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murahilin_gw

Pomegranate and Dragon fruit not fruiting

murahilin
16 years ago

Both my pomegranate and dragon fruit flowered in the past month but all the flowers on both dropped. Does anyone know why? Do I need to hand pollinate them both? The dragon fruit had about 9 flowers and they all dropped after the bloomed and the pomegranate had 4 that dropped. Any ideas on what to do to make sure the flowers pollinate and set fruit? Thanks

Comments (7)

  • dghays
    16 years ago

    How big are the plants, how long have you had them? In each respective case the likely candidate is plant not being large enough to have enough energy reserves for it to hold fruit. Other factors could be if they were recently fertilized, or heavy rains washed in ferts, the nitrogen can cause a drop.

    Gary

  • murahilin
    Original Author
    16 years ago

    Well the pomegranate is only like 1-2 feet tall. Its been in the ground for more than a year. Its the hipolito variety. I'm not even sure if the flowers were pollinated though but there was a lot of heavy rains.

    The dragon fruit is also more than a year in the ground and it is 7-8 feet. There are actually about 4 different ones on the same pole that are 7-8 feet and they all flowered but all dropped after they bloomed. Yesterday I actually saw another bud forming. Hopefully that one will keep. Can I self pollinate it with just one flower?

    Thanks

  • murahilin
    Original Author
    16 years ago

    Just in case it wasn't clear, by "4 different" I meant 4 individual plants not 4 different varieties of dragon fruit. They are all 'physical graffiti'.

  • orchidguyftl
    16 years ago

    dragon fruit needs to be hand pollenated usually
    there are a few varieties that are self fertile

  • racor_2006
    16 years ago

    Murahilin,

    The physical graffiti for what I understand is self fertilie and does not need hand pollination. Usually Dragon fruits that don't self pollinate need to be done by hand but you need pollen from a different Dragon fruit plant not related to the one you have. In other words, if you have multiple plants that originated from the same mother plant, won't work.

    In your case, If it's a true Phisical Graffiti, it should of pollinated itself.

    I have a Vietnamese Dragon fruit in the ground myself for two years and hasn't flowered. I did some research reading posts and looking at videos from Edgar Valdivia who is a well known Dragon Fruit (Pitaya) grower in California. He stated that it may take up to 4 years to fruit depending on the conditions.

    Link for Edgar's website

    http://www.edvaldivia.com/

    Good Luck

  • murahilin
    Original Author
    16 years ago

    Thank you both for the help.

    Racor, I really hope I dont have to wait 4 years. I had my hopes up because there were so many flowers. I think you and Gary may be right. Maybe the plants are too young. Also thanks for the link to that website. I watched the video he had on the site. It was pretty interesting.

  • macd_etc_yahoo_com
    13 years ago

    In S.FL. Bought a dragon fruit many yrs ago (at least 5-7). We got one flower on it that fell off, then another the dog knocked off the plant. That was the 2nd or 3rd year we owned it. Have never gotten another flower since. The plant is HUGE (climbs all over our 10x10 dog kennel. We don't know what variety it is since the tag didn't say. Any hope of this ever flowering again? And what do you mean "hand pollinate?" How? And with what? Don't know if it's applicable but we have bees (do they help with this type of plant?)