How to Plant and Cultivate Dragon Fruit in Pots

 

Dragon fruit or dragon fruit , as its name in English, is a uniquely shaped fruit originating from Mexico. Physically, the fruit is semi-oval shaped, the skin is layered, looks scaly, like the scales of a dragon usually depicted in fairy tales. Maybe that's the reason why this fruit is called dragon fruit. When split open, revealing the fibrous flesh and black seeds neatly embedded in the flesh.

Various types of dragon fruit are fresh and delicious, also rich in benefits.

For the color of the skin and flesh, there are several variants, namely red dragon fruit with white flesh , pink flesh with pink flesh , bright yellow color with white flesh and bright red color with dark purple flesh . These four types are among the most widely cultivated types of dragon fruit. Meanwhile, the plant resembles a cactus plant, because this plant is still closely related to cactus .

This fruit became popular in Indonesia in the 2000s because of its excellent health benefits, capable of curing various diseases. Besides being useful as herbal medicine, this fruit is also widely consumed because of its sweet and sour taste, which is really fresh. Dragon fruit meat can be consumed directly, or processed into a variety of delicious foods. Therefore, it is necessary to cultivate dragon fruit in each area.

For those of you who are interested in cultivating dragon fruit, the following steps will be given for planting it in a pot.

• Prepare a stanchion

A truss of 2-2.5 meters is required. The reason why a truss is needed for this plant is because dragon fruit plants can reach more than 2 meters. This plant hangs down when it is not supported, because the fruit that comes out on each branch, is heavier than the leaves, so the plant may fall if it is not tied to the support pole.

The stems that have grown will release their roots that spread to the truss.

• Prepare a pot

The pot used should be a large pot. Various kinds of pots can be used, can be plastic, iron, clay or cement pots. But according to experience, pots made of clay are the best selection of pots.

If it is large, the dragon fruit plant is transferred to a larger pot as well.

• Provide soil as a planting medium

The soil used is soil mixed with sand, also given manure and compost . For better results mix also with dolomite and red brick powder. Next, water and leave the soil mixture overnight.

• Seed planting

Choose the best quality seeds. For dragon fruit, good seeds are characterized by large old stems with a dark green-gray color 30 cm long. For 1 truss, 4 seeds of dragon fruit are needed to be planted around the truss. Leave a distance of about 10 cm for each planted seed. The seeds are planted at a depth of 10-15 cm. After that, tie the four stems of the seedling on the stanchion. Do not be too hard, so that the stem is not damaged and can move to grow.

• Care

The care for dragon fruit is the same as the care for other plants. Where every plant requires nutrient intake from fertilizers and good irrigation. In addition, pruning is also needed to adjust its shape when it grows big.

For fertilization at the beginning of growth, it takes a lot of intake of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. It is not recommended to use urea fertilizer , because the use of this type of fertilizer will cause rotting of the stems. Then when the stems have started to grow, what is needed is the provision of manure and compost once in 3 months. If it is flowering, give NPK fertilizer . And in the following years, when the dragon fruit plants have grown, give fertilization according to its size. This means that the bigger the plant, the more fertilizer is given.

For watering can be done with the technique of fertigation. Fertigation technique is a watering technique by drip irrigation . Can also drain water in drainage ditches. Or by watering it using gembor . Be careful with watering that is too wet. Will make the stem rot and die.

Pruning is done to beautify the appearance of the stems that grow wild and messy.

Next, don't forget to trim. Dragon fruit plants need to be pruned to form production branches, main stems and rejuvenate them. This is done to make the shape regular because basically, if not pruned, dragon fruit plants will grow chaotically or messy.

• Harvest

For dragon fruit seeds with small trunks, the possible harvest period is around 1-2 years from the age of planting. As for large seedlings, with sturdy trunks, it usually only takes 10-12 months to be able to produce fruit on the production branches. Therefore, it is advisable to choose seeds with the best size.

Harvesting is done using special shears so as not to damage the production branch.

The characteristics of the fruit that is ready to be harvested are the fruit that is already shiny red, the green color has started to disappear, the base of the fruit is wrinkled, the crown is shrinking, and the weight of the fruit is around 400-600 grams. This plant has a fairly long productive life, which is about 15-20 years. So after the first harvest, do the maintenance so that in the following years, the harvest can be even more optimal.

That is the procedure for planting and cultivating dragon fruit with pot media. Hopefully useful and good luck.

We also provide dragon fruit seeds, please click here to view the catalog. In addition, there are also dragon fruit plant seeds and other fruit plants that have grown, let's look at  the  catalog here . However, if you need gardening supplies, please click here to view our range of products.