Heavy Top dressing dragon fruit in containers, worried about rot?

[Tropicaltoba]

Hey everyone, I have yellow dragon fruit doing well in a container but it’s hard to “pot up” due to the fact that I have a support post bolted to the plastic pot. Do you think I can add a heavy top dress to the pot instead of potting up? I wasn’t sure if root rot is an issue with all the adventitious roots they put out. Does anyone have experience with this?

[K-Rimes]

I add a good layer of chicken manure / woodchip mix that you can get from Home Depot annually, and the plant gobbles it up. Once a DF is in a 25 gallon, it can usually stay that way up to a really impressive size. Chicken manure is an annual addition, then I rock it with a high P slow release by the cupful the rest of the year.

Just be sure to keep the manure away from the plant itself, if buried and wet it can rot it.

[Tropicaltoba]

K,have u seen dragon fruit rot? I assume there’s no saving once it happens. Btw  how many fruit do you get off a 25 gallon? I got 6 last year off a 5 gallon pot.

[K-Rimes]

K,have u seen dragon fruit rot? I assume there’s no saving once it happens. Btw  how many fruit do you get off a 25 gallon? I got 6 last year off a 5 gallon pot.

Oh yeah, I have personally caused it a bunch by doing exactly what I told you not to do here haha. It's not a death sentence, you just use a sharp knife and cut all the goopy brown jelly off and leave the wooden spine bare. The plant continues to grow totally fine. I have to do it periodically on the top of the canopy as well when I get cold damage.

I think my conditions are problematic for DF, way too hot in the day, then cold at night, being on the edge of their climactic desires so I sometimes get a lot, sometimes not much, it's year dependent. This year was a very poor year for me. Most of my 25gs produce around 20-60 fruit usually. This year, some only made 5-10. I could have been more dutiful pollinating.

[Tropicaltoba]

Do you think I could just cut the bottom 2” of flesh off (while leaving the spine) then add 2” of top dressing (my pot is only 1/2 full).

[spaugh]

You can just let it rot if it does rot then cut it away and it only needs the wood core and will be fine.  It does not cause any problems.

[K-Rimes]

Do you think I could just cut the bottom 2” of flesh off (while leaving the spine) then add 2” of top dressing (my pot is only 1/2 full).

Only cut off if it rots, no need to do so prophylactically. Another option you could consider that I trialed this year with tomatoes that overwintered in 5g pots, was that I put 3 of those 5g pots into a 25g tray and then filled the tray with soil, believe it or not I am still harvesting cherry tomatoes and it is December. You could just let your DF root into a bigger pot below it, alternatively.