How to Hand Pollinate Passion Fruit Flowers
Last Updated on August 9, 2023
Are you growing a passion fruit vine, but have little to no fruit developing on it? One issue may be that the passion flowers are not getting adequate pollination. If that is the case, don’t worry! It is an easy fix. To help your struggling passion fruit plant, you may need to step in and hand-pollinate the flowers to increase fruit production. Read along to learn how simple it is to hand pollinate passion fruit flowers, including step-by-step photos!
Before we go over how to hand-pollinate passion fruit, we should rule out other reasons that your vine may not be bearing fruit.
Possible Reasons Why Your Passion Fruit Vines Are Not Producing Fruit
Wrong Variety?
First of all, are you sure that your vine is a fruiting variety? Because of the hundreds of stunning, exotic-looking passion flower types, only a handful of varieties produce edible fruit. The two most common are Passiflora edulis (purple or yellow passion fruit) and Passiflora incarnata – also known as “Maypops”. For reference, all of the photos in this post are of our “Frederick’s” Passiflora edulis purple passion fruit. See below to get an idea of what Maypop flowers look like!
So, you’re pretty certain you’re growing an edible variety of passion fruit? That is great news! Both P. Edulis and P. Incarnata are self-fertile. This means they do not need a partner plant to be pollinated and bear fruit – so it is totally fine if you only have one vine!
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Timing
Keep in mind that passion fruit can take a couple of years to begin bearing fruit. Therefore, if your vine is still young, be patient with it! The time of year that passionfruit flower and develop fruit will vary based on unique climates and cultivars, but in our experience they flower most heavily in late summer and the fruit is ripe in fall to winter.
Stress or Health Issues
Passion fruit vines are relatively easy to grow and care for! As long as they’re provided the conditions and climate they prefer, they should be happy and healthy. Yet if your passion fruit plant is stressed, unhealthy, deprived of nutrients, or otherwise out of its comfort zone, it is not going to be ready and willing to hand over the goods. And by goods, I mean fruit.
For more information on how to grow and care for passion fruit, including both purple passion fruit and maypops, see this article all about it! Maybe you’ll glean some tips to improve your care routine and help your plant thrive.
Lack of Pollination
Even though passion fruit is self-fertile, the pollen is still required to be moved around the flower – transferred from the anther to the stigma. Because passion fruit pollen is rather thick and sticky, wind doesn’t always do the trick. Instead, carpenter bees and honey bees are the primary pollinators for passion fruit. This means you need bees in your yard! For ideas on how to attract more bees to your garden, check out our list of the Top 23 Plants to Attract Pollinators!
Without adequate bee activity, you may find the need to hand-pollinate the flowers… and so here we are.
HOW TO HAND POLLINATE PASSION FRUIT FLOWERS
Here is your quick passion flower anatomy lesson: the anthers produce pollen. The stigmas want some of that pollen. If this transaction occurs, the passion fruit will develop and grow for you to enjoy! If you look closely at the image below, you can actually see the pre-pubescent passionfruit nestled in the middle of the flower – the ovary, like a tiny green egg.
To hand-pollinate passion fruit flowers, the goal is to collect and transfer pollen from the anther to the stigma.
To do so, you have a couple of options:
Option One: If you’re feeling extra fancy and not up for mutilating plant parts, use a dainty paint brush to collect the pollen from the anther and spread it on the stigmas. There are suggestions out there to do the same using a Q-tip, though I find the cottony texture sticks and holds on to more of the pollen than it actually deposits onto the stigma
Option two requires no tools. Simply pluck off one of the anthers – or as I like to call them – “pollen pads”. Then rub it on all of the stigma bits to deposit pollen. Depending on how much pollen the anther pad has to offer, you should be able to “do” all three stigma bulbs on that flower – and likely have leftovers to spread to other passion flowers as well!
Repeat as needed. During peak flowering season, new flowers will be opening and closing every day!
Notes on Blooms:
- When a flower first opens, sometimes the pollen isn’t very loose and ready on the anther. If you find that to be true, try again later if possible. Some flowers only stay open for one full day, but many of ours bloom for several days. I have found that the pollen is usually most thick and free for transferring when the bloom has been open a while, and is on the decline but not yet closed.
- A passion flower that hasn’t yet bloomed will be either a tightly closed green bud, or a slightly open bud – with fresh white or purple frills sticking out.
- A “spent” or already-bloomed flower will close back up, but will look more faded, old, and even slightly brown in areas. Some spent flowers will naturally fall off the vine, but the ones that will produce fruit stay attached.
- If the pollination was successful, a small passionfruit will begin to develop inside the closed bloom, eventually peeking its way out as it becomes larger and larger!
And that is how you hand-pollinate passion fruit flowers!
What do you think? Does your vine need some help? Are you ready to go diddle your blooms? Well, now you know how!
While the process of hand-pollinating is simple and straightforward, I will admit that it can be tedious. The better long-term solution is to attract and foster a healthy bee population in your yard! Years ago, I hand-pollinated some of our passion flowers as an experiment, but with the gobs of bees buzzing around our garden, I have not found it necessary. Either way, I hope you are blessed with a bountiful harvest of homegrown passion fruit soon!
Deanna Talerico
Deanna Talerico (aka DeannaCat) is a garden educator and writer with over 15 years experience in organic gardening. She is a retired Senior Environmental Health Specialist, and holds a M.A. in Environmental Studies and B.S. in Sustainability and Natural Resources.
13 Comments
John C.
I’ve never known where on the stigma the pollen needs to go, top or bottom, in the crack between the two lobes? From your photos I see the pollen on the bottom of the stigmas…is this where it’s supposed to go?
Aaron (Mr. DeannaCat)
Hi John, the pollen is under the pads (anther) and the stigma is what wants pollen which is located directly above the pads. We found that once our passion fruit vines matured more, we didn’t need to hand pollinate the fruit nearly as much. Hope that helps and good luck!
Cari
I have some popping up all over. Never planted any. I saw one last year bear little green ” fruit” balls. Is it edible?
Aaron (Mr. DeannaCat)
Hi Cari, I can not say for sure if it is edible as I am not sure that the type of plant or fruit you are referring to is indeed passion fruit or Maypop. You will know for sure if you cut one open as the inside of the fruit is very unique. Maypops are native to the southeastern US so it is not surprising to see them sprout up and grow on their own, hope that helps and let us know what you find out.
Trisha
Hi Deanna!
I’ve hand pollinated majority of the flowers on my passion fruit vine but all of the flowers are falling off and not producing fruit. I’m not sure if I am doing something wrong or maybe my plant is still too young. I bought it earlier this year from the nursery as an older plant so I’m not sure how old it is but it has a ton of flowers.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated <3
Thank you,
Trisha
Aaron (Mr. DeannaCat)
Hi Trisha, no reason to be worried as they usually take a full year in your space to really start producing. Most of our vines didn’t produce until the following years season. Hope that helps and good luck, passion fruit is an absolutely delicious treat and I am sure you will have more fruit than you can handle soon.
Semyon Lorberg
I’m trying to grow banana passiflora and gigantic passiflora. They grow but no flowers. What could beer the reason?
Aaron (Mr. DeannaCat)
Hi Semyon, depending on the age of your plants, passionflower vines will usually need a few years to establish a root system before they choose support flowers and fruit. Also be sure to keep the soil around your passionfruit moist as dry soil can cause them stress, mulch around your plants to keep the moisture in. Lighting is another thing to consider as they like plenty of sunshine to live their best life. Hope that helps and good luck, passionfruit is an incredibly delicious fruit and hopefully you will have fruit to harvest before too long.
Tom
I have six plants from seeds of a phenomenal fruit. They were n
In pots for 6 months and in the ground for 8 months. I have had hundreds of flowers and I have hand pollinated 20 to 30 flowers and cross pollinated flowers from one Vine to another but all of the flowers drop off Are you saying that If it is a new plant that for the 1st year it will have tons of flowers but no fruit and then the 2nd year the flowers will fruit with pollination?
Aaron (Mr. DeannaCat)
Hi Tom, your plants are still young but those flowers will turn to fruit as it matures. Sounds like you have some healthy plants and you should have more passionfruit than you know what to do with before too long. Hope that helps and have fun growing!
dc
I’d heard people talk about pollinating plants themselves, but it always sounded complicated to me. This is such a nice breakdown!
The marked up pictures really help explain exactly where to put the pollen. I’m a very visual person, so thank you for that!
One of my 2021 projects is to get a water reclamation system in place, and I think these would make a nice privacy wall to hide the tanks.
Thank you so much for the detailed post!
dc
San Diego’ish.
Piyush
1. Any difference in hand pollination protocol between the yellow and purple passion fruits?
2. When and which fertilizer to apply to adult vines?
Thank you!
Aaron (Mr. DeannaCat)
Hi Piyush, we aren’t familiar with the yellow passion fruit flowers but you can likely pollinate them the same. We typically just apply a mild organic 4-4-4 fertilizer, if you have access to quality compost, adding a top dress of fresh compost or compost tea a few times a year would prove beneficial as well. We have found that overall, passion fruit vines are quite vigorous and don’t need a lot of additional amendments to produce a lot of fruit. Hope that helps and good luck!