So my quest to find and grow the large fruiting giant H. Megalanthus(used to be S. Megalanthus) began about 11 years ago on my last trip to Hong Kong. There is a high end supermarket that sold melons for hundreds of dollars, strawberries for about $50 and a bunch of imported fruit from Australia and elsewhere.
Among the fruit were the largest Megalanthus fruit I have ever seen. I was growing the Pine island Nursery variety of Megalanthus at the time and the fruit were very good and sweet with a nice seed crunch but the fruit were tiny.
The fruit were very similar in size to Sugar dragon(S8) and some were even smaller. This giant Megalanthus I discovered in Hong Kong blew my mind and I posted pictures in the fruit forum but some people were still skeptical that a giant version of the Megalanthus existed.
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=8090.0Here’s the thread where I was seriously questioned about there being a real giant selection of S/H Megalanthus
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=26177.0When I returned home to San Diego, I began my search for seeds and cuttings for the giant Megalanthus. In my quest, I discovered a research article that described how farmers in Ecuador and Peru had selected large fruiting versions of the Megalanthus.
In the article, it described several selections. Some of the selections had more fins, some had less fins. Some fruit were more elongated and others were very round. There was even a selection that had fewer spines.
I asked around and discovered that my friend Leo Manuel had acquired some seeds of a supposedly giant fruiting Megalanthus from another friend. Leo gave me those seeds and I grew those out.
Not knowing if I had the true giant, I continued my search and was able to get my hands on seeds of giant fruiting varieties from Ecuador and Peru. The people that sent me the seeds had pictures of the giant fruit the seeds came from so I knew they were the real deal.
Keep in mind that back about 11 years ago, the giant Megalanthus that we now know as Palora or giant Palora was not available in the United States like they are now. Nowadays, you can go to just about any Asian supermarket and find the giant Megalanthus.
Anyways, to make a long story longer, I planted all these seeds from Leo Manuel, Ecuador and Peru. The seeds sprouted easily but the seedlings grew at a snails pace. With my neglect, they only grew a few inches the first year.
I then began researching on how to graft Dragonfruit and found an article that described how some farmers were grafting Megalanthus onto Undatus in order to get more vigorous plants.
For those that aren’t aware, Megalanthus is considered to be a slower grower.
Around that time, I lost interest in the giant Megalanthus because my brain got distracted with double rootstock technology, especially in regard to how it could benefit Mangos.
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=16549.0I gave most of my seedlings away and around this time, I met one of my best friends, Brad(Spaugh).
We were both into growing various tropical fruits and he invited me over to his, then, small orchard. He had a few avocado trees and a few citrus and two guavas and maybe a few other fruit trees.
Brad had read some of my posts on the Tropicalfruit forum and when I stopped over to his property the first time, I brought him some Dragonfruit and Cherimoya fruit.
Brad immediately got hooked so I shared my cuttings with him and he also started his own quest to acquire additional Dragonfruit varieties.
I gave Brad one of each of my giant Megalanthus seedlings and Brad also acquired cuttings of supposed giant Paloras from other friends.
About three years ago, we found some YouTube videos regarding how to graft Dragonfruit. I’m sure some of those videos were from Richard(Thanks Richard). At this time, the giant Palora fruit started popping up all around SoCal. We noticed that some of the fruit still had little nubs of the Dragonfruit vine so we decided to try our hand at grafting them. Aside from the seedlings, we were also able to graft the commercially available giant Palora onto Undatus rootstock.
Fast forward to the present and this year is the first year our giant produced flowers and fruit. The fruit is not fully ripe yet, they’re still green, but they already reached the size of the commercially available giant Megalanthus from the supermarkets so we definitely have a verified giant Megalanthus.
It’s been a long road but I’m Glad we are finally to grow out a few of these giants. I’ll update everyone once these fruit turn yellow and fully ripen.
Here is a current picture of the fruit taken today. All this would not have been possible without Brad’s gardening skills and his love of Dragonfruit.
Simon
Show Posts
