Hylocereus in bloom

[poisonshroom]

Hey all,

my massive hylocereus is in full bloom at the moment - this is the most flowers iv ever seen on it! the last two nights dozens of them have opened up and wilted away the next day, but there are still plenty more to come

Iv been up there in the mornings on a ladder with a paintbrush to hopefully pollinate some of the flowers so i can get some tasty pitayas. is running a paintbrush around inside the flowers enough to successfully pollinate them?

as far as i know pollination rates are pretty poor here naturally (from what i understand in their native habitat they are mostly pollinated by large moths and some bats, which we dont have here). Iv seen plenty of flowering plants around town, but none ever seem to get fruit.

this particular plant is around 5 or 6m high and is growing from a small pot thats tied to the host tree (its been there as long as i can remember though and its pretty much busted out of the pot). I would really love to be eating chilled dragonfruit this time next month so hopefully iv done the right thing

=] thanks

[tripsis]

That thing is awesome! Hope you manage to get some fruit out of it.

[rahli]

You need pollen of a different clone as they are not self fertile.

[Coquero]

You need pollen of a different clone as they are not self fertile.

 

rahli is right, you need pollen from a different plant.. but also there are definately self pollinating varietes around, hopefully you are lucky!!!

[poisonshroom]

Damn - i hope im lucky too. iv never seen so many flowers on the thing!

thanks for clearing that up =]

[mutant]

Cool photos. I have never eaten a dragon fruit...

[bℓσωηG]

Healthiest one ive ever seen! Growing where it should ,up a tree,hope you get some pollen from somewhere

[poisonshroom]

I hope so too

and mutant dragonfruit is delicious (and expensive!). The only time iv eaten them was in singapore, but you can get them here at certain times. They dont have a lot of flavour, but its a mild kiwi/pear kinda flavour and the seeds make it nice and crunchy. Chilled on a hot day would be heavenly

might have to keep an eye out around town for other flowering plants and collect some pollen (only trouble is you often need a tall ladder to get to flowers)

[mescalito]

Daleys Fruit might be able to help?

Awesome man, there like $5 a fruit at W!

Get some pollen on cotton buds and wrap them in cling wrap,store'm in the fridge...and save some seeds of course

Edit: Are they self pollinating?

http://www.daleysfruit.com.au/fruit%20pages/Pitaya.htm

Edited January 5, 2011 by mescalito

[poisonshroom]

That is interesting =]

Seems like only certain ones are self pollinating, so hopefully mine is. i guess ill know in a week or two.

thanks for the link. good read

[planthelper]

beautyfull!

i got them all over my garden but they never flower, i think some of them get too much shade and that stopps them from flowering...

how much light and nutes does your plant recieve, poisonshroom?

my neighbour told me he got fruits from a single plant...

can any member report seeing them flower even if they grow high up into a tree?

i have seen other similar cacti flowering under the same conditions as mine...

[poisonshroom]

Well its growing up an Ironbark with a large sapodilla next to it, so it receives some (dappled) shade maybe for a couple of hours a day, but otherwise it gets quite a bit of sun.

Noone goes out of their way to fertilize it at all, and its growing out of a small pot (the roots have well and truly destroyed the pot and run down to the ground). Its right next to the driveway and the soil (lik e the rest of the townsville area - except near the ocean) is basically solid clay most of the time with poor drainage. It is near where the lawn is frequently watered though. i think flowering is triggered by a well watered plant that then receives a shit load of extra water then maybe some sun. i can only comment on a plant this size and age (5-10years) though because none of my other smaller ones have flowered. but it flowers most years around this time, we just never get fruit.

i could start feeding it to see if that brings on more flowers, but i doubt it will be effective because of the fact its clay with poor drainage that then also slopes down to the driveway. any excess water quickly turns the driveway into a small river, then the whole yard turns into a swamp.

[kadakuda]

many are self fertile, the thing is the time the stigma is more accepting and the time pollen drops (forget the term, anthensis or some other fancy long word) do not overlap, and the style is long so it sticks out past the anthers...they say this i to prevent self fertilization, but hand pollination generally yields good results. personally i think there are more self fertile "varieties" than not going around, simply because thats what most growers grow for easy of fruit production.

rip off a couple anthers and put them in the style...you can brush as well if you like, but dont have to get too complicated....these are big flwoers so pretty easy to speed pollinate.

plant helper, they always grow up walls, trees, electrical poles etc and flower. i never see flowers on truly shaded plants, they like light for sure.

when you see the flowers die back and the ovary sell (the fruit is fertilized) clip the ends of the stem they are on. clip it now too, many people do it after flowering. this creates far larger fruits and less cactus abortions.

[poisonshroom]

Do you mean cut the actual vine part that continues to grow past the flower? the flowers have all wilted now and i have (attempted to) pollinate most of the flowers that i could reach, so hopefully most of the lower ones should produce fruit soon.

[kadakuda]

yes. here is my awesome illustration

...flower

````\_/``cut````tip

==========/====>

[planthelper]

good info, cheers!

this info might motivate me to try again, on my sunniest location, and using a pole (or climbing aid) instead of natural vegitation.

i saw once footage of a commercial hylocereus fruit grower, and his plants had a single strong trunk attached to a pole, and were located on a slight slope.

it's aswell fun to grow them out of the seeds of supermarket fruits!

[kadakuda]

This next few weekends i am redoing my dragon fruit crop area at the farm,. i will take pictures when doing certain parts for you to see. They are pretty easy to grow, the trick is getting LOTS of fruit

[poisonshroom]

Thanks for the tip kada - might go out and do that when the last couple of flowers open up and i get up their to pollinate. so far all but about 4 flowers have gone yellow and are about to drop off, the others appear to be developing fruit (the buds are still green and swelling a bit).

and PH, i pretty much did what you just said =] i decided to buy a fruit while i was out last night and now i have probably about 100 seeds (from maybe an inch or two of fruit) which are the red center variety that im going to try and sprout when thy dry out. itll be interesting to see what colour fruits mine has (hopfully either red with a white center or yellow).

Ill probably post some more pictures later, and it would be nice to see some from other people who have had success

[kadakuda]

they germ faster if you dont dry em

the flowers usually go yellow and die off, and eventually come off. or are the ovaries dropping too?

red tastes far better than white IMO.

[shortly]

they germ faster if you dont dry em

the flowers usually go yellow and die off, and eventually come off. or are the ovaries dropping too?

red tastes far better than white IMO.

 

Yes but the yellow skinned one is the best of the lot

[poisonshroom]

Iv only tried the red fleshed one and one with white flesh but unknown skin colour (with high tea at raffles in singapore ). Iv heard yellow is the best tasting but red flesh has a stronger flavour - but taste is pretty subjective.

I sewed out most of the seeds i collected yesterday, so we'll see how that goes. they were really sticky, so hard to put down in any order.

And the whole flower and little bud is dropping off too. this picture shows what i think is a developing fruit and one that will fall off soon.

and here's more of the ones that are falling off and a bud that will probably open tonight (i took the picture yesterday)

[kadakuda]

ya your right, that si a fruit, and those ones going yellow are duds. but hey, you got some. We are lucky, there are natural pollinators here...hell if i knwo what they are exactly but we have bats, moths etc all around at night, so probably them. Many huge growing countries dont have great pollinators, so dont feel bad.

i agree teh yellow one is best, but its Selenicereus, not Hylocereus....although related. There are some neat hybrids being made, at least here. Yellow skinned red fleshed varieties are being developed, but they wont let me have a cutting lol. also teh yellow ones are smaller, or their potential is smaller.

flavour varies a LOT with *how* they are grown as well. the huge massive ones i have in canada from California are watery and no flavour at all...liek their strawberries. Same here for a lot in Taiwan. but people that that take care and grow in good dirt and not jsu t"pump up weight" have real nice flavour. my wifes parents grow some red ones at their pig farm, and the fruit (i took it home away from any pig stuff) actually tasted like "musky pig farm". a cactus breeder i know who breeds his own hylocereus for grafting stock, its red fleshed, has some of the TASTIEST fruits ever. they are actually super sweet, but the fruits are small, tennis ball size.

i think the problem with the dragon fruit industry, liek damn near 100% of any fruit industry, are only interested in shiny skin, bigger sizes, disease resistance and storage/shipping ability...so few focus on taste, damn shame.

anyway, poison, your plants look great...you will have some nice fruit in a month or so.

[kadakuda]

little late, but here is pics of the new setup. not all planted at time of photos, still digging to this day.

[lophty_tricho]

The yellow ones are Selinicereus, tasty buggers! I've read they can be crossed with Epiphylums and Hylocereus, crossing results in larger fruit apparently

[kadakuda]

yep, lots of hybrids under way for better fruit. and epi breeders are always up to no good lol. i havent heard of any epi/seleni hybrids though, sounds neat. got any pics?