Pollinating kiwi fruit

[BertieFox]

Eight or nine years after growing it from seed, my kiwi fruit vine produced abundant flowers last year which we identified as female ones. Unfortunately we had no male plants which have produced flowers yet.
So we went out last summer and bought a male plant. Although this is quite small around three feet in height, it has three flower buds on it this year, while the old female kiwi is covered with buds (probably around 50). The two plants are just a few feet apart, the female on a pergola and the male lower down.

The question is, how many flowers will a single male one pollinate? Should I leave it to the bees and bugs, assuming the flowers open at the same time (which by sod's law they probably won't) or should I get a fine paintbrush or something and go around pollinating every female flower when it's open. Does anyone know how long after opening they are receptive and how much male pollen it takes to pollinate a female one? How far will my poor overworked three male flowers go?

I'm sure someone somewhere has faced a similar 'problem'!

[starloc]

Kiwis are very popular now in Bulgaria, they pollinate with a small bottle blowing air from the male to the female, even in commercial plantations, they say bees dont like the smell of the pollen so dont pollinate

Im not sure if i can put links to another forum on here, but there is a forum in Bugarian with a lot of information on kiwi growing i found this last week

You need to load translate.google.com and select change Bulgarian to English and paste the web address into the first box it will then load it up in English , about half way through it shows pollinating them

Палм Център Пловдив • Виж темата - Actinidia deliciosa, Киви ( Kiwi )