Vegetative and Floral Chilling Requirements of Four New Kiwi Cultivars of Actinidia chinensis and A. deliciosa

Abstract

Kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa A. Chev. and Actinidia chinensis Planch) require winter chilling to complete rest and growing degree hours to grow. This study was conducted to compare the chilling requirement and growing degree hours for budbreak and floral development of two female cultivars of A. chinensis, ‘Golden Sunshine’ and ‘Golden Dragon', two female cultivars of A. deliciosa, ‘AU Fitzgerald’ and ‘Hayward', and two male cultivars of A. deliciosa, ‘AU Authur’ and ‘Matua'. In 2005 and 2006, shoot cuttings were made from dormant 1-year canes at nodes 6 to 20, starting from the basal end of canes and held in cold storage at 4 °C. Cuttings were removed from storage and flowering was forced in a greenhouse maintained at 25 °C. Maximum budbreak was determined to be 700 h for ‘Golden Sunshine’, 800 h for ‘Golden Dragon’ and ‘AU Fitzgerald’, and 900 h for ‘Hayward’, ‘Matua’, and ‘AU Authur’. Growing degree hour to first budbreak were 9,500 h for ‘Golden Dragon’ and 15,000 h for ‘Golden Sunshine’, with the correlation of determination too low for the other cultivars. The high heat requirement for ‘Gold Sunshine’ would reduce the risk of injury by late spring frosts. Bloom period of both male cultivars overlapped with bloom periods for all cultivars except ‘Golden Dragon’ for fully mature vines in the field.