1. Good Organic Gardening - January-February 2016

GROWING | Passionfruit
Passionfruit
Passiflora edulis
Words Jennifer Stackhouse
I’ve just been standing with a neighbour, Naomi, looking
at the remains of her passionfruit vine. It’s a sad sight.
What’s left is the unproductive, weedy understock. The
productive vine succumbed to a cold snap, but the coldand
disease-tolerant understock, Passiflora caerulea, can’t
be halted. She has tried tearing it down and digging it out.
The latest weapon is the family’s pet lamb, currently feeding
around where the passionfruit understock is growing.
Before the passionfruit died back, it produced buckets of
passionfruit, so Naomi is keen to plant another vine, but she
says it won’t be a grafted vine.
Grafted vs own roots
Passionfruit are usually sold as grafted plants. Grafting makes
the vine more tolerant of poor soil and climate conditions
but, as Naomi discovered, the graft can become a huge weed
problem. As well as surviving when the main plant has died,
suckering while the edible vine is still alive is also a problem.
Although the suckering of varieties grafted on to
P. caerulea is a potential garden problem, there are rootstocks
that don’t sucker. Commercial vines are usually grafted onto
P. edulis f. flavicarpa, a rootstock developed in Queensland
that is disease-resistant and not prone to suckering.
Some varieties are also grown from seed or cutting to
overcome suckering problems. ‘Panama Red’ and ‘Pandora’
may be sold as seed-grown plants, which means they are
growing on their own roots. Black passionfruit is also available
on its own roots.
Planting and care
Passionfruit is one of Australia’s favourite backyard crops and
a useful plant to grow as a living screen for shade or privacy.
Although they are warm-climate plants, passionfruit grow in
all but the very coldest parts of the country.
Tropical, subtropical and warm coastal zones produce the
best vines. In cold areas, select a warm, sheltered spot with
free-draining soil. Cold conditions and wet soils lead to poor
growth or vine death and poor fruiting. Fruit that does form
can be very slow to ripen.
These vines also need space for their extensive root
systems and spreading branches. They are not suited
to growing in pots and may be difficult to manage in
confined spaces.
In tropical and subtropical climates, passionfruit vines
fruit within six months of planting, which can be done at any
time of the year. In temperate zones, however, flowering and
fruiting can take 18 months from planting, which is best done
in spring or early summer.
Feed vines in spring and summer with pelletised organic
manure or citrus food, spreading the fertiliser along the root
system. Water well, particularly after planting, while times are
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