Thursday, September 14, 2006

Dragon fruits pruning


Pruning is one of the important aspects in dragon fruit planting. The purpose of prunning is to take off the unwanted branches, as well as to give balance the whole plant. If we don’t prune the plant will easily get affected by disease .


Branches which are too long should be trimmed to about 5 -10 cm from the main supporting stem. This is to encourage the new branches to grow. The specialty of this plant is that the old branches can be use to a new planting. Research shows that the length and age of the dragon fruit plant used to plant will effect the flowering process.




Young shoots can be cooked just like we cook lady's finger.Its nutritious.There is another source vegetable which had medicinal value in our diet. The dry flowers can be processed to make tea.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Dragon fruits pollination



I have gone to Johore to see dragon fruits palnting. It is one of the biggest area in Malaysia which had many dragon fruits plantings; which almost 500 acres One of the interesting thing I observed was assisted pollination of dragon fruits. They taught me how to take pollens, pollen keeping, hand pollination etc. Actually the assisted pollination is done at night when the flowers bloom. Hand pollination is done between 8 to 10 p.m. Assisted pollination produced bigger fruits almost to 800 g.