Dragon fruit is a perennial plant. It is also known as pitaya, frutilla de dragon, and pitahaya roja. The dragon fruit plant is a climber that grows on any support and doesn’t need much care. With the right care, it can grow in any climate and soil, whether it’s hot or damp (even on sandy soil), as long as there’s good drainage. When grown in pots, the plant doesn’t need much water or fertilizer. To grow well outside, though, it needs a lot of sunlight. Pitaya plants can grow as tall as 20 feet, but there are also dwarf varieties that only grow 3 feet tall.
There are many dragon fruit trees scattered throughout the tropics, but the density of these plants can vary. A study from 2013 found that there is a significant variation among pitahaya trees in terms of their number of fruits per plant. Some trees had as many as 25 fruits per tree, while others only yielded about eight.
Salient features
- Grows in any kind of soil with the least amount of water and the least amount of care.
- The investment pays off in the second or third year, and cuttings can be used to grow more plants or sell them.
- Huge demand both locally and internationally.
Dragon Fruit plants can grow in any soil, but they do best in soils that drain well. Soils that hold too much water can cause root rot, which can kill the plant. To prevent this, the soil can be mixed with sand or tiny stone gravels to help water drain.
Since pitahaya is a cactus, it needs much less water than other crops and fruits. It can live for months without water. Drip irrigation is the best way to water a garden. Flooding is not a good way to water plants because it wastes water and makes it harder to get rid of weeds.
Dragon fruit usually starts to bear fruit 18 to 24 months after it is planted. It is a fruit plant with leaves that usually bears fruit during or after the monsoons. During one season, it bears fruit in three to four waves. Each wave brings between 40 and 100 fruits to each Pole. The weight of each fruit is between 300 and 1000 grams. Usually, one pole will give about 15 to 25 kg of fruit.
As a general rule, here’s how to figure out your annual income:
One Acre x 300 poles x 15 kg (at least) x 1.25$ (at least) = ~ 5625 $
A healthy dragon fruit plant with three vines should give you at least four fruits each year. The vines will have more than one flower at a time, and each flower has the chance to turn into a vine that bears fruit. So, if you’re growing pitaya plants inside or outside in the U.S., make sure they get a lot of sun.
A single dragon fruit plant can make more than a hundred fruits in a year.
If they are grown from seedlings instead of being grafted onto another rootstock, they will produce red fruits with white meat every two weeks for the whole growing season (roughly June through October).
Total yield per hectare of red pitaya in various planting densities:
| Planting distances | Densities (trellis plants/ha) | Total yield (t/ha) | ||||
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Average (year 1-4) | ||
| 3.0m x 1,8m | 1,815 | 4.06 a | 5.90 a | 26.90 a | 11.69 a | 48.53 a (126.5%) |
| 3.0m x 2.1m | 1,556 | 3.45 ab | 5.04 b | 21.97 b | 11.45 a | 41.91 b (109.2%) |
| 3.0m x 2.4m | 1,361 | 2.68 b | 5.18b | 20.04 b | 10.47 a | 38.36 b (100%) |
Ideal conditions for growth
Dragonfruit plants grow back every year and can grow on any kind of support, like a trellis, fence, or wall. For the best results, you should plant two or three pitahaya plants in every lm (39″) of vertical space. If they get enough water and sunlight, they will bloom and bear fruit all year long.
The dragon fruit plant needs to be between 55F and 100F. (13-37C).
Plants that grow in tropical areas need warm weather. They can’t handle freezing temperatures, so the best range is between 55F and 100F. (13-37C).
Dragon fruit plants do best in well-drained sandy loam soil. They like soil that is slightly acidic (pH 6.0–6.5) and moist, but in the winter they can’t stand water or too much drainage. The soil should have a lot of organic matter, be free of weeds and pests, and be big enough for the roots to spread out.
If your garden soil isn’t very good, you should improve it before planting dragon fruits by adding manure, composted vegetable matter like peat moss, or leaf litter from trees that lose their leaves in the fall, like oak trees (but not pine needles). Do not add too many amendments at once, as this could damage the roots. Instead, add one shovelful at a time until the soil is the right consistency for your dragon fruit plant.
Even though the pitaya plant can survive a lot of drought, it still needs at least 2 inches of water a week when it’s growing. This means that you should keep watering your plant, but not too much. Watering should be done during the day, not at night, so the leaves can dry out before it gets dark. It’s best not to water your pitahaya plant when it’s too hot or too cold. The best time to water is when the temperature is between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit (21-26 Celsius).
The ideal pH range for soil is between 5 and 7.5.
You can change the pH of the soil by adding lime or sulphur to it. Every year, you should test the soil in your garden because it can change because of rain or other things.
Dragon fruit plants need at least 6 hours of full sun every day. They need at least 6 hours of sun a day to grow well, but the more sun they get, the better they’ll grow. If a pitaya plant is in full sun during the day and then moved into the shade in the late afternoon, it might not make as many flowers or fruit as it would have if it had stayed in full sun.
If you live in a place where it gets cold in the winter, put the dragon fruit plant where it gets full sun in the morning and shade in the afternoon. So, your plant will get enough heat and won’t get burned by the sun in the late afternoon.
What does the number of fruits depend on?
There are many things that affect how many dragon fruits you will get from each plant.
- The number of pitahaya on each plant depends on the type of pitaya you grow. Different kinds of pitahaya bloom at different times, which affects how many flowers they make each season. Some types of plants also make more fruit than others. For instance, the Pacific Beauty plant makes about twice as many fruits as the Tahitian Melon plant.
- The size of your pitahaya plants also affects how many dragon fruits each plant can produce. Some varieties are smaller than others and can only hold a few fruits at a time. Other varieties grow very tall and wide and can hold dozens or even hundreds of fruits at once (the record is 472).
- The amount and quality of what your plants produce depends on how much time you spend caring for them. If you don’t water them often and feed them with compost or fertilizer pellets every few weeks, all those tasty little nuggets will go to waste.
