Dragon Fruit thread.

[RodneyS]

Frank, awesome plants. Are some of those from the cuttings I gave you several years ago?

Simon

Hi Simon
this is a friend of mines orchard. he turned me on to top tier dragon fruits....the ones you gave me are growing but no fruits yets

Which do you consider top tier?

[fisherking73]

First dragon fruit of the season. Hoping to be able to ID it once cut will post more pics. I believe if I recall correctly it is American beauty

[wayne23]

American Beauty bears round fruits I think.

[dshcs]

I have DF in South Florida that are blooming for the first time.  As expected, a week after it bloomed it dried up and fell off.  There were small (3-5 mm) white worms in the flesh where the bloom disconnected and the bud (young fruit between the bloom and cactus body) fell off.  I have not seen any reference to fruit/bud damage by worms.  Does anyone else see this problem and is there a standard treatment?

[fisherking73]

American Beauty bears round fruits I think.

Hmmm yeah these are definitely more oblongish than round. Will have to post better pics overall and when I cut it see if I can find an answer.

[TheWaterbug]

My Physical Graffiti plant (thanks, Ric!) has its first flowers! This is just under two years after obtaining it as a small, rooted cutting.






I just brushed on some pollen I collected from my 3-yr-old Laverne Pink about 2 weeks ago.


Some random questions/thoughts:

• I didn't dry my pollen after collecting; I just put it directly in the freezer. Did I kill it?
• I have two more PG flowers that should pop in ~2 days, so I'll dry their pollen out before freezing, but I'm not sure I'll have anything that needs pollinating after this.
• DF pollen seems to drive my cat nuts! She found my pollen brush and was carrying it around the house. I put the brush back in the bag, and she wouldn't leave the bag alone. She kept trying to get her nose into the bag, and I eventually had to put it in a closet and close the door. If it isn't toxic (!!!!) I think I've found a replacement for catnip.

[ricshaw]

Some random questions/thoughts:

• I didn't dry my pollen after collecting; I just put it directly in the freezer. Did I kill it?
• I have two more PG flowers that should pop in ~2 days, so I'll dry their pollen out before freezing, but I'm not sure I'll have anything that needs pollinating after this.
• DF pollen seems to drive my cat nuts! She found my pollen brush and was carrying it around the house. I put the brush back in the bag, and she wouldn't leave the bag alone. She kept trying to get her nose into the bag, and I eventually had to put it in a closet and close the door. If it isn't toxic (!!!!) I think I've found a replacement for catnip.

I can answer that it is not toxic. 

[new mexico dragon]

hello everyone im growing a DF cactus at my ranch in north eastern new mexico in zone 5-6 in the greenhouse and indoors during the winter with no heat and it gets down to -15 - -20 at times. Its going on its third year and still growing strong. however I cannot get the plant to flower. Its just growing a lot of shoots whitch I pull off as soon as I notice them because it has already a lot of branches. iv tried the tiping method and still nothing. I have 2 varieties but I don't know the names. One is the red flesh the other is the white flesh.

I was wondering if anyone else has the problem of growing a lot of branches and no flowers and if so what do you recommend for inducing flowering instead of branching?

Regards,

BEN G

[Mag]

Did you use pollen from a different cultivar? If not, perhaps the first time you did (or the moths did). I have 10% success and small fruit with self pollination and 90% with cross pollination.

Ok so a little over a week ago I had about 12 gorgeous flowers open up on a couple of my dragonfruits. But then the fruits all turned yellow and dropped off! I had hand pollinated them with a brush so I thought they had a good shot of setting fruit. I have a couple varieties that did this: physical graffiti and american beauty. They set fruit really well a couple of months back, so I was excited to get a second crop this summer. Not sure why this time everything yellowed and dropped.The only thing I could think is the next day after the bloom, we had a gully washer, so maybe it got too wet and dropped all the fruit? Anything else that you guys think might be wrong?

Here is a pic of one of the yellowed fruits -

[wayne23]

hello everyone im growing a DF cactus at my ranch in north eastern new mexico in zone 5-6 in the greenhouse and indoors during the winter with no heat and it gets down to -15 - -20 at times. Its going on its third year and still growing strong. however I cannot get the plant to flower. Its just growing a lot of shoots whitch I pull off as soon as I notice them because it has already a lot of branches. iv tried the tiping method and still nothing. I have 2 varieties but I don't know the names. One is the red flesh the other is the white flesh.

I was wondering if anyone else has the problem of growing a lot of branches and no flowers and if so what do you recommend for inducing flowering instead of branching?

Regards,

BEN G

assuming you have trellis and your plants had reached the top and those stems pointing downward are over 1 year old.  they flower when the weather gets hot and days are long. 

I think this is something you can do to help flowering.  reduce watering as summer approaches.  tip the mature branches.  if you already have plenty of matured stems I would pick off the new shoots are they appear.  also try to use bloom fertilizer late Spring/early Summer time. 

[rockman]

To the SoCal growers, from your experience, what are the most productive pink/red flesh varieties in terms of quantity?  I'm thinking it got to be Sugar Dragon/Voodoo Child, but sometimes I do see Physical Graffiti (required hand pollination) bearing abundant of fruits.   

[ricshaw]

To the SoCal growers, from your experience, what are the most productive pink/red flesh varieties in terms of quantity?  I'm thinking it got to be Sugar Dragon/Voodoo Child, but sometimes I do see Physical Graffiti (required hand pollination) bearing abundant of fruits.

My advice... for only TWO varieties for SoCal hobbyist growers would be Physical Graffiti and S-8 (Sugar Dragon).

[Mag]

Would appreciate feedback from you experienced growers on what strategy you use for pruning your DF? When do you do it, and how aggressive do you prune it? I am not talking about training a young plant, but rather once you have a mature plant trained and setup umbrella style and have had a alot of flowering and fruits. I want to insure I do this properly so I continue to have successful flowering and fruiting in the coming seasons. Thanks

[TheWaterbug]

To the SoCal growers, from your experience, what are the most productive pink/red flesh varieties in terms of quantity?  I'm thinking it got to be Sugar Dragon/Voodoo Child, but sometimes I do see Physical Graffiti (required hand pollination) bearing abundant of fruits.

My advice... for only TWO varieties for SoCal hobbyist growers would be Physical Graffiti and S-8 (Sugar Dragon).

In what order do these typically flower?

If one habitually flowers earlier than the other, how do you pollinate the earlier variety?


I have a non-pedigreed pink-fleshed (allegedly) variety from LaVerne that flowers first amongst my flock, and it's my most mature plant so I get plenty of blooms. But it never sets fruit because I never have pollen from another variety, and it's (apparently) not self-fertile.

[fyliu]

There's no flowering order for varieties. They flower when they want, but most of the blooms tend to be around the full moon, says me, haha. YMMV of course.

Save dry pollen in the fridge or freezer like other here say.

[ricshaw]

To the SoCal growers, from your experience, what are the most productive pink/red flesh varieties in terms of quantity?  I'm thinking it got to be Sugar Dragon/Voodoo Child, but sometimes I do see Physical Graffiti (required hand pollination) bearing abundant of fruits.

My advice... for only TWO varieties for SoCal hobbyist growers would be Physical Graffiti and S-8 (Sugar Dragon).

In what order do these typically flower?

If one habitually flowers earlier than the other, how do you pollinate the earlier variety?

That is a very good question.   

I have no experience yet with S-8 (except tasting it), and was going on the recommendations of others.

I do have experience pairing Physical Graffiti and Lisa, recommended by UC researcher, and they seem to do okay.

In the past, a Vietnamese white-fleshed variety was usually recommended for a pollinator.

[simon_grow]

S-8 flowers throughout the season for me. It was the first to open flowers and I have been harvesting fruit for several weeks and there are new blooms forming on the plant that will correspond with late blooming varieties like Halleys Comet or other secondary blooms from various other varieties that have already fruited.

Simon

[SandyL]

hello everyone im growing a DF cactus at my ranch in north eastern new mexico in zone 5-6 in the greenhouse and indoors during the winter with no heat and it gets down to -15 - -20 at times. Its going on its third year and still growing strong. however I cannot get the plant to flower. Its just growing a lot of shoots whitch I pull off as soon as I notice them because it has already a lot of branches. iv tried the tiping method and still nothing. I have 2 varieties but I don't know the names. One is the red flesh the other is the white flesh.

I was wondering if anyone else has the problem of growing a lot of branches and no flowers and if so what do you recommend for inducing flowering instead of branching?

Regards,

BEN G

assuming you have trellis and your plants had reached the top and those stems pointing downward are over 1 year old.  they flower when the weather gets hot and days are long. 

I think this is something you can do to help flowering.  reduce watering as summer approaches.  tip the mature branches.  if you already have plenty of matured stems I would pick off the new shoots are they appear.  also try to use bloom fertilizer late Spring/early Summer time.

When you say reduce watering, so you mean once a week near late spring even though the soil feels dry? I'm currently watering every other day and I've had 2 buds for the very first time but it has reverted back to stems. And I'm trying to improve flowering for next year.

[ricshaw]

When you say reduce watering, so you mean once a week near late spring even though the soil feels dry? I'm currently watering every other day and I've had 2 buds for the very first time but it has reverted back to stems. And I'm trying to improve flowering for next year.

I live in Southern California and do not water every other day!

[TheWaterbug]

When you say reduce watering, so you mean once a week near late spring even though the soil feels dry? I'm currently watering every other day and I've had 2 buds for the very first time but it has reverted back to stems. And I'm trying to improve flowering for next year.

I live in Southern California and do not water every other day!

Ditto! Mine are on a timed drip system, and it waters them every 4 days.

[TheWaterbug]

S-8 flowers throughout the season for me. It was the first to open flowers and I have been harvesting fruit for several weeks and there are new blooms forming on the plant that will correspond with late blooming varieties like Halleys Comet or other secondary blooms from various other varieties that have already fruited.

Good to hear. I have two S-8 cuttings that are just starting to accelerate (thanks, Ric!), so if I'm lucky they'll flower next season.

[SandyL]

When you say reduce watering, so you mean once a week near late spring even though the soil feels dry? I'm currently watering every other day and I've had 2 buds for the very first time but it has reverted back to stems. And I'm trying to improve flowering for next year.

I live in Southern California and do not water every other day!

Thanks! I'm going to cut back on my watering now

[SandyL]

When you say reduce watering, so you mean once a week near late spring even though the soil feels dry? I'm currently watering every other day and I've had 2 buds for the very first time but it has reverted back to stems. And I'm trying to improve flowering for next year.

I live in Southern California and do not water every other day!

Ditto! Mine are on a timed drip system, and it waters them every 4 days.

Thanks for the tips! I still have lots to learn. Definitely cutting back now

[CTMIAMI]

What is the best time to pollination assist from the time of opening I have two flowers opening slowly now 6PM no idea when to assist with brush early evening on early am?

[ricshaw]

What is the best time to pollination assist from the time of opening I have two flowers opening slowly now 6PM no idea when to assist with brush early evening on early am?

In SoCal, I have better results pollinating before midnight (late evening) over waiting until the next morning.