Hardy kiwi dying

I’m looking for advice about why one of our hardy kiwis is dying. Its a male that was planted  about 3 years ago. I noticed its leaves are dying so I checked out the stem and its rotting. The stem is feeling soft and the bark slipped off easily. This is actually the second male hardy kiwi we planted in that spot. The first one died quickly but I don’t remember why. Maybe the first winter killed it. This one has always grown slow. A late frost killed some new growth on it this spring, not sure if that could be related. We have voles in the garden so I thought they girdled it but I couldn’t see any evidence of that. The female is about 4’ away and growing like crazy. We have Winecaps growing throughout the garden and I found mycelium near the base of the kiwi plant. Could Winecap fungus be attacking the plant?

Any advice or opinions are appreciated! I want kiwis but this giant wildly female needs a healthy male to be productive! I’ll definitely replant but dont want the same thing to happen again.

Have you tried growing artic kiwi vs hardy kiwi?
Maybe try another location, due to the fact that it only needs to produce pollen and not fruit, you could plant it "anywhere" and prune it back to just 4ft wide and 6ft tall.

S Bengi wrote:Have you tried growing artic kiwi vs hardy kiwi?
Maybe try another location, due to the fact that it only needs to produce pollen and not fruit, you could plant it "anywhere" and prune it back to just 4ft wide and 6ft tall.

I believe this is called Ken’s Red hardy kiwi and it’s supposed to be able to tolerate -25f. Im not sure if arctic kiwis are even hardier than that or if thats just a different name for the same plant.

I definitely could replant in a different area, and will if that’s recommended. I just would definitely prefer it to grow where its at because I have a gate/doorway to our garden made out of an old wooden ladder. I’ve got the female growing up one side and the male on the other. The female is growing like a weed and the male is dying, so the whole entrance to the garden looks lopsided.

I cut the vine down, dug up the roots as much as I could and am going to burn it all. Im pretty sure its the Armillaria. I planted this inside of a rotten piece of a log and I’m pretty sure, from finding rhizomorphs on what’s left of that log, that it was the source of the honeys in the garden. The kiwi had a bunch of healthy roots but the stem is rotten around ground level and I found what looks like white mycelium and dark colored rhizomorphs a few feet around underneath the mulch. I dug all them out as best I could. Unfortunately, they were heading in the direction of the female kiwi. And the spot I found honey mushrooms last year is probably 20’ away so I’m guessing there’s rhizomorphs everywhere in the garden. The kiwis are the only thing I’m too concerned about though as the rest is mostly vegetables and herbs. As of now, my plan is to replant a new male kiwi in the same place but raised up in some sort of wooden container.