Hi Kiwinut / all
Hopefully people won’t mind me bringing up an old post.
I recently purchased a supposedly self-fertile female Issai hardy Kiwi. According to this post though, it looks like I should also plant a male pollinator of some sort. Do you have a favorite variety for zone 6b? I’d prefer to keep the size smaller if possible. I’d probably have to order it Bareroot next spring.
2nd question… I had planned to grow the vine on a vertical, extendible piece of painted galvanized iron pipe with smaller horizontal steps on it (using "T"s). The base of the pipe is down about 3-4 feet in the ground. I had seen somewhere that this plant only got to 10’ or so tall, but now I just saw elsewhere that it can get to 25’. Is my way of attempting to grow this plant unadvisable? I’m afraid I don’t have any fences that I could grow it on. Anybody have any pictures of the growing asaii that they’d like to share? Thanks,
-Glenn

Any male will probably work well enough. The male (Meader?) that is commonly sold with 'Anna' should work well, as 'Anna' is mid to late blooming like Issai.

Issai is self-pollinating, but not self-fertile. The non-viable pollen will set fruit on Issai, but not on other females. You will get more fruit and larger fruit with a male pollinator. It is not as vigorous as most pure argutas, so it is pretty easy to manage. I have a couple in 3 gallon containers that fruit well, that I keep at 3-4 ft tall, so you should not have any problems keeping it under control on your trellis.

Males can be pruned back really hard after they bloom, as much as 90% once they reach maturity, so they can be managed much more easily than most females. Most of the female varieties need to get really big to bloom, but males tend to bloom at an earlier age and smaller size.

~kiwinut