What are the differences between the fruit producing varieties from Hylocereus?

[gr33ntea]

I just purchased a Hylocereus polyrhizus. I want it to produce lots of fruit so i am going to purchase a different Hylocereus so the cross-pollination produces a larger yield.
The sole purpose of this is so my Hylocereus polyrhizus produces as much fruit as it can.

So my question is which Hylocereus flowers the most often? Should i avoid also getting a yellow dragon fruit hylocereus because i heard they do not flower as often as Hylocereus Undatus

[naja naja]

I have purchased from local nurseries yellow, white flesh and red flesh reds. Any1 grown these clones out or have any info at all on them? I presume they were grown/propagated locally.

[woof woof woof]

no bearing on the discussion, but recently I had several flowers blooming at the same time, so i crossed the top flower with the bottom flower & now have a fruit on the bottom plant, a dragon fruit of some sort i suppose

the top flower is a T. spachianus

seleFLRDSC_0896r.jpg

Most H. Undatus are self fertile Zelly,.... but would be wicked if they indeed hybridized.... Hope you get a tasty fruit!

[woof woof woof]

I've 3 H polyrhizus clones and 1 is clone is self fertile, although i'm told it produces larger fruit if it is cross pollinated. Cant verify this just yet but it sounded plausible

The self fertile one is possibly a cross.

Have to add that I have 2 clones both sold to me as Polyrhizus but with completely different morphology. Both are not not self fruiting.

Also have another clone,... which in appearance looks like a hybrid between the two. It hasn't flowered yet. So I have no clue what to expect from this one. Looks like I will have to do a lot of experimenting. Cross pollinating to see what the fruits look and taste like.

[shortly]

It very well could be a cross .Who knows?

The number of hybrids circulating now could be vast, at a guess id say that there is a fair chance that most of the Hylo's in circulation in Oz quite likely are hybrids. there has been a LOT of work done for the past 40 + years to develop fruits more suited to western tastes so even many named varieties are not pure species but rather selected clones of mostly one species or another with an outcross or three dozens of generations back.

One interesting thing to note is that i have had on two different occasions had both self fertile & self incompatible plants come from a single controlled mating. In both instances the parent plants were raised from (allegedly) wild harvested seed. & no the seed was mail order so i can not be sure that they were not just from the local market, i can only go on the vendors word.

Pretty much every village in their part of the world has its own varieties that have been grown since before the european invasions

I wonder how many of the "species" might actually be ancient hybrids or cultigens?

Given their LONG association with the peoples of central & south america. the amount of trade these people engaged in. Their unusually large fruits that are well suited to human palettes. And in general are pretty dammed easy to handle for a cactus, how much of their current morphology is "natural" and how much is the result of humans favoring certain traits over millennia?

Edited August 12, 2014 by shortly