Passionfuit, no pollen on flowers?

Webby80 starts with ...
Hi Fruit growing gurus,
I’m having trouble with my banana passionfruit vine, whilst I know that there have been plenty of forum topics that have already discussed the lack of fruit on passionfruit vines, however I believe i have a different problem – lack of pollen.

The problem I have is lots of flowers (good start), but no pollen on the flowers? I know this because when the vine started to flower for the first time earlier this summer, I got very excited and hand pollinated the first 3 flowers. There was a lot of pollen on these initial flowers which was easy to indentify. Then the problem started. 3 fruit started to grow, however over the next month they never matured and eventually they rotted away. Possible due to the lack of sun? There was lots of sun on the vine, but zero on the fruit as they were hanging in a shelter position.

Anyway, since then I would have seen at least 200 flowers, but every time I look at the flowers I can see there is no pollen on the stamen. No pollen equals no fruit.

We have had a lot of rain this summer, but I’m assuming it is due to a nutrient deficiency as my neighbours vines are doing great.

I have had troubles with red spider mites on this vine in the past, so I bought some predator bugs which fixed that pretty quick. No sure what else it could be. The vine is still growing like crazy, just no fruit. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Webby

amanda says...
Interesting info Webby80...it might explain some other folks problems with their passionfruits sometimes too (over that way)

I never have that (rain) problem here - but I still learnt something, thanks.. :)
Hopefully next season will be a better one for you. Strange the 3 fruit died off..(no - lack of sun directly on the fruit is no problem) maybe the vine aborted them due the conditions...it's a mystery why this happens sometimes - despite correct fertilising etc..

Be sure to give it some potash this late winter, early spring...and some nice manure.

I suspect I am going to have the same problem as you - but due to heat drying out the pollen too fast (we are having many consecutive days above 40 oC with only 5% humidity)

I have been watering the ground all around the vines to help keep the humidity levels up (oh the irony! lol..)

I don't know if it will work tho..but it's worth a try :)

applegrower says...
I have this problem. I bought a purple and a yellow passionfruit at a nursery. Both grew at the same rate and both produced flowers. However the yellow passionfruit had no pollen on the anthers requiring me to pollinated them from the abundant pollen on the anthers of the purple passionfruit. As t was their first year I thought things would improve. This year, however I have the same problem. I read this on Bee Aware. On the other hand, the yellow passionfruit (Passiflora edulis Sims f. flavicarpa Degener) is almost entirely self-incompatible and requires cross-pollination with another cultivar to set seeds and fruit. I'm guessing that is what I bought. So I am back to hand pollinating. I may even take the yellow one out next year as I have since bought several more purple plus a banana passiflora mollissima.