affect it flowering as well.
I hope this may help you. Good luck and looking forward to seeing an update AND heaps of beautiful Passionfruit on your vines 😊🌿
Hi @Meloncat And all
No Fruit and or friut with no pulp inside can be the lack of pollenation of flowers
As an ex Dept of agriculture registered and course trained bee keeper one of the ways to make money from bees was to Increase hive poputations and hire your hives out to primary producers to pollenate crops. In Fact Austrailian bee keepers send zillions of healthy bees to USA as their bees have Varoa mites killing there bees Aussies bees then die too .With out good pollenation the crop would only produce 10% yield depending on the crop. This Includes passionfruit vines. Bees currently in Newcsastle are under heavy quaratine as varoa mite detected in the region Nasty business.
now Passionfruit vines have both male bits and female bit on same plant (Stamen and Pistill) so you can try the following after fertaliser is feed to them every 6-8 weeks.
Hand pollination, to encourage fruiting process in case bees in your area out of range which can happen in Australian cities. Support your city beekeepers our jobs are to manage risks to public too via passive queen bee selection (I used to mail order genetically selected passive and pre mated queen bees via post . Queens are artificially inseminated with 100 drones and she stores that sperm for 3 years of her life this ensures Passive bees). If the bees have richer nectar sources closer by they wont need to travel to your passionfruit. A bee needs to visit 12 million flowers to make 1 litre of honey. One honey bee will visit approx 3000 flowers per day. Busy as a bee.
Hand pollination This can be done with a paintbrush by collection pollen from the stamen and spreading it to the pistil of another flower on the same vine.
Try co planting lavender around your vine to attract more bees to the with more fragrent flowers they will then visit passionfriut flowers too,
Hope this helps
@Jewelleryrescue That’s really interesting information, thanks heaps for sharing 😃🐝
Hi @Roberte86,
Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. We're really pleased to have you join us and trust you'll get all manner of helpful advice and project inspiration from our clever and creative community members. Feel free to post anytime you need a hand.
Sorry to read that you don't feel you got the advice you needed in a Bunnings store. If you'd like me to ask one of our resident Bunnings D.I.Y. experts to get in touch with you to get more details and assist, please let me know.
As others have shared, you might find these guides useful for tips on how to ensure your passionfruit produces plenty of fruit: How to grow and care for passion fruit and What are your tips for growing passionfruit?
Let me also tag the wonderfully knowledgable @Noelle to see if she might like to share her thoughts on why two vines next to each other might produce such different results, and what you could do to encourage more fruit.
Thanks,
Jason
Hi @Roberte86
You don't need two passionfruit vines in close proximity to have good fruit production, but you do need pollination in order for flowers to set fruits.
The Black Passionfruit is the most prolific of the common varieties available and seems to produce a bumper crop even when there is a scarcity of pollinating insects such as bees. However, intervention in the form of hand pollination (see @Jewelleryrescue 's reply in this thread) will increase your harvest even more.
Some of the other types of passionfruit are, for whatever reason, not as adept at setting fruits. It may that the pistil (female floral part) is receptive to pollen before the anthers (male pollen-bearing floral parts) in each flower are mature and ready to shed their pollen. This is where hand pollination becomes essential. Take pollen from older flowers that have been fully open for a few days and use it on younger flowers newly opened.
You will know within days if your efforts have been successful. If the flowers wither and fall off, pollination has not occurred. If you can see a swelling at the base of the pistil like a tiny fruit developing, then pollination has occurred. It may take a bit of practice to get your technique right but the effort will be worthwhile if you get a good amount of fruit.
Noelle,
I have tried hand pollination with a negative result, but I will try your method of old flower pollen to new flowers.
I have a lot of bees around my place, and once years ago when I put an electric mosquito killer outside overnight, it killed hundreds of small MOTHS which are also pollinators, so natural pollinators are not my problem.
All the best 🙂
Thanks Jason.
I have the exact same variety also bought from Bunnings, experiencing same issue.
Overgrowth of leaves, lots of flowers but never fruits. This is its 3rd season. Have followed the advise from fb but so far no luck and gave even tried pollinating it myself with a brush 😣
I think we may have been sold duds!
Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @lblack. It's great to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about passionfruit.
I'm sorry to hear that you are having issue with your plant not setting fruit.Given you haven't had any fruit set and you have an overgrowth of leaves I'd be taking a look at the base of the plant to ensure suckers from the grafted root stock haven't taken over the plant. If you can post several photos of the base and try to locate the graft line, then I can advise on whether this growth is from the rootstock of the grafted variety. Let me know if you need a hand uploading images.Please let me know if you have any questions.Mitchell
Have to agree with you about the duds lblack.
I've had 3-4 previous vines in the same locations and have even been through the grafted ones throwing up suckers everywhere.
Always produced copious amounts of fruit.
For the last 3 + years I have been trying the 'sunshine special' in Perth.
Tried all the different ferts, trace elements, potash etc etc.
Heaps of pollinators in the garden (bees) and tried the hand pollinating, to no effect.
There are also many people on the FB pages with the same issue, flowers will not set fruit. The 3 fruit I have had, have been void of all internals.
All responses on the FB post have stated their frustrations at the sunshine special from Bunnings.
I have massacred my vine and chopped it right back (previous vines would have died from this extent) to see if it shocks the vine into fruiting, but the idea has not worked so far this year.
Imo, there is something that is not right about this strain or maybe supplier to Bunnings, as I have tried everything else.
The responses from Bunnings in this post are just the standard responses.
Mine will be ripped out after this summer if it does not produce and I'll never be buying fruit stock from Bunnings again
Last years pics
Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @Mboy75. Sorry to read you are having trouble with your passionfruit vine.
Let me tag a couple of our most experienced community members in @Noelle and @mich1972 to see if they could share some thoughts and advice for you.
Our resident Bunnings D.I.Y. experts would also be happy to assist as soon as possible.
Hi @Mboy75
I'm not familiar with the passionfruit variety you mention - 'Sunshine Special' - which appears to be local to Perth and environs. Usually abundant flowers and no fruits indicates a lack of pollinators but you have plenty of them from your photos!
If the flowers are not setting fruits then perhaps it may be something to do with the cultural conditions such as soil pH, fertiliser program and watering.
Since this is a variety that originated in WA, it may be worthwhile contacting the business that developed this passionfruit via its web page, which has a Message us facility for questions.
Thanks for the reply Noelle.
The variables are all in check and I have been through all options, including PH, ferts (less nitorgen, normal nitrogen), spray (potash, chelates etc), full retic and mulched,
That business you suggested is a back yard nursery, who didn't develop the strain.
I'm not the only one who has had these same issues with this strain, most mentioned they had bought from Bunnings and a few (as I) had questions for the supplier to Bunnings.
Hi @Mboy75,
I'll reach out via private message to gather more information on your purchase so we can verify who the supplier is of the plant. We'll then be able to contact them about your questions.
I have the same problem- this is my second summer and the vine has grown well but the flowers just drop off, not a single fruit. A Black Nugget variety from Bunnings in Perth region. Very disappointing, not really sure what to do, already wasted all this time and water on it 🤷♀️ how many years does it need to grow before it fruits or I give up?!?
Hello @4chazza
Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. It's wonderful to have you join us.
Black Nugget passionfruit usually starts fruiting within 1–2 years, so by the second summer, you’d expect at least some fruit to set. If the vine is flowering but the flowers are dropping without producing fruit, the most common reasons are lack of pollination, too much nitrogen, or environmental stress.
Passionfruit rely on bees and other insects for pollination, and if there aren’t enough pollinators around, you might need to hand-pollinate by transferring pollen between flowers with a small brush. Excess nitrogen from fertilizers can cause lush growth at the expense of flowers and fruit, so if you've been feeding it regularly, consider switching to a fertilizer high in potassium and phosphorus instead. Extreme weather, like heat waves or sudden temperature drops, can also cause flower drop, especially in Perth’s hot climate.
If it’s otherwise healthy and still growing well, it might just need a little more time, but if there’s no improvement by next summer, it could be worth replacing it with a grafted passionfruit variety, which generally fruits more reliably.
If you need further assistance, please let us know.
I too have a passionfruit vine from Bunnings that has never yielded fruit. Most annoyingly I can't remember the exact variety other than it isn't a Pandora (which I prefer). I have lots of bees, highly fertile soil and ideal conditions. In 2.5 years this, and considerable hand pollination efforts have yielded a handful of completely hollow, sterile fruit.
After returning to Bunnings multiple times I have been helpfully advised to check a few things and been offered products to purchase, to no avail. Sure, these tips would be great advice under usual circumstances, but I have successfully grown pandora red and other varieties, and I feel pretty sure it is a varietal issue. The best I can think of is that this type is self sterile, but it is not something I can easily check without purchasing another vine.
It seems that self sterile passionfruit exist, but that definitely wasn't something I recall seeing on the tag. Nobody else here has raised this. Not sure why? Perhaps they are not usually sold commercially? If I can find flowers to pollinate from another vine, I will be sure to let you all know. After such a frustrating experience I really want to get to the bottom of this too. (edited for paragraphing)
Hello @Fred_the_Grate and welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community.
I'm sorry to hear that you are having the same issues with your passionfruit not fruiting. If it were a case of needing another plant for pollination, then they would typically be mentioned on the label. However, it would certainly be worth trying to pollinate from another plant if it was possible.
Thanks for your reply Eric.
I do read labels before purchase /planting and don't recall seeing this but the label is, of course, long gone!
Anyhow, getting fresh flowers for pollination is proving a challenge.
I successfully located and harvested a few flowers from a feral vine (sprouted from seed) in a single festoon.
6 hours later I got home and tried to spread the pollen manually. After 2 weeks, no fruit have set.
The flowers were of various ages, but I think a couple were reasonably fresh, a couple had no pollen ie. too young.
A couple had already dropped their pollen. Maybe the delay in getting home was an issue, maybe poor technique, maybe I'm barking up the wrong... vine?
I will give it another go, from another vine if one can be found, and I'll let y'all know how it goes.
Cheers, Fred
Same problem just looking up cause -Bunnings!
Have Bunnings looked into this with supplier?
Hi @AndyH63,
A warm welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community, it is fantastic to have you with us.
My colleague @MitchellMc has been in touch with our suppliers, however, I am not certain what has come from that communication.
Please bear with us, he will be back online tomorrow.
Jacob
Could you share more details about the passionfruit vine you’ve purchased—such as the variety and when and where you planted it? We’ve seen some feedback regarding the Sunshine Special, though the supplier hasn’t reported any issues suggesting it’s sterile.
It’s worth noting that a lack of fruit isn’t specific to the varieties we sell but is a common issue with passionfruit vines in general. There are several reasons a vine might not produce fruit, including climate conditions, the rootstock taking over (which can result in a lot of vigorous growth but no fruit), a lack of pollinators in the area, or even incorrect fertilisation. Excess nitrogen, for example, can lead to lush foliage at the expense of flowers and fruit.
A few reasons why flowers might not set fruit include a lack of pollinators—passionfruit relies on bees and other insects to transfer pollen, and if there aren’t enough around, hand-pollination may be needed. High humidity or excessive rain can also affect pollination by making pollen less viable or washing it away before it can do its job. Additionally, some varieties have lower natural fruit set and may need a compatible cross-pollinator to improve yield. Let us know more details about your vine, and we’d be happy to help troubleshoot.
