My Nephew, a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay, needs advice on best practices. Where to go for such advice would also be much appreciated!
Is he growing them in a garden, or in the wild? In the garden, the fastest and easiest way to deal with a passionfruit vine is to train it along a balcony rail; this way the fruit is always within reach. In a less civilized setting, it should be trained to grow up a smaller tree. If he's worried about pruning, it doesn't happen; removal of dead or diseased leaves by pinching is the most that's normally done to a passionfruit vine, and even this is done rarely because it will drop these leaves on its own. Pesticides are not necessary because very few things eat the fruit; the vine is host to caterpillars but rarely in such quantities that they harm it (and they become quite stunning butterflies). Germination in the tropics, especially lowlands like Paraguay, is extremely easy - buy a fruit at market and plant the seeds about 2" down, and they'll normally germinate within 2 or 3 weeks. After that, lots of water and part sun make the vines grow so fast that one can almost see it happening. After about 100 leaves, they'll start flowering, and again becuase you're within the native range of the vines, you don't have to worry about pollination; fruit follows the flowers in about a week, and ripens in about a month (or two, depending on the variety of vines you're planting). For yields and flavour, I'd reccomend Passiflora edulis and P. edulis var flavicarpus (Black and Gold Maracuya), and P. ligularis (Granadilla). He won't be able to grow the banana-passionfruits (P. mixta, P. manicata) because he's not in a cold enought place.
"He won't be able to grow the banana-passionfruits (P. mixta, P. manicata) because he's not in a cold enought place." That explains why it is up 60 ft eucalypts here, a weed here. I seems to like our warm to hot weather and overwinters happily in the cool to cold. The parrots spread the seed with gay abandon. Liz "
Liz, what it needs is the cold period. Here, P. mixta and P. manicata grow up almost at the snowline, and you never see them below about 1800 meters of altitude.
