Author Topic: Dragon Fruit thread.  (Read 940253 times)

Rannman

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1275 on: August 03, 2015, 04:52:57 AM »
Here some better pics



I have had this on one of my plants and it does seem to spread rapidly.  All I can say is cut it out with a sterile blade while small or if it takes a whole stem, cut the whole stem off, bin it and let it reshoot.  The good news is(in my case) it doesn't seem to spread to other plants, even those that are very close.  Also, the original infected plant hasn't had the same problem since I cut out all of the infected area. Seems to only affect newer, softer growth.  Good luck.

Majime

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1276 on: August 03, 2015, 08:58:53 AM »
thank you so much for your advice. Unfortunately it's too late, I wasn't at home for the we and it spread so fast, even the base has it now.
You are completely right, it starts on the new growth but I didn't want to cut it at first, as it really looked like some insect bites, now I kinda regret it. The new stems (infected) are still growing, I'm going to wait and see, there is not much to do now, maybe stop watering for a few days.
I also noticed the dark area are becoming lighter like some coffee stains.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2015, 09:01:00 AM by Majime »

greenman62

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1277 on: August 03, 2015, 11:58:20 AM »

purple haze.
i rooted a few cuttings.
im guessing the soil was a bit too rich/heavy.

do i let it dry and re-plant ?
cut it in 1/2 ?


fyliu

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1278 on: August 03, 2015, 02:15:32 PM »
Chop off the dark part first until you see all green in the cross section. Don't worry about leaving it to dry for as long as month or so. It'll be fine. Typically, a week is enough. AC will speed up the drying too if you have it on anyway.

merce3

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1279 on: August 03, 2015, 10:07:31 PM »
Anyone know if rain impacts pollination of dragon fruit? I cross pollinated about 15 flowers but the rain has been non-stop for the last 20 days. Will the rain wash all of the pollen off? Does anyone have experience with this?

cos

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1280 on: August 04, 2015, 12:11:11 AM »
YES MOST DEFIANTLY
I find bees trapped in wet heavy flowers & weeks later the fruit set is not normal
This could be do to the pollen being wet & not able to " fly"
Also I have LOTS of Earwigs that seem to help in pollination as they are over over all flower parts  but when lots rain they  dont seem to help [ again wet pollen?]

turgut

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1281 on: August 04, 2015, 06:01:21 AM »
Hi guys
dragon fruit flowers in my greenhouse














Luisport

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1282 on: August 04, 2015, 06:05:44 AM »
Hi! First of all congratulations! The first ones with rose colour what's the variety? Thank you.  ;)

turgut

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1283 on: August 04, 2015, 06:49:34 AM »
Thank you . connie mayer varieties

Luisport

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1284 on: August 04, 2015, 06:54:40 AM »
Thank you . connie mayer varieties
It's very beautifull! I didn't know it...  :)

turgut

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1285 on: August 04, 2015, 07:53:05 AM »
Thank you
you can send as a gift cutting

Thank you . connie mayer varieties
It's very beautifull! I didn't know it...  :)

Luisport

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1286 on: August 04, 2015, 08:23:08 AM »
Thank you
you can send as a gift cutting

Thank you . connie mayer varieties
It's very beautifull! I didn't know it...  :)
PM sent  ;)

dmk

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1287 on: August 10, 2015, 09:59:20 AM »
Could someone please help clarify my doubt. I can't seem to find an answer for it on the net.

What happens if I take pollen from a red flesh variety and use it on a white flesh or vice versa for that matter. Would I get a pink flesh fruit?
Or, is it that the pollen does not matter where it came from and ultimately I get the mother plant fruit always?


simon_grow

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1288 on: August 10, 2015, 10:59:34 AM »
DMK, see this thread, it has some great pictures of S/H Megalanthus crosses. http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=13533.msg171487#msg171487

Article on chromosome doubling. http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/content/94/4/329.full.pdf

More on Yellow dragon. http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/46/11/1497.full

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but I'm guessing that if you cross a red fleshed with a white fleshed, non megalanthus, you can get red fleshed, white fleshed or pink and possibly other colors depending on the genotype of the parent plants. A fruit can have red flesh but have the genes for white or other color flesh. A fruit can be white but have recessive genes for red or other colors.

When pollination occurs, there is a recombination of the genes and it depends where everything lands that determines the color of the fruit of the resulting offspring. You can hand pollinate and bag a white x red phenotype fruit and plant the seeds and get all different colors.

Certain colors may not necessarily be a dominant/ recessive trait. It can be a multi allelic trait meaning that you will require a genes or chromosomes from several alleles in the correct combination for that trait to express itself. This is probably more useful for determining color of flowers as i believe fruit color is more often a simple dominant/recessive trait.

Simon

fyliu

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1289 on: August 10, 2015, 11:35:13 AM »
I agree with Simon. To put it simply, you can possibly get anything in the spectrum of red to white. You don't get it immediately in the fruit though, since it's the fruit of the red or white parent plant. You will get seedlings whose fruits will have the spectrum.

Pollen does affect the fruit in some other ways and you'll have to dig up the paper yourself since I don't remember. It just doesn't mean you can grow a white and a red and get multicolored fruits that easily.

ricshaw

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1290 on: August 10, 2015, 04:43:11 PM »
What happens if I take pollen from a red flesh variety and use it on a white flesh or vice versa for that matter. Would I get a pink flesh fruit?
Or, is it that the pollen does not matter where it came from and ultimately I get the mother plant fruit always?

It is my understanding that you will get fruit with flesh color of mother plant.

If you plant the seed from a white flesh/red flesh cross, then you will get some shade of "pink" flesh fruit.

Interesting, I have been told that cross pollination can increase the "size" of fruit.

dmk

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1291 on: August 11, 2015, 07:19:48 AM »
Thanks simon, fyliu and ricshaw.

Okay, so I have to take the fruit that was cross pollinated and sow its seeds and this plant would then turn out a different colored fruit. It's not certain that the fruit would be pink, it could be anything, as you guys say. And of course plants grown from seeds are not true to their mother plant. So basically I would be creating a new color/flavor fruit.

Sounds interesting and would like to try once my plants start flowering. The long wait for the seeds to grow in to mature plants is the only down side.

ricshaw

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1292 on: August 11, 2015, 11:55:56 AM »
Thanks simon, fyliu and ricshaw.

Okay, so I have to take the fruit that was cross pollinated and sow its seeds and this plant would then turn out a different colored fruit. It's not certain that the fruit would be pink, it could be anything, as you guys say. And of course plants grown from seeds are not true to their mother plant. So basically I would be creating a new color/flavor fruit.

Sounds interesting and would like to try once my plants start flowering. The long wait for the seeds to grow in to mature plants is the only down side.

Correct.

And every seed from the same piece of fruit can produce a new variety that is different.

RobPatterson

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1293 on: August 11, 2015, 06:41:30 PM »
Its like cross breeding in most other areas. If you take 2 things with differing traits but compatible reproductive systems, what you end up with is a mix of various components of the 2 parents, but to varying degrees. Some traits can be dominant while others are easily suppressed. Often times it takes multiple generations of cross pollinating to get specific attributes like size, color, sugar content, etc. up to where you want them. Even Self fertility and self pollination are genetic traits that may or may not survive a crossing.
Also, regardless of what species you pollinate with, you'll always get a fruit that matches the flowering plants species. Its the seeds that get the new genetic code. You don't change the womb with new pollen.
Also Ric, the thing with cross pollinating creating bigger fruit is not on a genetic level, but on a abundant fertility level. The the only way I can explain it is that using another species' pollen actually makes the flower you put it on generate a bigger fruit, which I think is a result of more successful pollen acceptance, which generates more seeds per individual fruit. Like twins in a single womb. I don't know if this is fact or speculation, and Ive never experimented with this as I normally use a single species type of pollen for all my plants (as long as its available). It wont cause the seeds to generate plants that produce bigger fruit, unless that is one of the specific genetic markers that gets handed down from the chromosome paring.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2015, 06:48:19 PM by RobPatterson »

RobPatterson

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1294 on: August 11, 2015, 06:58:44 PM »
Thanks simon, fyliu and ricshaw.

Okay, so I have to take the fruit that was cross pollinated and sow its seeds and this plant would then turn out a different colored fruit. It's not certain that the fruit would be pink, it could be anything, as you guys say. And of course plants grown from seeds are not true to their mother plant. So basically I would be creating a new color/flavor fruit.

Sounds interesting and would like to try once my plants start flowering. The long wait for the seeds to grow in to mature plants is the only down side.
If you are going to experiment with cross breeding, my suggestion to start out with would be volume, especially if you are going to be crossing radically differing species, like a yellow and red. Cross your fruit, let them mature and then harvest ALL the seeds. Spread them out over large areas, like baking pans or similar large surface areas, and wait for them to grow. Watch how the seedlings mature and keep an eye out for characteristics of the new shoots. After a few weeks to months, you should be able to distinguish between species. For example, if you were trying to grow pink fruit with the sweetness of yellow, you might want to eliminate most yellow shoots once you know which they are, so you don't get caught in the yellow megalanthus's 180 ripening cycle. This will cut your observation crop down quite a bit. THen just keep looking for abnormalities in the maturing plants. A pink branched plant that matures with the thorns from a yellow (as an example) might end up being an entirely new species, and something to consider paying favor to. Of course, the new plants might make entirely new fruit without showing a single variation in structure from the parent species, which just goes to show the importance of experimental breeding and is a testament to the effort and work the people who do this sort of thing put into this.

dmk

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1295 on: August 12, 2015, 11:35:06 AM »
If you are going to experiment with cross breeding, my suggestion to start out with would be volume, especially if you are going to be crossing radically differing species, like a yellow and red. Cross your fruit, let them mature and then harvest ALL the seeds. Spread them out over large areas, like baking pans or similar large surface areas, and wait for them to grow. Watch how the seedlings mature and keep an eye out for characteristics of the new shoots. After a few weeks to months, you should be able to distinguish between species. For example, if you were trying to grow pink fruit with the sweetness of yellow, you might want to eliminate most yellow shoots once you know which they are, so you don't get caught in the yellow megalanthus's 180 ripening cycle. This will cut your observation crop down quite a bit. THen just keep looking for abnormalities in the maturing plants. A pink branched plant that matures with the thorns from a yellow (as an example) might end up being an entirely new species, and something to consider paying favor to. Of course, the new plants might make entirely new fruit without showing a single variation in structure from the parent species, which just goes to show the importance of experimental breeding and is a testament to the effort and work the people who do this sort of thing put into this.

For now it would be between unknown red and white. I still don't have a megalanthus and the link Simon gave pretty much shows the cross between others and megalanthus.
About the elimation of shoots solely by looking at the stem, I'm still a novice when it comes to df growing and don't think I could differentiate it. But thank you for all the suggestions. It's always fascinating to learn anything new about this wonderful fruit.

Boshi

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1296 on: August 15, 2015, 06:53:09 PM »
Although I am pretty new to this dragonfruit stuff, I also did where I planted lots of seeds, and then picked the weak ones away :)
Now I have around 5 dragonfruit from seed which is growing along nicely, these 2 are my biggest after 6 months.


and my 2 cuttings are growing nice and slow, the one to the right finally started to grow more mass, and have now started on 3 new shoots, should I remove 2 of them, or let them be?  :P





RobPatterson

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1297 on: August 15, 2015, 11:40:47 PM »
Don't remove the new shoots. When a plant sends out new shoots from its tip area, that usually means that the existing branch as hit the end of its growing cycle/length, and is pushing out its resources to new shoots to continue its growth expansion. Give them some time and see if they all mature into solid new branches, and then consider cutting back one or two, until the plant reaches its desired height. To be honest, though, its not absolutely necessary to cut back any branches this early, if you can get them to cooperate and train them to grow up your post to your canopy. 3 branches can mean 3x the new shoots when the plant is finally tall enough to start growing it back down for fruit production. It all depends on your growing style and your support system you've provided for the plant to live on. As you can see by the included picture, which is about 2 years old now, Im a big fan of letting the plants have some say in how they decide to grow


Boshi

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1298 on: August 17, 2015, 03:05:58 PM »
Wow, thats one pretty dragonfruit tree/setup  ;D

Dangermouse01

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1299 on: August 18, 2015, 06:50:30 PM »
First ever flower on my Cebra dragon fruit opening tonight.



Today.


DM