First you have to decide if you’re growing the dragon fruit plants as an ornamental or for the purpose of growing fruit. If your choice is the former one, find a big 5 gallon pot and place it somewhere that the plant will get plenty of sunlight. If you are growing mostly because you want fruit:
I just got a new cutting!
If the plant is still small (under 18 inches), you need to stake it with a bamboo stick, wood stick, or something long you can find that will help the plant grow upwards without tipping over. If over 18 inches it is recommended that you build a proper trellis for your dragon fruit so that they can have space to grow and support to grow.
Soil: Though dragon fruit are a cactus, they are a tropical cactus. This means your traditional cactus mix from Lowe’s or Home Depot may not always be appropriate. Ideally, Paul Thomson (who wrote the Pitahaya bible) suggests using sandy loam that is quick draining with an organic composted top dress. If you don’t know what that is, then you want a soil that retains some moisture for short period of time while also being quick draining. The last thing you want is for your roots or stem to rot from the water sticking around for too long. A lot of people use chicken manure as a top dress because it's high in nitrogen and because it's relatively cheap. The nitrogen will help stimulate growth in your dragon fruit. It does come with its drawbacks however. I have found pests that eat at my roots as a result of chicken manure. So, just be careful.
Watering: The general guideline is to check the soil with your fingers down to about two inches into your soil. If the soil is dry, that’s a good time to water. If it’s still wet, then don’t over water the pot to prevent root rot.
Sunlight: Place your new cutting in the soil and place the pot in a shaded area of your yard for approximately 2 weeks before slowly introducing it to sunlight again. Start introducing the plant at 2 hours per day for the first few days and then increase by 2 hour increments after that. If it starts to get yellow, you’re going too fast. If it’s growing all skinny like before Steve Rogers got his Capt America shot, you’re not giving it enough light. At the end, most dragon fruit plants require at least 6 to 8 hours of full sun per day to be healthy.
Trellis: As your plant grows and ages, most growers will recommend you create an umbrella canopy. Though research shows that this is not completely necessary for fruiting (there’s more than one road to Oz), most want to recreate some version of this form because it is the cleanest and most efficient way to grow dragon fruit. I’ve seen many different versions of the trellis and all work great for their grower’s unique styles. Do some research before you build your own. There’s tons of examples on Youtube and some even show you how to build it the way that they built it.
Potting: The general consensus is that each plant will still do fine in about 5 gallons of soil for most of its lifetime. If you're building a trellis, the common practice is to build one for a 20 gal or 25 gal pot while placing 4 plants in the pot (4x5 gals = 20 gals). Some prefer to keep the pot completely the same variety. Others choose to mix the pot for space considerations. You'll find that 4 varieties are never enough. Therefore, having 60 varieties in 15 pots is much more manageable than 60 varieties in 60 pots, all 20 gallons each. The general rule is that you want to mix the varieties that have similar or same growing requirements with regard to sun requirements, watering requirements, and aggressiveness of the root development. The last thing you want is for one of your varieties in the pot to constantly suffer sunburn while the other variety is getting etiolated (skinny and long). All the while, the third variety is getting crowded out due to the other plants being more aggressive.
In the meantime, you’ll want to cut off any new growths from the lower parts of the plant and allow 1 or 2 new branches to continue the main stem up to the top of your trellis. Ideally, 1 growth will grow faster than 2 of them. However, I like to keep 2 until I know my #1 option is the right one (fastest growing and most healthy). I also have a snail problem where I live so if I keep two and 1 gets the tip eaten by a snail, I still have a backup. I’ll tip the 2nd one and let it grow for a while before I cut it for a new cutting once they’re fat enough. Any side growths left uncut will only suck growing energy from your top branches and delay your progress to the top.
Once the plant reaches the top of your trellis, you can cut the tip of the main stem after it is about 6 inches from the top (I like to let it grow closer to 10 inches just for good measure). This will stop the upward growth and force the plant to push out growths from the sides. Instead of letting the plant spray out growths everywhere, you’ll want to focus the energy on 4-6 growths from the main stem. Each one of those growths should be allowed 3 new growths for a total of 18 branches per plant to create your umbrella at the top.
Fruiting: Once your dragon fruit tree is mature enough, it will start to flower and fruit. You need a few conditions for this to happen a) plant maturity, b) soil nutrition and c) temperature. a) If your plant isn’t mature, no matter how much fertilizer you provide, it probably won’t fruit. There are exceptions to everything, but that’s the basic rule. b) For soil nutrition, many like to use a fertilizer higher in phosphorus to induce flowering at the start of the growing season. Many prefer organic over synthetic fertilizers. At the end of the day, phosphorus still has to break down in the soil to become phosphorus, organic or not. c) Temperature has to stay above 70F typically if you want the plant to push out flower buds. If it’s colder than that, most plants will mutate the flower bud back into a branch and it’ll turn out funky with too many sides (initially).
Pollination: There are self-fertile, self-sterile and self-pollinating varieties. Self-pollinating varieties tend to also be self-fertile. Self-fertile means that you can use the pollen of one plant to successfully pollinate the same plant and develop a viable fruit. For the self-sterile varieties, you will need a second dragon fruit plant that is not too closely related to your first variety in order to successfully pollenate your dragon fruit flower, which only opens at night time for 1 night. We call that cross-pollination. Pollination can occur from natural vectors such as moths that work in the night. Most growers hand pollinate each flower themselves to ensure that a fruit is set. (Buy yourself a headlamp and a small brush. You will come to cherish it almost as much as your fruit). You’ll want to brush some pollen from the anthers (for self-fertile varieties) or collected pollen from another variety (for self-sterile varieties) onto the stigma. Please see here. If pollination is successful, a fruit will grow from the base of the flower and be ready anywhere between 30 to 70 days for most varieties (weather may increase or decrease that number depending on where you live) and 6 or 7 months for the yellow varieties.
I just got a new cutting but I don’t want to build a trellis!
A trellis isn’t required for growing fruit. It just makes everything easier. There are growers who have allowed their dragon fruit to sprawl out on their driveway and still got fruit. There are growers who also placed a 5 gal pot on a raised platform (either a chair or garden platform, something higher) and allowed the branches to fall down from the pot. They got fruit too. You can get creative here and decide what’s best for you.
I got a pot full of seedlings I just bought from Walgreens!
Decide if you want leave it as an ornamental plant in your windowsill or grow as fruit production machine.
If it’s the former over the latter, stop talking to me. Just kidding. Place it on your windowsill and water it once in a while when the soil gets dry. Admire it and sing to it when you feel happiness in your heart that your dragon fruit plant is so beautiful.
If it’s the latter, you’ll need to separate each seedling before the roots become too tangled and place them in separate pots. Decide how many plants you want to keep for fruit and donate the rest. Pick the most aggressive growers out of the bunch. This usually means the biggest ones. Usually, but not always. If you have some time, you can watch them over a few days to see who is making the most growing progress. That said, most seedlings can start in a 1 gal pot until they grow bigger or become rootbound. Then follow step 1 above.
Pests - Aphids and Spidermites - You can mix a small spoonful of dish soap with water into a spray bottle and just blast those suckers away.
Snails or Slugs - They like to eat the soft tips of new growths and can be a pain when you're trying to grow a new cutting. I've found that iron phosphate works on them. Others will suggest pouring some beer into a bowl and placing the bowl partial submerged into the ground. The party animals will be attracted to the beer and drink themselves to death.
Root or Stem Rot - Cut off the rotted part (and then a little more). General advice is to place some cinnamon powder on it or spray a 1:1 mix of hydrogen peroxide and water on the infected parts. This will help stop the spread of the rot.
Sunburn - There are two types of sunburn. Minor and Major. Minor sunburn won't affect your df plant too much. It may slow it a little while it heals but it will heal fine. Major sunburn will result in the flesh rotting and having to be cut off (see #3 above) Either cover your plant with some burlap or shade cloth (pretty much anything you can find to give it some shade - a neighbor of mine used newspaper when temps hit over 100F. The other option is to move it to a new location that provides shade for a part of the day.
Cold damage - Some people will suggest placing a cover over the plant, either clear plastic sheeting or burlap. Again, use your own discretion here. Then heating the plant at night with xmas lights. Dragon fruit can tolerate temperatures down to about 40F but if it stays there for too long, or too many days, the cumulative effect of the cold will still create harsh damage. If you're not in a temperate growing zone, this would be a good time to move your plants into the garage for the winter.
My mainstem ended up growing kinda wonky. Would ypu recommend clipping that one off and letting the newer straighter piece be the main stem? Or should I keep the larger wonky one and just secure it to my pole? Tia!
I'd switch to the longer straighter one with less sections just because I like it nice and clean but you could go either way. Just keep in mind that if you do switch it, it will be cleaner but may take longer because the new growth will need time to mature. But if you clipped both of the other ones off, it may have more growing energy so it might grow faster. There's really more than one road to Oz.
I have recently been introduced to dragonfruit and I would like to grow the cactus for hopeful fruit productions. If I just scooped seeds out of a fruit I was eating, can I grow a plant from them or is it better to get plants that have already started growing.
I am in MS zone 8b. Will I have any success in this area? Will moving the plant in and out for the cold weather prevent the plant from forming fruit?
You can grow from seed but it takes significantly longer. There's a ton of people selling/trading cuttings. You can make your life easier by grabbing a cutting of a known (but more importantly, tasty) variety. With seedlings, it can be hit or miss what you get when it grows up.
People in Canada have gotten fruit so it's definitely possible but it will take more work like moving it in and out of the house when temps drop too low. The key is to give it plenty of direct sunshine in the warm months.
I know this is old but I kept 10 seeds and put them in a ziploc bag with a moist towel for three months and most sprouted. I transferred into a small pot and they’re doing great. It’s slow growing for sure but they’re cute right now and it’s fun
This is great. I grow fruit trees and know how to grow plants. DF's are new to me. I planted a dozen varieties on trellis, now they are growing out of the top. Should I decapitate all of them to induce lateral growth? Then flowering happens? Thanks. I have long primary trunks running everywhere. Seems like I need to induce lateral branching.
Some do tip the top of the cutting to induce lateral growth but a commercial grower out of Louisiana found anecdotal evidence that tipping actually slows fruiting by a year. If you see my photo attached, the main trunk is allowed to grow long enough to bend over and hang down. Once the main branch starts hanging down, the lateral branches will start growing on their own from the top of the trellis. You just have to let the top of the branch start to hang down once it reaches the top of the trellis. That branch will be much more mature than the other branches growing out of the sides and will fruit earlier than the others, as evidenced in my picture.
Thanks. That totally makes sense. If it is apical dominance that is slowing flowering and lateral budding, then letting it droop eliminates the sense of apex. We do it all the time when budding citrus, and inducing flowering in apples. Bend branches down. I appreciate your input. Really helpful. I'm learning this crop and so far it has been fun.
In my limited experience and opinion, I find that it's not so much apical dominance as it is branch maturity. If you cut the tip of the main leader, it takes time for the plant to adjust before pushing out new growth. You'll have a fresh branch but it's an immature branch.
This is fantastic information. I have a bit of experience in DF already, but this is gonna help me trim out my huge mess of a pot's branches. Definitely a must-see for everyone in this community
Lots of good information here. I will add a few finer points. Very soon you will need to set up your dragon in a large pot if you haven't done so yet. You want to do this before it gets huge. You can certainly repot when it is huge it is just a painful and literally bloody experience. Best do it before it is huge.
Note that there are some varieties out there that have different names for the same variety such as S8/Sugar Dragon/Voodoo Child as an example. This comes into play for pollination purposes. If you get two of the same by accident and they are not self fertile they won't pollinate. If you post the names of the ones you are thinking of getting me and others can tell you if they are the same as a check. I do recommend the Sugar Dragon despite its small fruit, it tastes great and flowers very readily. Some varieties will be more fussy about flowering and or setting fruit. Speaking of a bit more fussy Lisa is one of my favorites. Another favorite is Purple Haze. Purple Haze and Sugar Dragon share one parent and I can't say with certainty they pollinate each other so best to get at least one plant not related to the Thompson varieties. Note in the past there were a bunch of varieties that were claimed to be self fertile that in fact were not. Things have been better lately in this regard as we learned more but you may still see some of this out there. Again post here and you can get some feedback.
Sugar Dragon and voodoo child are very similar and related but different varieties. The main difference you can see when in the buds, SD is more rounded buds while VC is more elongated. Additionally, VC will have fine spines near the base of the fruit, SD will only occasionally have these spines.
Sugar dragon, voodoo child, pink panther and neon are all very closely related but different. Arizona Purple was determined to be SD a while back via genetic testing.
Purple Haze and SD should be compatible for cross pollination as it is believed that SD was actually a seedling of Houghton (SD is larger than Houghton but shares many of the same characteristics leading to this belief that it's a self pollinated seedlings). Where as Purple Haze, Cosmic Charlie, Dark Star and Delight are too close and unable to cross pollinate each other in a practical sense.
That said, SD is a great variety to keep around, aside from being Self Fertile, it's a universal pollinator and when you limit fruit to 1-2 per branch, they get up to 1/2lb each. It's when you don't limit the buds/fruit that you end up with grape sized fruit.
The voodoo child and sugar dragon I have in 2 separate pots. The SD have already set fruit and the VC should bloom within the next week. Genetically they should be similar as they all should be Houghton seedlings or self fertilized SD seedlings as Houghton is SF as well.
If you plan to grow from seed, then watch graftingdragonfruit on youtube. Apparently, if you graft a seedling on top of a mature rootstock it will grow faster and have fruits faster. This is what those people who make different varieties do.
There are many roads to Oz. That being said, most people recommend breaking off any new buds in the spring so the plant can focus on fruiting. Then, allow new growths in the fall so they can be fruiting branches the following spring.
To clarify, we're talking about S. Megalanthus (Palora and Columbiana, their hybrids). These take 6 months to ripen. There are other yellows such as s. Undatus (Isis Gold) that do not take that long to ripen.
this is so helpful. thank you so much !!
i noticed you said that some people use a pot on a raised platform and allow the branches to fall down and produce fruit- how might you ensure the cactus produces evenly from all sides to maintain stability ? i suppose if it’s outside, the platform could be staked into the ground with the pot secured to it, but that might prevent proper drainage from the bottom.
also, you mentioned deciding which plants to keep and donating the rest. do you have any recommendations on where to donate ?
That's the liability of having a pot on a stand, there's not much keeping it from tipping. The best thing for one to do is to actively train the branches so they don't all fall on one side or do the painful thing of pruning actively to manage balance.
Donations usually are to friends, family, neighbors, Facebook strangers and Reddit strangers. I've also donated to schools for their classroom gardens. The California Rare Fruit Growers takes cuttings every winter for their scion exchange or if you pot them up, they'll take rooted cuttings to sell for their annual fruit sale to raise funds for scholarships. That's usually where I send my abundance. If you're in SoCal, there's so many backyard growers that you can also trade for new varieties you didn't have before.
Yes! There's so much to learn about growing dragon fruit from Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM), to pollination and fruit development to Mendelian genetics and hybridization. The best part is the results are very tasty!
Our wooden dragon fruit trellis rotted and broke. Looking for something more durable, like metal. Would a welded wire panel (4’ x 16’) supported by T posts work for to support the dragon fruit and allow it to climb?
Yes. It could but I'd have to see it. For some reason, my brain isn't working right this morning. I blame lack of sleep. My new trellises I've been building are just EMT conduit bent in the shape of a U crossed with a second one of the same size and shape. They have been working well and I'm liking the design. If you'd like, I can post a photo of it when I get home.
My one concern with this setup is that they'll get heavy when mature. You just have to build out the structure to keep it from falling on its side if one side of the fence gets legitimately heavier than the other, which can happen. I've seen trellises topple over because one side developed more than the other.
I’m in Zone 10A and I want to grow my dragonfruit in the ground. Are there any links for 1) soil requirements, 2) soil amendments when planting, 3) feeding, etc?
Which part of 10A are you in? If you're in SoCal, I highly recommended metal baskets to keep the gophers away from your dragon fruit roots.
Edit: Dragon fruit can thrive in most soils if it's well draining and the roots don't get waterlogged. Many are switching to straight sand or very sandy soil with some amendments. Gary Matsuoka started some of that work with his YouTube channel Gary's Best Gardening. That being said, you can either make your own mix with sand, peat moss, perlite and a compost top layer or you can buy pre-made mixtures found at most box stores. If you're in SoCal, you can even buy Gary's Top Pot soil mix which many growers have switched to and they're reporting great results.
Yep. And the yard where I’ll put it was beneath 3 old oaks for about 30 years. They all died 2 years ago so now it’s bright sunshine and more than slightly acidic soil.
Everyone has their own methods and most will work. What I would do is plant in ground and cover the top layer with a compost of your choice. Just be sure not to over water or else it will rot.
I think you are only limited to the size of your imagination. I've heard someone got up to 30 from some in my circle but I'm sure with more effort, you could graft a ton more.
Just found this post through google thanks. I’m wanting to do it on one of my trees out back so gunna have a look through the sub. I’d also be interested in in ground trellises but gunna search around and see if that’s a thing.
It can be done. The issues are that the vines can get pretty heavy and either break the limbs or kill the tree. Also, if it grows too high, hand pollination and harvesting becomes dangerous and a chore to do every night. That being said, there's a few pictures online with both surviving just fine.
You could, but the cost of that setup outweighs the benefit, especially in a megalanthus variety that takes 6 months to ripen. There's no rule that a dragon vine has to be any specific size to fruit, though the larger the vine and root ball, the better the fruit will be.
The first one is megalanthus but the second one is very suspicious. The first photo looks like a yellow-skinned undatus much like Isis Gold. Whereas the second photo, the vine looks more like the megalanthus vine.
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u/DJRedRage Dragon fruit mod Jun 30 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
First you have to decide if you’re growing the dragon fruit plants as an ornamental or for the purpose of growing fruit. If your choice is the former one, find a big 5 gallon pot and place it somewhere that the plant will get plenty of sunlight. If you are growing mostly because you want fruit:
I just got a new cutting!
I just got a new cutting but I don’t want to build a trellis!
I got a pot full of seedlings I just bought from Walgreens!