Sportsstand's Winter Dragon Fruit Head-Start Journal

[sportsstand]

Wanted to make this thread to keep track of my progress going forward. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Started some dragon fruit cuttings late last summer and was worried they weren't going to survive the winter. I bought a DIY COB growlight setup way back when CA legalized but never got around to it. Figured this was a good time to use it. I'm using 8 Vero29 gen7 3500k passively cooled. I was driving all 8 @700mA through one driver, but recently upped to two 1400mA drivers slightly dimmed.

Day one in the grow tent (11/21/23)

The larger cuttings are planted in potting soil and coco coir chips and the smaller ones in straight sand.
I overestimated how little these plants need water and ran into some root rot. I was also surprised by how long it took for the sand to dry out, even though temps hover around 75-80F. I had to re-pot from pure sand to 50/50 sand and coco coir chips and cut down on the watering to once every two weeks.

How it looked on Christmas:

And how it looks today (1/11/24):

One of the grafts I did at the beginning of December is really starting to take off.
12/30/23:

1/11/24:

And last but not least, I think I have a flower bud! This is on a self fertile variety so fingers crossed for some unexpected early success.

 

[Phytoplankton]

Nice looking plants! They will handle pretty low temps, mine sat outside all last winter. A hard freeze (less than about 24 degrees) will kill or damage them, but they can handle a bit of frost. I just brought mine onto the porch for the winter, but I do have another couple cutings outside the porch, and they're doing fine. (The yellowing is from overwatering)

 

[sportsstand]

Nice looking plants! They will handle pretty low temps, mine sat outside all last winter. A hard freeze (less than about 24 degrees) will kill or damage them, but they can handle a bit of frost. I just brought mine onto the porch for the winter, but I do have another couple cutings outside the porch, and they're doing fine. (The yellowing is from overwatering)

Thanks and good to know!

I'm hoping that skipping the 'dormant' period will help me get fruit faster after I trellis them up.

 

[Ascended Master Kief]

Beautiful! Dragon fruit is yet another thing I miss from living in the subtropics. I had a pink/red fruiting dragon fruit cactus, whose flowers were a light pink, fruit a dark pink, and flesh snow-white with tiny black dots (seeds?) scattered about inside. Seeing your success here makes me want to find some cuttings, because when they do show up in the grocery stores here, they're not cheap.