Hand and Machine Pollination of Kiwifruit

Two artificial pollination field trials were carried out in Central Chile (32°S. Lat.) during the 1999-2000 season with ‘Hay-ward’ kiwifruit plants (Actinidia deliciosa (Chev.) Liang et Ferguson). The treatments for both trials used pollen collected from ‘Matua’ and included: flower to flower hand pollination; hand pollination using a velvet pad attached to a handle; and mechanical pollination using a portable pollen (1:1, pollen: licopodium) dusting machine; and a control treatment without artificial pollination. Trial 1 did not include bee hives as did Trial 2. In Trial 2, half of the selected shoots in each plant were isolated from bee pollination by means of a light fabric bag. A block design with 5 replications of one plant each was used in Trial 1, while in Trial 2 a fully random split plot (with and without isolation) with 5 replications was used. In both trials, flower to flower and pad pollination increased fruit set, fruit size, seeds and fertilized locules per fruit. Mechanical pollina...