Question

An avid gardener plants a kiwi vine in the backyard. After many years, in spite of luxuriant growth and many pollinating bees in the backyard, the tree does not bear fruit. All the blooms display lovely white flowers and a large carpel with long sticky stigmas in the center. What is a possible explanation for the problem?

Answer 1

A possible explanation of the stated problem might be that the gardener planted only one gender, i,e. either male or a female kiwi vine in the backyard which provides prolific growth but the tree is unable to bear any fruit in spite of the pollinating bees. Kiwi plants are primarily dioecious, which means the plants has a distinct gender, they are either male or female.

Generally, for breeding purpose, better kiwi fruits production occurs when one male plant is planted for every eight female plants. Determining the gender of the plant is important. Given below are the photographs of the male and the female flowers. The gender of the kiwi plant can be mainly differentiated by the flowers after they bloom.

Figure1: Male Kiwi Flower

Figure 2: Female Kiwi Flower

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The main characters of the male and female kiwi flower is tabulated below:

Male Kiwi Flower	Female Kiwi Flower
Produce bright yellow pollen from numerous stamens	Have well developed white colour ovary with long sticky stigmas in the centre. They have stamen but do not produce functional pollen. The fake anthers help attract pollinating bees.

The gardener has most probably planted only female kiwi plant as it has a large carpel (female reproductive organ of a flower which consists of an ovary, a stigma and often a style) with long sticky stigmas in the centre. In absence of a male plant, the tree is unable to receive any pollen in spite of the presence of the pollinating bees and so fruits are not produced.