How to Plant Dragon Fruit Cuttings |

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Dragon fruit plants grow best from cuttings. Look for sturdy, healthy stems and harden them in the shade for a week to avoid rotting. Then plant them a few inches deep in some good soil and a well. Do not water again until the soil looks dry. I find that dragon fruit cuttings work better in small pots, they can be planted on bamboo canes until they are at least half a meter tall, then transferred to the ground or into larger pots for their final location.

I recommend not growing dragon fruit from seed unless you want to create a new hybrid strain or graft a hard to find strain. Dragon fruit seedlings take a long time to bear fruit, sometimes up to seven years, although grafting can greatly speed up the process.

Yellow Dragon Fruit

For some strains, such as Huanglong, it is recommended to graft to a firm foundation, such as Isis Gold or Vietnamese White, as its own root system is not very strong. If you don’t graft them, strains like Huanglong can take up to a year to grow their first shoots, but you can still successfully grow them without grafting. My first grafting only lasted about a month, and then Huanglong brought out a scion that was grafted laterally to Vietnamese white.

There are many different varieties of dragon fruit; including:

Sugar dragon  – The fruit is the size of a duck egg and has a bright purple flesh. It’s especially delicious.

Purple haze – This is a sweet purple fruit with a taste similar to kiwi. This larger variety’s fruit can weigh almost a kilogram.

Dark star – these medium to large fruits have a red flesh and taste a little like grapes.

Delight – the unique pink of this flesh is sweet and smooth and the fruit is medium to large.

Physician graffiti – this variety has a pink-red skin and light-purple flesh. It is known for its unique taste, making it a popular choice.

How to Prepare a Dragon Fruit Cutting for Planting

Using a sharp, clean knife, cut 6 to 15-inch long dragon fruit stem sections from the annual shoots of the parent dragon fruit plant. Cut at an angle. Pick cuttings from the coveted mother plant immediately after fruiting and as early in the morning as possible.

Briefly dip the cuttings in the fungicide solution, dust or spray the cuttings with a wettable fungicide, or dip the cut ends in the fungicide as needed. Alternatively, you can choose a rooting hormone powder that also contains a fungicide powder.

Store the cuttings in a cool, dry, well-ventilated place out of direct sunlight for 5 to 7 days to harden. Position the chips so that they do not touch.

Dip the slanted end of each cutting in IBA rooting hormone powder before placing cuttings in prepared soil or rooting medium containers.

Tip

Cuttings taken from newer stem sections will have the most vigorous rooting, but older stem sections are more resistant to pests.

Take only cuttings from healthy, disease-free plants and avoid stem sections that show discoloration.

If you need to transport cuttings before planting them in soil or rooting medium, wrap them in damp but not damp paper towels and store in plastic bags or plastic wrap.