Growing passion fruits: What you need to know

Passion fruit farming is still an unexplored kind of fruit farming. Apart from the fact that passion fruits, just like any other fruit, has its good and bad seasons, but when properly looked after, these fruits can enable a farmer generate significant income. However, they cannot just blossom, they must be properly planned for to get the best fruits and results.

Thus, knowledge of the best agronomic practices is vital. Lydia Nantabo, an agronomist, highlights the following that can be applied from preparation of land to harvest, storing and marketing.

Land preparation

The best soil for cultivation of passion fruits is sandy loam soil. But that is not a limitation on where to grow them. Once you have set the land for planting the passion fruits. Do the following:

Properly plough the land to allow easy penetration of water and nutrient before making the planting holes. Make them 60cm by 60cm (2ft wide and 1ft down)
Separate the first 30cm of the soil and mix it with the manure you are going to use for refilling.
Get well-decomposed manure and place it in the hole you are going to plant in, two weeks before planting.
You can drench the soil-manure mix with fungicide to kill any fungi that might be in the manure.
If you are preparing to plant during a dry season, water the holes a day before but if it is during the rainy season, you can go ahead and plant.
The spacing from hole to hole or plant to plant is 3m by 2m or 10ft by 7ft. The size of the holes is determined by the labour for at the pruning stage. If you are doing it on your own, you could make bigger spaces or according to your preference.
If you have no labour, avoid planting them too close to each other as this will be tedious during pruning.
During planning, make sure you remove the polythene bags that wrap the seedlings and dispose them off properly because they prevent water retention in the soil.
You can dip the seedling roots into a root stimulant. This allows proper and easy growth of roots.

Varieties

The major ones are the local purple traditional and the local purple hybrid. However, there are different varieties of passion fruits although, these are identified or classified according to areas.

Soil and nutrition

This involves indulging in practices or applying substances that improve the soil’s qualities. This can be in terms of how fast the soil absorps nutrients or the rate at which the weeds will grow during the planting season.

Applying the right soil nutrients can improve its structure and yield better results.
Nantabo recommends using organic manure as this helps to balance up the soil although it is better to take a sample of the farm soil for testing so that you know of any missing nutrients.

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