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Friday, August 12, 2011

Passiflora edulis Seedlings (Yellow Passion Fruit)


This summer I have been obsessed with tropical fruits. I've tried to start many seeds from these fruits. Some of them have been a complete failure and not sprouted at all or died immediately afterwards. These include Sweetsop, Cherimoya, Longan, Lychee, and Papaya. As far as I know all of these seeds were from irradiated fruit.

I also tried some seeds from those dried sugary Dates without luck. My experience thus far had told me that nothing would sprout. Luckily I'm addicted to germinating seeds and planted some from a yellow passion fruit anyway. Within less than a week the first sprouts were poking out of the soil. Like most of my seeds, they started in a south-facing window in a grocery store sushi container.

I moved them outside into partial sun and they kept doing well. I managed about 75% germination and had to cull the extra seedlings. One really hot day I accidently let them dry out. I figured I'd lost them for sure, but soaked them in the hopes of saving a few. To my surprise they all survived! A few days later I transplanted the largest into the pots below. They have since started putting out new leaves and seem quite happy.

This variety is not hardy at all. There are some cultivars that will die down to the ground in my area but you'll never see the fruit for sale. I'll have to bring these plants in for the winter. Hopefully I'll have some flowers by next year!

4 comments:

  1. Nice! I have had some with luck pomegranate seeds and the pits of fresh Medjool dates but it did take about two months for seedlings to emerge and only about a third of the seeds germinated.

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  2. My dates were processed with some sugar added. Do dates really need extra sugar? I'm glad your seeds sprouted. I should try pomegranate. That's an obvious one that's somehow eluded me.

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  3. I have planted some passiflora edulis seeds and so far only one has germinated. It looks good to me, but since none of the others have germinated I'm getting nervous that some other seed fell in there and this pretty little seedling is not going to be a passionflower vine at all. I am seriously bad at growing things, but I desperately want to grow passiflora. May I send you a picture to see if you can identify it?

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    Replies
    1. You sure can, just send me an email from my contact section. Hopefully I can help out.

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