Author Topic: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit  (Read 12964 times)

simon_grow

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Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« on: December 08, 2017, 04:43:04 PM »
I stopped by Nijiya Market today and noticed again that they had giant yellow Megalanthus type Dragonfruit for sale. I passed on the Fruit last time because there was only one left and it didn’t look good but they had a whole case of them today so I picked up a few.

The sign says they are from Thailand but the sticker says they are from Ecuador. From the internet research I’ve done in the last 10 years, i would believe that these fruit are from Ecuador and not Thailand.

I purchased three fruit and the Fruit averages about 12 Oz each. Each fruit costs $9.99 each and they are not sold by the pound so in terms of price per pound, it works out to about $13.33/pound for these fruit.





Simon
« Last Edit: December 08, 2017, 04:48:02 PM by simon_grow »

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #1 on: December 08, 2017, 04:51:15 PM »
Here is the giant yellow next to my regular yellow

Next to Frankie’s Red

On the scale and next to a large chicken egg for scale







Simon

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #2 on: December 08, 2017, 05:46:12 PM »
Here is the fruit cut open, it has a Brix of 20% near the center of the Fruit and 16% on the outer edge of the Fruit. This fruit is very delicious and tastes very sweet, reminds me of Agave nectar. The large crunchy seeds are very fun to chew on and my daughters love this fruit.



Simon

Pasca

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #3 on: December 08, 2017, 05:52:11 PM »
Simon,

If I get the seeds and germinate them, do you think the new plants will grow true to seeds?

SonnyCrockett

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #4 on: December 08, 2017, 06:43:05 PM »
How do you remove the spines on the fruit?

pineislander

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simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #6 on: December 08, 2017, 07:58:57 PM »
Pasca, it depends where and how the fruit is grown. For commercial varieties, I would assume they grow these fruit in large fields with just this one variety in that field. The Megalanthus also flowers much later than other common varieties so they are most likely selfed meaning they were pollinated by its own pollen. I would guess that the seedlings will be very similar but it depends how genetically diverse that particular strain is. If the particular strain was highly selected and the traits were set or are dominant, the seedlings should be very similar but there is always a chance you get an off type.

SonnyCrockett, the fruit was sold with the spines removed but for the Fruit I’m growing, they brush off easily when the fruit is ripe. I use a toothbrush to remove the spines from my fruit.

Simon

NateTheGreat

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #7 on: December 08, 2017, 08:17:40 PM »
Does anyone actually know if these aren't just standard megalanthus grown in better conditions? Simon, how do you know these flower later, and is it possible it's just due to growing conditions? Megalanthus are very finicky. It wouldn't surprise me if they fruit much bigger when they're in their native environment, which I think is equatorial highlands.

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #8 on: December 08, 2017, 08:50:00 PM »
Does anyone actually know if these aren't just standard megalanthus grown in better conditions? Simon, how do you know these flower later, and is it possible it's just due to growing conditions? Megalanthus are very finicky. It wouldn't surprise me if they fruit much bigger when they're in their native environment, which I think is equatorial highlands.

Nate, the Megalanthus flowers much later and I know this from personal experience and from literature. The info is easy to find if you do a search. Also, there are different selections of the Megalanthus and their appearance is very noticeable. Take a look at the pictures I posted with the gian next to a regular Megalanthus. The regular has fine that are closely spaced and are ovoid in shape where as the selected large Megalanthus is rounder and has spaced fins.

I’ve posted several threads with pictures of various selections of the giant Megalanthus including the ones that started the giant Yellow Megalanthus craze when I post about the giant fruit I found in Hong Kong about ten years ago.

I also have a post about Megalanthus crosses but you’ll have to do a search to find it.

You can get slightly larger fruit with good culture but you’ll get much larger fruit if you start with good genetics.

Simon

wayne23

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #9 on: December 08, 2017, 11:02:00 PM »
Here is the fruit cut open, it has a Brix of 20% near the center of the Fruit and 16% on the outer edge of the Fruit. This fruit is very delicious and tastes very sweet, reminds me of Agave nectar. The large crunchy seeds are very fun to chew on and my daughters love this fruit.



Simon

That’s pretty pricey.  I saw some at Marukai Japanese market in Torrance last week.  I think they were listed $6.99/lb.  I bought some from an Asian fruit store last month @$9.99/lb.  I also got 20% brix reading, although some have reported much higher brix ratio. 

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #10 on: December 08, 2017, 11:42:23 PM »
I actually wouldn’t want this fruit any sweeter. Unlike some of the purple/magenta colored fruit, this Fruit has less acidity to balance out the high sugar.

Simon

NateTheGreat

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #11 on: December 09, 2017, 11:28:13 AM »
Does anyone actually know if these aren't just standard megalanthus grown in better conditions? Simon, how do you know these flower later, and is it possible it's just due to growing conditions? Megalanthus are very finicky. It wouldn't surprise me if they fruit much bigger when they're in their native environment, which I think is equatorial highlands.

Nate, the Megalanthus flowers much later and I know this from personal experience and from literature. The info is easy to find if you do a search. Also, there are different selections of the Megalanthus and their appearance is very noticeable. Take a look at the pictures I posted with the gian next to a regular Megalanthus. The regular has fine that are closely spaced and are ovoid in shape where as the selected large Megalanthus is rounder and has spaced fins.

I’ve posted several threads with pictures of various selections of the giant Megalanthus including the ones that started the giant Yellow Megalanthus craze when I post about the giant fruit I found in Hong Kong about ten years ago.

I also have a post about Megalanthus crosses but you’ll have to do a search to find it.

You can get slightly larger fruit with good culture but you’ll get much larger fruit if you start with good genetics.

Simon

Thanks for the response Simon. I did search though, quite extensively in the past. I believe The New Cactus Lexicon is the definitive literary resource on Cactacae, and this distinction is not in there. Their picture of megalanthus fruit actually looks like a red undatus x megalanthus hybrid. And although there are many sources online claiming the existence of a giant version, I haven't seen anything definitive or scientific.

I searched through the most recent hundred threads you started, and all I found related to this was pictures from September 2015 of seedlings you were growing. Have you fruited these in the two years since? You may have posted pictures of fruit you bought ten years ago, but that wouldn't prove anything in and of itself, since the role of genetics in their size is unknown. I don't know Leo Manuel, maybe that is a name I should know, but I don't. Have either you or him fruited the giant yellow?

As for the fins, I don't think it is proof that the smaller one has more closely-spaced fins. What if it were to expand to twice the volume? The skin and fins would stretch out, making them further apart, and changing their shape slightly. It looks to me like in your comparison picture they both have about the same amount of fins/areoles, and in basically the same pattern.

It seems very strange to me that an improved version would exist (for at least ten years as you say), which this guy in San Diego (I googled his name and found an interview video) was growing, yet everybody else in the USA was growing the inferior version, and over all this time the improved version, which apparently grows true to seed, has not spread throughout the community. And it just happens to be the most difficult type of dragonfruit to keep happy. I hope you understand where I'm coming from and don't take this for insolence. I planted some of these seeds as well, but I suspect if I get them to fruit, it will be standard megalanthus (which would then leave the question of whether they're simply not true to seed...).

Edit: And the guy in your thread ( http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=5193.msg198893#msg198893 ) who was saying they are real and he is importing cuttings from South America is now selling seeds, which look (or looked... I thought there was a picture before) like the ones that have been showing up in SoCal stores, and which he just so happened to start offering for sale when they started showing up in stores ( http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=26031 ). Two years ago he was offering seeds for sale as well ( http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=18231.0 ), which he claimed gave true to seed thornless (!) fruit. Maybe I'm just being a conspiracy theorist here. Maybe he is importing direct as he says. It wouldn't be surprising that he gets the fruit at the same time the fruit stores do, but like I keep saying, the whole thing just seems really fishy to me.

Edit 2: This guy's explanation ( http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=5193.msg211534#msg211534 ) sounds believable to me, but of course is unproven as well. "I think the fruit you show us is not a different variety of yellow dragon, but a fruit obtained from different technique of cultivation. In Taiwan , the yellow dragon is grafted onto undatus or costarricensis rootstock, giving to the skinny megalanthus a strong and resistant root system. That grafted plants fruits are 250 to 500 g. True giants yellow dragons come from natural hybridization , and are usually between Ecuador and Peru . The diferences with common megalanthus, besides bigger size and production,  is its genetic. The fruits are rounder and smoth in Ecuatorian type and -round-oblong and with very short scales in Peru."
« Last Edit: December 09, 2017, 11:47:42 AM by NateTheGreat »

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #12 on: December 09, 2017, 03:25:45 PM »
Nate, try searching scholarly articles for S/H Megalanthus. There is an article talking about the development of the giant Fruit.

Simon

NateTheGreat

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #13 on: December 09, 2017, 03:51:06 PM »
Nate, try searching scholarly articles for S/H Megalanthus. There is an article talking about the development of the giant Fruit.

Simon

I have already read through many of the papers that show up on Google Scholar, including those from the university in Israel that is working to develop commercially viable dragonfruit, and those that are searching for the origin of H. undatus. Can you please just post the article you're talking about? I've spent many hours already researching this subject, so telling me to do some research isn't very helpful. If you don't want to spend the time to find the article, could you just tell me if you or anyone has actually shown one of these fruiting outside a commercial plantation in Taiwan/South America? You said you knew from personal experience this one flowers later. Does that mean yours flowered?

pineislander

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #14 on: December 09, 2017, 06:47:23 PM »
here they are growing in Ecuador.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auvqtftJpIo&list=PLU50v-X9rHmUW1EtWShtWAQ07PMTizhBu

I see some variation of size and shape but generally more globose than what we see grown in USA/Hawaii. Could be a superior strain but could just as easily be strongly graded large fruit for export. You can see the packers doing the grading in the video, very common practice anywhere. Most people won't believe the amount of produce that gets thrown out at the packing house especially fast grown stuff which doesn't go to processors like zuccchini. 

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #15 on: December 10, 2017, 08:37:46 AM »
Nate, try searching scholarly articles for S/H Megalanthus. There is an article talking about the development of the giant Fruit.

Simon

I have already read through many of the papers that show up on Google Scholar, including those from the university in Israel that is working to develop commercially viable dragonfruit, and those that are searching for the origin of H. undatus. Can you please just post the article you're talking about? I've spent many hours already researching this subject, so telling me to do some research isn't very helpful. If you don't want to spend the time to find the article, could you just tell me if you or anyone has actually shown one of these fruiting outside a commercial plantation in Taiwan/South America? You said you knew from personal experience this one flowers later. Does that mean yours flowered?

Nate, I remember i had to do a lot of digging before I found the article on the Selected strains of Giant Megalanthus.

You can easily look up that Megalanthus has a later flowering period, any Megalanthus, not just the giant selection. I have one fruit from an unconfirmed giant Megalanthus but the plant is small so even if it is the giant, the fruit size may be medium although I should still be able to notice the difference in fin patterns and the more rounded shape.

I also have a seedling from Dragon that should Fruit next Winter.

I’ll post the link if/when I can find it. If I found the info about the selection of the giant fruit in the past, you should be able to find it to with some more in depth searching.

Simon

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #16 on: December 10, 2017, 10:16:15 AM »
Here’s some cool Megalanthus hybrids in case you haven’t seen it before.

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=13533.25

Simon

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #17 on: December 10, 2017, 10:27:48 AM »
This article will probably show you at the DNA level that there are different Megalanthus selections but you’ll have to pay to find out.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304423803001699

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #18 on: December 10, 2017, 10:31:50 AM »

wayne23

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #19 on: December 10, 2017, 01:23:14 PM »
Here’s some cool Megalanthus hybrids in case you haven’t seen it before.

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=13533.25

Simon

very interesting hybrids.  I wonder if this Ecuador Megalanthus is a hybrid of grandiflorus and megalanthus?  it has the appearance of grandiflorus and thorns of a megalanthus.

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #20 on: December 10, 2017, 06:11:13 PM »
Here is an article that shows there are different selections of Megalanthus although this is not the article I was originally referring to. This article shows that there are many different selections of Megalanthus.
http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/cide/v7n2/v7n2a02.pdf

Simon

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #21 on: December 10, 2017, 11:43:21 PM »
Here is a picture of the giant yellow Megalanthus I purchased in Hong Kong. It is shaped differently than these giant ones I recently purchased.

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=8090.0

Here is an interesting article for anyone considering Breeding dragonfruit
https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/30383.pdf

Simon
« Last Edit: December 11, 2017, 12:18:04 AM by simon_grow »

pineislander

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #22 on: December 11, 2017, 08:13:21 AM »
here they are growing in Ecuador.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auvqtftJpIo&list=PLU50v-X9rHmUW1EtWShtWAQ07PMTizhBu

I see some variation of size and shape but generally more globose than what we see grown in USA/Hawaii. Could be a superior strain but could just as easily be strongly graded large fruit for export. You can see the packers doing the grading in the video, very common practice anywhere. Most people won't believe the amount of produce that gets thrown out at the packing house especially fast grown stuff which doesn't go to processors like zuccchini.

Simon, I see you have already watched the Ecuador video and recognize that in those fields size variation does exist, so most likely what you are seeing isn't a varietal difference where all fruit come out large. The larger fruit are probably those selected at the packing house, #1 grade fetching the highest price.

You should look into contacting this member to see about getting material from in-country, with appropriate permit.
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?action=profile;u=3559

ricshaw

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #23 on: December 11, 2017, 09:39:24 AM »
Thank you Simon for the update.
I believe that the Giant Megalanthus seeds will grow true because, like Vietnam DF, I doubt that every Gisnt Megalanthus plant in Ecuador is a clone from the same one plant.
I also doubt that Giant Megalanthus growers in Southern California will have the same results as Ecuador growers... but definitely worth trying.

simon_grow

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Re: Giant Yellow Ecuador Megalanthus Dragonfruit
« Reply #24 on: December 11, 2017, 02:30:10 PM »
For those people that still think there is only one Megalanthus selection, that is absolutely incorrect. The links I provided above show that there are multiple selections out there with different characteristics.

Yes, there are definitely size differences within a given clone line. If you want specifics, the early Fruit is smaller, later Fruit is larger. Fruit pollinated with another clones pollen or from a different variety of DF will have more seeds and larger fruit. Grafting Megalanthus onto Undatus may also give you larger fruit.

You can also perform specific pruning techniques to change hormone levels and also adjust photo period to get off season Fruit.

There is the Colombian line, Ecuador and Peru lines and each of those have multiple clones. Some of the lines/clones may be the same but there are special lines especially selected for larger Fruit. These selected lines are about double the size of the smaller line which averages about 6-8 Oz each if I remember correctly. The giant selection can get over a pound.

Simon