Author Topic: Dragon Fruit thread.  (Read 939900 times)

nullzero

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1025 on: March 09, 2015, 11:50:53 AM »
Has anyone had success using LED light to extend the season (or make them everbearing)? I picked up 2 12v waterproof 10w floods from Amazon, shining from the bottom up into the vines, but they haven't induced any flowers yet. Maybe my vine isn't big enough or it's an issue with heat.

20W of LED lights in a non reflective area, is going to be very little light to the plant. Your vine needs to gain mass first to spur flowering. I would say around +150 watt of LED grow light would be needed to flower a DF vine indoors. Also an area of 2'x2' with white walls or mylar would help greatly. No idea if you could trick the DF vine into flowering multiple times through out the year, but I assume it would be possible by manipulating the hours of artificial light to the plant (to stimulate hours reducing from summer into fall).
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Josh-Los-Angeles

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1026 on: March 09, 2015, 12:18:59 PM »
Has anyone had success using LED light to extend the season (or make them everbearing)? I picked up 2 12v waterproof 10w floods from Amazon, shining from the bottom up into the vines, but they haven't induced any flowers yet. Maybe my vine isn't big enough or it's an issue with heat.

20W of LED lights in a non reflective area, is going to be very little light to the plant. Your vine needs to gain mass first to spur flowering. I would say around +150 watt of LED grow light would be needed to flower a DF vine indoors. Also an area of 2'x2' with white walls or mylar would help greatly. No idea if you could trick the DF vine into flowering multiple times through out the year, but I assume it would be possible by manipulating the hours of artificial light to the plant (to stimulate hours reducing from summer into fall).

Hey Null, thanks for the info. I'm in Los Angeles so this guy lives outside. Given we've had such a lite winter (or a non-existent winter) I want to fool the plant into thinking it's getting summer light hours. In the pic is American Beauty and Halley's Comet in a 15 gal pot. You can see the two black floods attached to the trellis inside shining up, I have them powered by my landscape lighting, set to go on when it gets dark and turn off 8 hours later. To me, the plant looks plenty big, but this is my first DF. With our days in the 80's, it's growing like crazy.

I'm basing the LED light idea off of articles like this and others: https://hathutranslator.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/using-artificial-lighting-system-in-dragon-cactus-off-season/

They talk about using 6-20w of light. Of course, they're spread out all over and in the tropics. It'd be great if we could grow DF year around :)



ClayMango

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1027 on: March 09, 2015, 12:40:34 PM »
I spoke to Linda yesterday when I picked up 2 of Paul Thompson's S-8 Sugar Dragons, She and her Husband told me they picked their last Sugar Dragon last Month and that the season Starts Spring...... If that's true then it seems you would almost have an everbearing Dragon Fruit with variety losing out on about 3 months of Fruit.

I should have bought 4 plants, but the Wife was with me so I only got 2  :'(
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Josh-Los-Angeles

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1028 on: March 09, 2015, 01:03:27 PM »
I spoke to Linda yesterday when I picked up 2 of Paul Thompson's S-8 Sugar Dragons, She and her Husband told me they picked their last Sugar Dragon last Month and that the season Starts Spring...... If that's true then it seems you would almost have an everbearing Dragon Fruit with variety losing out on about 3 months of Fruit.

I should have bought 4 plants, but the Wife was with me so I only got 2  :'(

Interesting. Did you see any artificial lighting at their place? DF is a photo period plant, so it shouldn't flower after oct or so.

ricshaw

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1029 on: March 09, 2015, 01:04:00 PM »
Has anyone had success using LED light to extend the season (or make them everbearing)? I picked up 2 12v waterproof 10w floods from Amazon, shining from the bottom up into the vines, but they haven't induced any flowers yet. Maybe my vine isn't big enough or it's an issue with heat.

Josh,

How long (days) have the lights been on?

Josh-Los-Angeles

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1030 on: March 09, 2015, 01:08:02 PM »
Has anyone had success using LED light to extend the season (or make them everbearing)? I picked up 2 12v waterproof 10w floods from Amazon, shining from the bottom up into the vines, but they haven't induced any flowers yet. Maybe my vine isn't big enough or it's an issue with heat.

Josh,

How long (days) have the lights been on?

Hey Ricshaw, I've had them going since early Nov last year. One of the lights doesn't have quite the output of the other one (cheap import light) so maybe a total of 15 watts. This is what I purchased: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G3TJ9T0

nullzero

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1031 on: March 09, 2015, 01:27:53 PM »
I am understanding what you are trying to do better Josh. It may help having a reflective cover around the plant to increase the light exposure. Depending how much light intensity is hitting the plant, the plant could perceive it as bright moon light rather then afternoon sun. I would think light wavelength and spectrum would be important in this case along with light intensity. Getting a bloom type grow light with plenty of red lights may be beneficial for the experiment.

Also consider that the guy in Vietnam has more daylight hours and light intensity during fall, winter, and spring. More photosynthesis is happening in his situation versus what you have. The plant may need a certain amount of energy stored to initiate flowering.
« Last Edit: March 09, 2015, 01:34:07 PM by nullzero »
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fyliu

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1032 on: March 09, 2015, 01:28:34 PM »
LED lights are pretty much single or very narrow spectrum. So a whitish LED will not feed your DF at all, unlike a broad spectrum fluorescent bulb. You need a color that's in the absorption range of the plant. Those are the spooky red and blue colors and your neighbors would wonder if you're growing pot when that was illegal. Search for grow LED in eBay to find them. Our member (Kevin? CoPlantNut?) In Colorado has been using them in the basement during winters and has firsthand experience.

Josh-Los-Angeles

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1033 on: March 09, 2015, 01:39:12 PM »
Hey guys, that makes sense. I want to see if there's any more info (or real world experience in CA or FL) before dropping more coin on lights.

Here's an interesting article about the actual light amounts needed. The light isn't used in a traditional sense, more to shock the plant into thinking it's day. My DF already gets plenty of regular light, I just want it to think it's July: http://stfc.org.au/dragon-fruit-by-graham-reindeers

And here's a bit where they talk about using 27w CFL vs 6w LED: http://ilarrdec.mmsu.edu.ph/manuals/OffSEASON_DF.pdf

Commercial production:


nullzero

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1034 on: March 09, 2015, 01:41:59 PM »
LED lights are pretty much single or very narrow spectrum. So a whitish LED will not feed your DF at all, unlike a broad spectrum fluorescent bulb. You need a color that's in the absorption range of the plant. Those are the spooky red and blue colors and your neighbors would wonder if you're growing pot when that was illegal. Search for grow LED in eBay to find them. Our member (Kevin? CoPlantNut?) In Colorado has been using them in the basement during winters and has firsthand experience.

I don't think that is true, the white LED light will give some usable light to the plant. However it would not be as much as a specialized LED grow light.

This looks like a decent wattage to start at. I would consider getting a tall grow tent 3'x3'x8', or doing it cheaper and getting some white cardboard to place around and a stand to hold the light above the plant.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/151374521551?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&fromMakeTrack=true
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Josh-Los-Angeles

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1035 on: March 09, 2015, 01:50:29 PM »
LED lights are pretty much single or very narrow spectrum. So a whitish LED will not feed your DF at all, unlike a broad spectrum fluorescent bulb. You need a color that's in the absorption range of the plant. Those are the spooky red and blue colors and your neighbors would wonder if you're growing pot when that was illegal. Search for grow LED in eBay to find them. Our member (Kevin? CoPlantNut?) In Colorado has been using them in the basement during winters and has firsthand experience.

I don't think that is true, the white LED light will give some usable light to the plant. However it would not be as much as a specialized LED grow light.

This looks like a decent wattage to start at. I would consider getting a tall grow tent 3'x3'x8', or doing it cheaper and getting some white cardboard to place around and a stand to hold the light above the plant.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/151374521551?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&fromMakeTrack=true

Hey Null, cool ideas. Based on what I've read (linked above) commercial growers are using just 6w LEDs in the 2700k spectrum (the red end) to shock the plants into flowering. A 300w grow light with tent would be great for indoors, but, from what I can tell, that's overkill for growing outside. Besides, my plant is already 9ft tall x 6ft wide :) I don't think they're trying to get complete light coverage, more to just let the plants know it's daytime. I could see maybe a 50w red spectrum LED grow light outdoors, as long as it's waterproof.

Then again, the lights I got are 3000-3500k. Pretty red when they're lit up, definitely "warm white" not daylight, but maybe they need something closer to 2700k to trick the DF into flowering.

The commercial growers only turn on the lights from 10-2am using this setup (CFLs in the pic):

« Last Edit: March 09, 2015, 01:52:33 PM by Josh-Los-Angeles »

simon_grow

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1036 on: March 09, 2015, 01:55:31 PM »
I was going to post this on a separate thread but since it was mentioned here, I'll discuss it here. By planting Frankies Red and the Yellow Dragon H/S Megalanthus, you can pretty much cover most the year. I didn't do anything special and both varieties are still holding fruit. Both varieties seem to be able to hold fruit for a very very long time. I have to double check but I believe I've had fruit since November. I'll take picture later.
Simon

ricshaw

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1037 on: March 09, 2015, 01:56:59 PM »
I think the trick is to make the plant think it is getting 12 or more hours of light a day.

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1038 on: March 09, 2015, 02:01:46 PM »
I was going to post this on a separate thread but since it was mentioned here, I'll discuss it here. By planting Frankies Red and the Yellow Dragon H/S Megalanthus, you can pretty much cover most the year. I didn't do anything special and both varieties are still holding fruit. Both varieties seem to be able to hold fruit for a very very long time. I have to double check but I believe I've had fruit since November. I'll take picture later.
Simon

One difference between H. megalanthus and most other Dragon Fruit varieties is the "days to harvest".

In Southern California, most Dragon Fruit varieties take about 45 days. Yellow Dragon Fruit takes about 165 days.

ricshaw

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1039 on: March 09, 2015, 02:06:51 PM »

The commercial growers only turn on the lights from 10-2am using this setup (CFLs in the pic):



I aslo notice that they are still using incandescent bulbs.

Keep us posted on what you find in LED lighting.

nullzero

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1040 on: March 09, 2015, 02:55:41 PM »
Josh,

Yeah the 300w LED is over kill. I don't know why I did not think of recommending you the LED Grow light strips before;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-3-4-5-10-25-50m-5050-LED-Strip-Aquarium-Greenhouse-Hydroponic-Grow-Light-12V-/381115004615?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item58bc3976c7

They are waterproof and you can string them around the tree. You will just need to hook up the power ends to an adapter, you can use power twists and and a suitable 12V power adapter.
Grow mainly fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

Josh-Los-Angeles

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1041 on: March 09, 2015, 03:14:38 PM »
Josh,

Yeah the 300w LED is over kill. I don't know why I did not think of recommending you the LED Grow light strips before;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-3-4-5-10-25-50m-5050-LED-Strip-Aquarium-Greenhouse-Hydroponic-Grow-Light-12V-/381115004615?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item58bc3976c7

They are waterproof and you can string them around the tree. You will just need to hook up the power ends to an adapter, you can use power twists and and a suitable 12V power adapter.

That's pretty cool! Those may work. I feel like I need to do some more research to figure out what the problem is. The potential issues are:

-Wrong light spectrum (2700k needed instead of 3000k). Also, it appears DF needs 660nm wavelength in LED terms, not sure how that translates to kelvin.

-Not enough light

-Not enough coverage

-Plant too young

nullzero

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1042 on: March 09, 2015, 03:23:08 PM »
Josh,

Yeah the 300w LED is over kill. I don't know why I did not think of recommending you the LED Grow light strips before;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-3-4-5-10-25-50m-5050-LED-Strip-Aquarium-Greenhouse-Hydroponic-Grow-Light-12V-/381115004615?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item58bc3976c7

They are waterproof and you can string them around the tree. You will just need to hook up the power ends to an adapter, you can use power twists and and a suitable 12V power adapter.

That's pretty cool! Those may work. I feel like I need to do some more research to figure out what the problem is. The potential issues are:

-Wrong light spectrum (2700k needed instead of 3000k). Also, it appears DF needs 660nm wavelength in LED terms, not sure how that translates to kelvin.

-Not enough light

-Not enough coverage

-Plant too young

That strip I listed should have 660nm in it, they just don't list the wavelengths. Other similar strips do such as this listing; http://www.ebay.com/itm/Red-660nm-Blue-455nm-5-1-LED-5050-Flexible-Strips-Light-for-Plant-Grow-Growth-/261605177804?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item3ce8e239cc . However most strips are made in china by the same companies, so I assume they most likely having the same wavelengths. I would browse through ebay and find the best deal for the strips, if you decide to get them.
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simon_grow

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1043 on: March 09, 2015, 03:42:47 PM »
I was going to post this on a separate thread but since it was mentioned here, I'll discuss it here. By planting Frankies Red and the Yellow Dragon H/S Megalanthus, you can pretty much cover most the year. I didn't do anything special and both varieties are still holding fruit. Both varieties seem to be able to hold fruit for a very very long time. I have to double check but I believe I've had fruit since November. I'll take picture later.
Simon

One difference between H. megalanthus and most other Dragon Fruit varieties is the "days to harvest".

In Southern California, most Dragon Fruit varieties take about 45 days. Yellow Dragon Fruit takes about 165 days.

Yes they absolutely take longer to ripen the fruit and the most important aspect is that once the fruit ripens, they can hold on the vine for many months. Some of my Yellow DF have been ripe for several months and they still appear to be good at least looking at the outside of it. I will cut one open later to verify the Brix and texture are still ok.

The regular DF do not hold well on the vine and easily become mushy.

Simon

Josh-Los-Angeles

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1044 on: March 09, 2015, 03:53:44 PM »
Josh,

Yeah the 300w LED is over kill. I don't know why I did not think of recommending you the LED Grow light strips before;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-3-4-5-10-25-50m-5050-LED-Strip-Aquarium-Greenhouse-Hydroponic-Grow-Light-12V-/381115004615?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item58bc3976c7

They are waterproof and you can string them around the tree. You will just need to hook up the power ends to an adapter, you can use power twists and and a suitable 12V power adapter.

That's pretty cool! Those may work. I feel like I need to do some more research to figure out what the problem is. The potential issues are:

-Wrong light spectrum (2700k needed instead of 3000k). Also, it appears DF needs 660nm wavelength in LED terms, not sure how that translates to kelvin.

-Not enough light

-Not enough coverage

-Plant too young

That strip I listed should have 660nm in it, they just don't list the wavelengths. Other similar strips do such as this listing; http://www.ebay.com/itm/Red-660nm-Blue-455nm-5-1-LED-5050-Flexible-Strips-Light-for-Plant-Grow-Growth-/261605177804?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item3ce8e239cc . However most strips are made in china by the same companies, so I assume they most likely having the same wavelengths. I would browse through ebay and find the best deal for the strips, if you decide to get them.

Looks like those are ideal. I did some reading and the 660nm red grow light seems to be what triggers the dragon fruit flowering, which makes sense, that's what the 660nm does for all plants. DF needs 10 watts (in incandescent terms) to shock the plant into thinking it's daytime. At the same time, it's strange the 3000k floods don't produce flowering, maybe it's that the LED 3000k doesn't hit the right spectrums while a 2700k incandescent or CFL does.

Those 12v strips should fit run right off of my automatic landscape lighting and wrap around my trellis nicely.

EDIT: It appears DF needs 10 lumens, not 10 watts. 10 lumens is very little, though it's not clear if that's for every part of the plant. Here's more about it: http://stfc.org.au/dragon-fruit-by-graham-reindeers
« Last Edit: March 09, 2015, 03:59:58 PM by Josh-Los-Angeles »

fyliu

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1045 on: March 09, 2015, 04:14:42 PM »
He might have meant 10 Lux rather than Lumens? 10 lux is really small so I'm not sure if that's correct either.
Lumen = total light output from a light source. My 1-AAA LED keychain light outputs ~13 lumens.
Lux = amount of light "flow" through a surface area (something like square meter).

Graham Reindeers does know a lot about DF and supplement lighting used in various places. You can read more of his posts in the pitayafruit yahoo group.
« Last Edit: March 09, 2015, 04:17:11 PM by fyliu »

Josh-Los-Angeles

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1046 on: March 09, 2015, 05:19:39 PM »
He might have meant 10 Lux rather than Lumens? 10 lux is really small so I'm not sure if that's correct either.
Lumen = total light output from a light source. My 1-AAA LED keychain light outputs ~13 lumens.
Lux = amount of light "flow" through a surface area (something like square meter).

Graham Reindeers does know a lot about DF and supplement lighting used in various places. You can read more of his posts in the pitayafruit yahoo group.

Good point, no idea. It seems there's very little research on the subject. I might just buy some of those 660nm strip lights, but the spring equinox is March 20th so there's really no point now. If my DF fruits in 2 weeks, I'll know it was the lights and buy the lights in Sept.
« Last Edit: March 09, 2015, 05:26:37 PM by Josh-Los-Angeles »

Josh-Los-Angeles

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1047 on: March 09, 2015, 09:06:06 PM »
Here's a 68 watt 2700k CFL I found in my garage. The thing is a monster. It puts out 4200 lumens, the equivalent of 300 watts of normal light. It's probably more than needed but I'd like to see if I can force flowering right now. This should be similar to what the commercial growers are doing. We'll see.



simon_grow

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1048 on: March 09, 2015, 09:49:07 PM »
Here's a picture of my Frankies red and yellow dragon still with fruit on them. I just cut open a yellow dragon and the texture is still perfect, not mushy at all but the Brix has dropped down to 17%. It is still very sweet, a hundred times better than the commercial ones but less sweet than in December and January.






Josh-Los-Angeles

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Re: Dragon Fruit thread.
« Reply #1049 on: March 09, 2015, 10:51:08 PM »
Here's a picture of my Frankies red and yellow dragon still with fruit on them. I just cut open a yellow dragon and the texture is still perfect, not mushy at all but the Brix has dropped down to 17%. It is still very sweet, a hundred times better than the commercial ones but less sweet than in December and January.

Nice! I hope this means growing year around DF in CA is worthwhile, albeit with a drop in brix. And I assume Frankies Red ripens closer to 150 than 30?

Here's the new light at night, it's crazy bright and definitely warmer color temp than the LED lights. I'm hoping the neighbors don't complain: