A few days ago I hand pollinated two flowers of Physical Graffiti with its own pollen. Was done at 11pm. Made sure I put a sufficient amount in the stigma. Flowers dropped. I had no other pollen available. I have heard both, that physical graffiti es self fertile and others say it not. Any one with experience on this ?
Particularly looking with successfull pollination with other cultivars.
It has been my experience that
Physical Graffiti is NOT self fertile.
It has also been reported that Physical Graffiti needs pollen from an unrelated Dragon Fruit, not a related
Paul Thomson "S" variety (except S-8).
The following information came from Paul’s book
Pitahaya – A Promising New Fruit Crop for Southern California, second edition August 2002, pgs. 39 – 41, 45 & 46.
Paul says his first Pitahaya hybrid seeds came from two unknown species he called “Neitzel” and “Rixford”. Neitzel produced white flesh fruit and Rizford produced red flesh fruit. From this cross, Paul says in his book that there were 8 seedlings produced. One seedling died and all of the remaining 7 flowered and produced fruit. Two of the plants had what Paul called outstanding fruit and three had very good fruit. In Paul’s own words;
“It was a most fortuitous cross.” Note: According to Paul, all of the seedlings from his “Netitzel X Rixford” cross must be cross pollinated to set fruit.Paul also produced two seedlings from a different cross between “Houghton” and Rixford. Both Houghton and Rixford have red flesh fruit and in Paul’s opinion excellent flavor.
The “S” stands for seedling.
1-S – dark pink flesh, flavor very good, renamed
“Physical Graffiti” by Florida nursery.
2-S – deep red flesh, flavor very good to excellent renamed
“Cosmic Charlie”3-S – delicate pink flesh, flavor superb, named
“Delight” by Paul.
4-S – pale pink flesh, flavor very good.
5-S – dark red or magenta flesh, flavor good – very good, renamed
“Purple Haze” 6-S – Paul removed after freeze damage
7-S – Paul removed after freeze damage
8-S – deep, almost fluorescent magenta flesh, flavor excellent, named
“Sugar Dragon” by grower Linda.
9-S – red flesh, flavor a close second to 3-S, renamed
“Dark Star” by Florida nursery.
Note: 7-S and 8-S are from the Houghton X Rixford cross.
S1, S2, S3, S8, etc. are the same, just different naming for 1-S, 2-S, 3-S, 8-S, etc.
It has been reported that some of the above were renamed by
Pine Island Nursery.