The passion fruit vine bears large, uniquely shaped, fragrant blooms. With cross-pollination, the vine will produce sweet juicy passion fruit. The most frequently asked question this tropical vine is ‘why won’t my passion fruit vine fruit after flowering?’, and that question has an easy answer– the flowers weren’t pollinated.
Sterile Vine
Most of the passion fruit vine varieties are sterile and will need to be pollinated to bear fruit. The flowers of the purple passion fruit vine will set fruit when self-pollinated. However, yellow and white-blooming passion fruit vines must be pollinated by a different vine or they will not set fruit.
Pollination occurs best when the weather is humid. The humidity causes the pollen to stick better and increases the likelihood of fruit development. If you live in a dry, arid climate, hand-pollination will be the only way you’ll get to harvest sweet passion fruit from your vine.
Hand-Pollination
Even under the best of circumstances, like humid weather conditions, plenty of bee activity around the vines, and two or more vines growing near each other, hand-pollination is needed to ensure plenty of passion fruits.
Hand-pollination is a simple process in which you manually transfer pollen from one flower to another. This can be done by gently rubbing a cotton swab or soft make-up brush across the flowers.
Do this early in the morning while the dew is still on the flowers so the pollen will stick. Hand-pollinate as many of the blooms as possible to increase the odds of a good harvest.
Prune The Vine
Pruning is not essential to the health of the vine but if you want fruit you will have to prune. Flowers and fruit only develop on the new growth, so if you have not pruned the vine recently, that may be the reason your passion fruit vine is not fruiting after it flowers.
Pruning will also allow more sunlight to reach the interior of the vine and that will promote more flowers and fruit.
Prune the vine in early spring and feed it immediately after pruning. Don’t fertilize again until fall. Over-fertilizing will lead to an over-growth of lush foliage but reduce the number of flowers and fruit.
Plant Pollinators-Attracting Flowers
Plant flowers near your passion fruit vine that will attract pollinators to increase the odds of your vine producing fruit.
Lavender, bee balm, sage, coneflowers, and daisies are a few of the flowers that honey bees and carpenter bees find irresistible.
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