Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi All, I am busy growing Dragon fruit from seeds with great success in the ground and was wondering if anyone has them in aquaponics system? and what is their growth rate in a system?

Regards

Rossouw

A very good reason to setup a system and try it!

It grows great and extremely fast if given the right conditions

@Rayn - In your system did you grow them from seed or from cuttings? Time to this size?

I have grown them for quite a few years now ,the plants grow huge but never had a single flower.They don't like beiing in the ground,in AP they take over.

I grew them from 5-6" cuttings a little over a year ago. There are 6-7 plants but I have been taking cutting regularly to encourage vertical growth (for a display). That being said, I've taken over 200 12"+ cuttings since planting them. I finally got a few to climb and they are looking great. I expect them to fruit as soon as we get through a few more weeks of cold weather.

I've had one in a system for 3 years, its growing ok but never any flowers
the one in the dirt garden looks a little healthier and gives fruit every year

from what Ive seen they also only fruit on downward-pointing stalks

an lo and behold, two weeks after that post, I have flowers !

3 flowers coming on on the one in the dirt, 5 on the one in AP

on the AP one, one flower opened last night so I pollinated it ( with a glass of wine and some romantic music ofcourse ), one withered today which was way too close to that one, so maybe one flower per limb / stalk

and heres the one that just flowered tonight ( the flowers open one night only , get your tickets !! )







by far the biggest draginfruit flower Ive had over the last few years of growing them

I'd be interested to know if anyone else in Perth has these flowering at the moment, and whether different varieties of the fruit have different colour flowers

another shot

What do you do with dragonfruit? Is it edible?

Yep. Spectacular outside, spectacular inside, but I find the flesh is about as bland as water....at least the supermarket stuff does.

You feed them to Dragons of course.

I first had these in Singapore. Quite spectacular. I have only seen them once in my local IGA. The flesh in those was delicious.

I must get one of these.

for dragon fruit to flower etc they need long days of light and they need a period of dryness the other thing to try is tipping

That is what I have found but the ones in the dirt look shocking .For those that live in Perth , if you go to Aquaponics Express in Warton road you will see them growing and flowering very well and plenty of fruit as well. She has AP and hydroponics as well. She has a lot of very interesting things there, she must talk to them at night.It is well worth a look.

I never knew dragon fruit came from a cactus type plant.I've only ever seen the fruit on its own.