The Tropical Fruit Forum

Collecting and storing pollen is the way to go if you need to cross pollinate. You can make yourself some simple tools for pollen collection or go full on crazy person like i did a few years back.

The simplest collection tool Ive seen people use is a one liter bottle, cut at a 45degree angle in the middle of the body, to mimic the ice/dry bean scoop shown in the picture. You can just insert it into the flower, give it a few taps, and the pollen will settle inside the scoop. Then, just deposit it on something like a coffee filter, pick out any impurities or creepy crawlies, and let it sit in a warm (not hot) dry place for a few hours. then you can deposit it into a sealable container for use or storage. If youre going to store it, after drying, keep it in the freezer in as small of a container as you can track down, so theres as little residual moist air in the container as you can manage. With as good prep, ive been able to keep viable pollen for months at a time (S8 still works best for me). BTW, if you have access to them, the small perfume sample bottles work well for this, once cleaned. Otherwise, if youre going to buy online, Id recommend the small bottles they sell for storing essential oils, with the cork caps. I think they are still inexpensive for a small lot.

My American Beauty is showing very good signs of flower retention this year, even with the 100+ degree days we had over the last couple weeks (Ontario, So Cal). I generally dont get this many flowers that survive to full bloom, as most die off in the first two weeks from summer heat exposure. Im back to hand pollinating in the mornings before i go to work, and Ive been lucky enough to have a few cooperative S8 flowers that opened later then the rest of their fellow Sugar Dragons, as those tend to pop up in distinct waves, or 'flushes', as the other growers say.
BTW, if anyone is on need of cuttings (S8/sugar Dragon, Orejona or American Beauty) in the Inland Empire area of California, Id be happy to oblige. I also have a heirloom Costaricensis and my experimental (aka home grown cross-pollination) plant I call Pink Lemonade (its good, but tart), but they aren't ready to be cut back as of yet.

I have a spot in my backyard which is in the shade from November to late February/early March. The rest of the year, it has about 6+ hours of sun.

Would a dragon fruit work there?

Most of my plants are on the south side of my house, shaded by my neighbors closely situated track home. I dont get direct sunlight a few months out of the year, as well. All it does is shorten my growing season by maybe a month, but since i live in warm Southern California, what happens is i lose 2 months at the beginning of the season, but I gain an additional month at the end. I typically dont start harvesting fruit until June/July, but I get ripe fruit almost until Christmas some years, weather dependent. I compensated a little by letting my plants grow taller than the traditional support methods, using a linear trellis, as opposed to the umbrella-like canopy up a single post style, so i have more surface area exposed to the little light I do get during those months. I included a picture as to how I set that up, originally.

S8 and American Beauty make a great combo. Both are reasonably common these days, good producers and grow well in most climates, without being too fussy. You can plant one cutting of each in a 25gallon bucket without worrying too much about them having room to grow solid root systems, but I do recommend using a watering spike in the pot, what they use for drip irrigation, so you can get the water to go deeper into the soil, and encourage the roots to follow. DF plants tend to root shallow, as thats where the water is, but if you water deeper, they will root deeper, and that builds a stronger root network in finite growing areas, like containers.
As far as a trellis, some sort of support structure is strongly advised, as these are natively climbing vine type plants, but you have to be aware that whatever you grow them in, or against, is going to become a permanent fixture in your garden eventually, as these plants get very large, weighty, and topheavy very quickly once they reach a mature state. People over the years have come up with clever mobile growing solutions for locations where the plants need to be either moved around or taken in for winter months, but its not a simple thing to do. If youre looking for trellis or support ideas, scroll back over the pages here and there are plenty of pictures and discussions about the traditional and more creative ways people grow their plants.
And as always, questions are encouraged here, and there are plenty of knowledgeable and experienced people here that always seem to be more than happy to help.

A few pointers:
1. If youre going to keep the plant indoors forever, you need to think about upsizing the pot soon. To be reasonably successful, dragon fruit needs to have long drooping branches, to allow the plants natural chemistry build up in the downward hanging stalks. Youre probably going to need a solid platform to place the pot on, because to grow tall enough to have hanging branches you need to either have a post for the main stem(s) to grow up, or have the pot high enough in the air to allow branches to grow long enough straight out of the pot. If you have a dedicated window you can grow your plant in front of, the best answer might be to hang it, off SOLID chain from a ceiling rafter or other support. You'll probably have to keep it trimmed down once its mature, as these plants can weigh in the hundreds of pounds if left unmanicured. after that, you can use curtains of various transparency to moderate sunlight to your plants preference.
2. The damage looks fungal to me. Get a sharp, thin knife and sterilize it with rubbing alcohol and cut/scrape the dead sections off or out. You can either sacrifice the stem above the diseased sections or just cut away the bad, down to the central core of the branch. But dont cut the woody core. Think of that like the wood of a tree, and the green section as the bark. You can lose entire branches of the green plant material, but as long as the central core is unharmed, any plant material further down the line will continue growing. As for treating the fungus, I'd try an anti-fungal copper soap spray mix. Its worked pretty well for me in the past to keep my plants reasonably healthy during outbreaks.
3. Just out of curiosity, do you happen to know what type of dragonfruit you got the seeds from? I'd hate to see you go through all this trouble and years of waiting to find out you have a variety thats not self fertile and you'd have to either have to hunt down pollen from other people or have to grow a second plant from seeds/cuttings and have to wait all that time again.

Quote from: Rannman on September 04, 2021, 06:37:56 AM

Hi JirkaH. The thin growth is due to lack of sunlight. You mentioned flowers, but your plant is far too young to produce flowers. I’m not sure what the weather/season is like in the Netherlands, but sunlight is a dragonfruits best friend. Without enough sunlight, plant growth will be lacking and flowers won’t ever develop. Did you grow your plant from seed?
Skin issues are a standard problem with dragonfruit. They all get it occasionally, but lack of sunlight doesn’t help with those problems unfortunately.
Sunlight and heat are the best things for healthy dragonfruit growth

Hi, thank you so much for your reply.
I grew this from seeds. Is this a reason why there are no flowers yet, or is it because its still young (approx 1year).
I noticed the dry part started appearing when the plant was exposed to too much sunlight. Which is why I remove it from direct sun for some time.
After your comment I put it back immediately.
How often do you recommend to water it? Its an indoor plant.
Do you also have any other recommendations regarding taking care (fertilizing, vitamins, antipests,...)

Thanks a lot.

Tying a flower closed might damage the flowers reproductive parts. The best way to make a self-fertile flower into a self-pollinating one is to just give it a good shake, if theres still pollen there. Im mean, ideally you'd want to take something like a makeup brush and swish around the pollen manually, but if you dont have the time or inclination to do that, just shaking some pollen loose and around the inside of the flower often does the trick.

I hate to make it sound like its the same answer every time, but the S8 Sugar Dragon variety blooms early, before almost anything else that ive seen, fruits alot in most reasonable climates, grows fast, sets cuttings solidly, and is one of the tastiest varieties out there. It produces a ton of pollen, is self fertile and with a good breeze to shake the plant, is usually self pollinating. The only issue with it is the size of the fruit, averaging the size of a goose's egg. Given the option, i would change out a few more of my more random plants with S8. I encourage everyone to grow at least a small plant of S8 to help support their collections or a few large plants for eating and cooking. I think of it as the 'naval orange or 'Haas avacado' of dragon fruits, a superior variety and a very great achievement for its creator, Paul Thomson.
 

Another decent idea ive seen is to use steel chain link fence posts. Use either the previously mentioned spray on truck bed liner or roofing tar to coat the underground section, then however high you want your canopy, drill some thru holes in the post and slide rebar pieces through. you can then wire tie on more rebar tip to tip if you want to make a full square 'ring' instead of just support arms sticking out. Id recommend burlap up the post though, as that always seems to help plants develop in my experience.

I use Sugar Dragon mostly in making ice cream (S-8 variety). Its flavor is very berry-like, has a high enough sugar content for desserts and jams, and the deep purple flesh translates very well visually, giving an appearance between strawberry and raspberry in color. But there can be a VERY definitive difference between purple and red varieties. Orejona, for example, is a true RED flesh, not deep purple, and some of the Costarinensis (Costa Rican) heirloom fruit are downright bloody. Im currently trying to nurse back to health one of my original cross-bred seedlings that produced fruit so deep in red that if you ate a large fruit in a single sitting, enough of the red color would pass through your system unprocessed. Gave me a hell of a fright the first time it happened, and I used to have to warn people who i gave it to that to not panic if their toilets looked a little pink the next day. Costaricensis tends to taste a little "earthy", like beets, instead of floral, and can have a good sugar content. They also have a very good texture to them, more solid, like watermelon, instead of getting mushy under pressure. 

S-8 Sugar dragon is my personal fav. Its the only one i can actually do things with besides just eating it. We had dragon fruit ice cream and replaced cranberry sauce with it last year at Thanksgiving.

Thanks RobPatterson.  I made a reinforced tomcat cage but it feels like it needs to be another "tier" tall.  Including the container the top is only 4ft off the ground.  Doesn't seem tall enough to me.   I might go look for a 4-tier cage or custom build something instead.  I intend to keep this in a container for a while, possibly forever.


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Keeping them in containers is good, possibly ideal depending on the conditions where you are. Just make sure the container is large enough. 15 gallon seems to be the sweet spot for most plants, large enough so they dont get rootbound quickly. Just keep in mind, unless you make some sort of cart or carriage top wheel them around on, these plants will get big enough that you wont be moving them around at some point. If you know where they are going to grow full time, go ahead and think about setting some sort of post or permanent support at that location. These plants can get REALLY heavy if they are properly maintained, and I have some the size of fruit trees, and without solid support they wouldnt last a windy summer out here where i live. Make your plan now so you can get your plant(s) to work with your ideas, and not the other way around.

Im not 100% sure, and with all the crossbreeding i dont think anyone is, but I do think its a red variety. Most of the red plants have inverted "scalloping" on the edges of the stems, the area between the thorn points. Meaning they dont roll out from thorn to thorn, they curve in. The amount of the curve varies from species to species, just like the outward curve varies on the pink ones. If you've ever seen a mature and healthy American Beauty plant, you'll know what Im talking about. The yellow Megalanthus variety also has inverted scalloping, but the thorns on that one have a very distinctive single point, and a wooden quality, much like rose thorns.
I dont mean to discredit whoever told you the details about your plant, btw. Im more concerned about whether its the only variety you own, and if its not what you were told it was, that you have the means to pollinate it once it flowers. Reds tend to be self sterile, or fussy when they aren't. Too many people wonder why they never get fruit after tending to these plants for years, only to find out it's because they need a pollinator. As a general rule, I advise people to never grow just one type of dragon fruit. Even if you are limited in space and need to run two plants up a single support, its always better to make sure you keep your options open.