5 Reasons Your Dragon Fruit Isn’t Producing FRUIT Yet!

0:00 Welcome back to Grafting Dragon fruit. I'm Richard and in this video today, I'm going to explain to you guys five reasons why your dragon fruit might not be producing any fruits yet. Even though your dragon fruit has been growing for over a year or it looks even mature enough to start producing fruit but still hasn't yet, then these five reasons might help you guys figure out why it hasn't fruit yet. So, if you guys are ready, let's get straight to it. Reason number one, this might sound obvious to all of my experienced dragon fruit grower that's been watching my channel, but for all of my beginner dragon fruit growers, this is easily overlooked and a lot of people actually skip this step and jump straight to growing the dragon fruit instead of just building a trellis support. So, number one, you guys, is having a trellis support for your dragon fruits. They love to climb and grow, and once they

0:46 grow to the top, they put out a lot of branches, and the branches do get heavy. So having a strong support for your dragon fruit really helps them grow faster and even produce fruits quicker if you were to have them. You can use a trellis system like how I have it here. I show you how to build this in my channel. This is a standard trellis system that you use a 4x4 post with 2x4 top for the canopy to grow out. You can even use tomato trelluses where I've seen other growers use tomato tomato trelluses putting them in pots and then tying the branches and having them umbrella out that way. Or if you have a trellis design of your own that you know works for your backyard and you know that it will support the dragon fruit then definitely have that set up for your dragon fruit. So reason number one

1:31 is making sure you start off with a strong trellis system. Don't overlook this part. I see a lot of people kind of just get ready to grow dragon fruit. They have their cutings in pots, no trellis system, and it grows wild and everywhere. Um, when you don't control the growth, it takes a little bit longer for it to start producing fruit because the branches are kind of growing wild. They don't get a chance to mature and it's kind of just putting offshoots or new growth everywhere. So, very important to have a established trellis system for your dragon fruits to climb, grow, and establish itself to mature so that way they can start producing fruits. Reason number two is your dragon fruit mature enough to start producing fruits. If you guys have a little cutting that you just got and brought home and planted for that first year,

2:16 you should not be expecting any fruits yet. So that's a given. But they do grow and after one year they get to a mature state and look something like this. They will start producing fruits. And when I say if is your dragonf fruit mature, I'm talking about did it climb all the way up to the top of the trellis and once it hit the top of the trellis, was it able to canopy out and create some subbranches? So I considered a mature dragon fruit is when they reach to the top of the trellis and that main branch I usually cut the top of the main branch off and what that does is it stimulates new growth and it'll put out subbranches. So you can get up to three to five sub branches and within those three to five sub branches once it reaches to the top of the canopy those

3:03 sub branches can actually produce you fruit. So let me give you a exact view and reason of what that looks like once it gets to that point. So this is my variety here called berry breath. As you can see I've kept all of the lower growth very uh clean. So anything any lower growth that came out of here I clipped it off. I did leave a few, just a few, like a couple, one branch on each to see if I can still get it to produce fruit if I were to leave some lower growth. And to my studies and actually playing around with it, I found that you can still actually get fruit from the sub branches that are underneath the canopy, but you can't have too many branches. I'm talking about maybe two to

3:49 three sub branches on the bottom, but you want mainly all of your sub branches to be on top. And once it reaches to the top like this and it puts out the three to five sub branches that I just talked about, they will produce fruit. So this one is the same age as my Thai gold here. And my tie gold here, I didn't do any pruning. I didn't do any maintenancing. So because I didn't do any of that, it wasn't able to produce fruit. But my berry breath here, it's the same age as this tie goat. I planted them both at the same time. But because I was more like took pay more a little bit of attention to this actually pruned it, maintained it, keep the branches that I know that will be uh producing fruits when the season comes. It actually happens. So you can see here this is a flower bud that's going to

4:35 turn to fruit. This is berry breath. And this is on a sub branch that's kind of at the bottom. Um, this one too, another sub branch that actually has a flower here which is going to produce a fruit has a fruit. And if you look to the top of the trellis, you've seen that they're putting out flowers almost at every other branch here. So, I got two here. Even this small little branch here, it reached to the top of the canopy. Um, but because it's mature and has reached the canopy and they get enough sun, they were able to produce fruit. So, you got to ask yourself, is my dragon fruit mature enough yet? Has it reached to the top of the trellis? And once it reached the top of the trellis, do I have those three to five sub branches that are now

5:23 canopying out on my trellis? Once you have those three to five sub branches, and it's been over a year, they will produce fruit. And here is the proof to show you guys. So, within a year, you guys should be able to get some fruits from your dragon fruit. if you're maintaining and following everything I do. So that is why you should let your dragon fruit mature. A little cutting will not get you any fruit, but once it gets to this point, you will definitely get fruit. Reason number three, are you pruding all of your excessive growth on your dragon fruit? If you look at this one here, my Thai gold, I purposely left all of these lower growth down here to see if I'm able to get fruit with leaving all of these lower branches here. And you guys know my rule. I always tell you guys to always prune all of the lower growth so that way all of

6:08 the energy doesn't get sucked up by these I call them suckers at the bottom here and the top one actually gets the enough energy to produce fruit. So when I did this experiment I was trying to see what was the minimum and maximum of branches that I can leave on the lower part of my pot and see if I was still able to get fruit from them if I were to leave only a couple of branches versus all of these branches. So here I did a test where I left about four branches of lower growth to each main branch. And as you can see here, if that's four * 4, we have about 16 branches just down here below. Yes, it's good to get more cutings. And you know, if you're trying to have more cutings to propagate or

6:55 even sell or gift to your friends, then this is a great way to get more branches, more cutings, so that way you can share or sell them um with your friends or family. But at this point, I know everyone is trying to grow to get the fruit. So, if you have all of these lower growth here, you might not see fruit for that season. But let me show you guys what happens if you were to clean this up and leave about two or maybe even three branches and to and see if they get fruit. So that's exactly what I did. So this one I left all the branches. I did no maintenance, no pruning. I just left it to see what would happen and to see if I would get fruit. And after being a year and a half old, still no fruit. I have other trellis that I plant at the same time. Um but I actually maintenance them and prune them. And I showed you guys

7:41 earlier my berry breath. This one I left about one branch per main branch off the lower growth and I was able to get fruits, you guys. So yes, it's possible for you guys to grow these lower branches and still get fruit. But the main thing is you can't have too many. To be safe, I would say maybe two lower branches per main branch. If you decide to keep them, you can fruit them. And once they're done fruitruing, you can cut them and use them as a cutting. So you kind of win like two, you kind of beat two birds with one stone with that kind of uh style there. So after this fruit, I'll have this cutting. I know it's mature and if I share with anybody else, this will be a mature fruing branch. So this was me leaving one branch per main stem.

8:28 If you guys come over here, this one is my sour patch watermelon. So, this one I did keep three branches to see if it's going to produce me any fruit. And to my surprise, I was able to get some buds. You guys can see that right here. This is a flower bud. And here is a new flower bud that is starting to form. So, the trick here is guys is tipping them once they get to a certain size. So, I have all of these lower growth. I let them grow to about maybe over 12 in. Even if it's if it's bigger, that's fine. But once they get to that point, I tip them. And what tipping means is I break the tip. Boom. And this is what you see. So all this concavveness here that you see is me

9:13 tipping the dragon fruit. So it stops the the horizontal growth and now will start to produce new shoots, new buds. And when I did that during flowering season, it just produces me flower buds, fruit buds instead of new growth. So with three branches per main branch on the lower, you're able to get fruit. So, that was a that was a really cool experiment. And you're probably wondering, well, yeah, sometimes I do get the buds down here, but they don't make it all the way to bloom. Sometimes they will grow to a certain size, turn yellow, and abort. And that will happen. Um, that will happen because there's probably not enough sun, or they're fighting for competitiveness, and the plant can't handle all of the buds, so it's going to get rid of the ones that aren't getting sun penetration. So, as long as you're having full sun, you

9:59 should be able to get fruits at the lower growth as well. And here is my sour patch kids over here. I left this one with one, two, three, four, five branches. And even though I had five branches on this one, I was still able to get a fruit on one of the lower sub branches. It flowered, I pollinated it, and now it's on its way to becoming a ripe fruit. So, we are about 3 to four days in. So I know that the fertilizing pollination has set. It separates the flower and now we have a fruit here. So this is going to start ripening. So yes, it is possible to get fruit even if you have all those lower branches. But I highly

10:45 recommend you guys do it in a controlled way where you can keep three to two. Um this will definitely give you guys fruits and extra cutings. So, let's go back to our Thai gold and clean up all of these branches. So, all of these lower growth, it is just way too much. As you guys can see, all of those trellis that I just showed you are the same age. They're all a year and a half year old. They all produce fruit. The only difference was I actually pruned and maintained all those other ones. And this one I kept letting go wild. And the con with that was um I didn't get any fruit. But the pro was I got a lot of cutting. So, I'm able to share these cutings on my website. This is Thai gold. So, after I clip all of these, I'll be posting on my website. So, you

11:32 guys should be seeing some tie gold cutings up very soon. But, let's go ahead and start pruning everything that we don't need and leave only on the top growth. And hopefully later during the season, it stimulates all the oxen hormones and then we'll start producing me some fruits at the top. I have another trellus of Thai gold on the other side and it already has produced me some flower buds. So, I know it's ready to fruit. um is just not ready because there's too much going on here. So, we know how to clean things up, get it ready, get it mature, and hopefully it starts producing fruits for us this season so we get to enjoy some of that. But all of these lower growth here has to go. And if it does start to fruit, I'll do another episode to show you guys what all that pruning did and to prove to you guys that pruning will actually help it

12:17 uh fruit some more. So, for now, we're just pruding all of the Thai gold lower growth cutings and in hope to still get it to fruit this season. As you can see, there's just way too many. This one here just has five. And like I said, look at the pros, you guys. I have a lot of cutings now to share with everybody, but no fruit to show for it. So, we're going to change that up. We're going to get these cutings off. And once all these cutings are off, we're gonna make sure that it gets some fertilizers to start producing more fruits. It's looking so much better already.

13:04 Okay, so I still got more. So started from the bottom. We're going up. And we're just going to keep going up until we clean up everything that's below the top of the trellis here. So, I have a few more that needs to go. Like this one is right underneath the trellis. You can keep it, but for me, I have so much on the top already. Um, we're just going to cut it off. Even this little one that's hanging out right here. Let's just go ahead and remove that. And uh I'm just going to do a quick walk around. Oh, I do see some right here. It's really easy to miss. But this one can also go.

13:51 This one too. Ooh, this one I normally would cut, but it's already starting to grow and canopy over. So, we'll keep that. Anything that has already grown to the top of the canopy and canopy over, you're you're okay to keep that one. All right, that one I just said that's going to stay. And all right, it looks great. So, I did all of the cleaning like I was supposed to. Looks so much better. Just check out this pile of cutings that I have here. So, a lot of that energy was going towards keeping these happy, nourished, and just making sure that they're getting everything they need. Now that I removed all of

14:36 that, all of these nutrients are not going to be stopped right here anymore. It's it's going to be able to travel up and now feed my top of my trellis. So, it's going to make sure it gets everything it need. And in no time, I'll start to get some buds. So, very excited about that. So, make sure you guys prune all of your dragon fruits, clean them up, keep them nice and tidy, and you'll see fruit soon. Reason number four is your dragon fruit getting enough sun. So, dragon fruits are those plants that love full sun. And over here in this area, I have them in an area that gets sunlight throughout the whole day. There's no trees or anything blocking them, so they're getting full sun penetration. But you want to make sure you have full sun within the temperature limits that they can handle. So, if it's 95 to 100°, you want to make sure you're

15:24 providing some shade cloth, uh, canopy, or even beach umbrellas. Sometimes I have beach umbrellas and I have canopies and I will just put them over when I know a heat wave is passing through. Yes, full sun is great, but once it gets to a point where the full sun hits temperatures of 95 to 100 Fahrenheit, they start to blister and burn, and you guys don't want that. We want them to stay healthy. Um, we don't want them to get scorched cuz then they're going to go into recovery mode and then it's going to prolong your fruing cycle. So, making sure that they're nice, healthy, and protected from the scorching sun is going to really aid in more fruit production and more growth. So, after experimenting in my own home here, I've been growing these dragon fruits in full sun for about 3 years now. And some of these pots are new. They're only about a year to a year and a half. And when I

16:09 put them on full sun, they became so productive with putting out new growth and putting out more buds. So, I was getting more buds on the trelluses that I have out here. And I can show you guys an example of the they're the same variety and they just don't produce as much fruit and because they don't have full sun. I have a trellis that sits underneath a avocado tree and it only produce me about two to three fruits per year and it's I think it's a lot with doing that it doesn't have enough sun. So it can't have it doesn't have enough energy to produce me a lot of fruits. The same variety that I have out here that is growing in full sun is producing so many fruits and they're they are a lot younger. So normally the mature ones

16:54 that are three years and older should produce me fruits without any trouble if they were to get full sun. But because it was under the shade, it didn't give me the same result as the the trelluses that I would have in full sun. So let me show you guys one really good example of one that's next to shade. So here is wild berry skittles. And I actually just trimmed back all these trees here. But this lemon tree was growing over this way. My neighbor citrus tree was growing over my wall. And I don't know what this tree is, but it has some type of fruit on there, but it also was growing over there. So, a lot of a lot of shade was being placed over this trellis here. And this is my Asuna 6 and wild berry skittle trellis. I was able to get in the beginning of the year one fruit. And

17:40 I started with wild berry skittles with just one fruit. it. Look at how big it's getting. It's even starting to crack. And this is wild berry Skittles. And I've learned that Wild Berry Skittles is a variegated variety. So, the branches get yellow and green and it does a lot of twisting and turning because it has that variegation. And the fruit also has a variegated color. So, you'll see all of these crazy colors on it. Almost looks like a rainbow. And that's why I kind of named it Wild Berry Skittles. It reminds me of, you know, the taste of the rainbow. And it just looks so awesome. So, this one has cracked already. So, it's actually probably ready to harvest. I would like the skin to get a little bit more red, but it's starting to burst. So, we're going to go ahead and probably remove that later. So, this is wild berry Skittles that had shade in it. Let me show you guys the wild berry Skittles that gets full sun. Okay? And you guys going to see how much

18:26 fruits it has compared to the one that was next to the the trees. And here it is. This is my wild berry Skittles that's in full sun. You can see that it gets full sun because it variegates more. I've noticed that the more sun that wild bear skittle gets, the more it starts to variegate and it grows these crazy yellow and green branches. They don't look like they're burnt. They're nice and swollen still and they're not like flimsy or soft, meaning that it could be sunscated. And just check out how many fruits I have for this wild berry Skittles that's full sun. I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Let me go over here. 8

19:13 9 10 11. This trellis here is only a year and a half old, but because I pruned it and give it full sun, I was able to get so many fruits in such a short period of time with this trellis. And as soon here, same thing. I have the Asuna 6 in that same pot that has shade. I have one fruit on Assuna 6, but on this one this season, I have so many guys. As you can see them already here. There's a good amount. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 just up here. And I see like three or four more in the back. So having your dragon fruit in full sun is super important. It's going to determine how much fruit you're going to get, how big your yield is going to be. So make sure if you guys have an area that gets

19:59 really good sun to put it there. And if it gets too hot, make sure you provide some uh shade with shade cloth. We like to use 30 30 70 30% shade. 70%. And then we like to use beach umbrellas or canopies. And you don't keep that on forever. You just keep it up until the heat wave pass. And once the heat wave passes, you guys can remove all that and let them enjoy the full sun again. The last and final reason number five, are you fertilizing your dragon fruits? I know dragon fruits are really resilient and they grow without fertilizer, but once you guys actually add some fertilizer and feed them, you can see how much growth and how prolific they can be with just a little bit of food for them. So during the early spring, I like to use an allpurpose fertilizer, something that's balanced in NPK. So

20:46 when I say NPK, we're talking about the nitrous, phosphorus, and potassium. Those are the three main foods that plants need to grow and develop, you know, new growth and fruits and to make them sweeter and stuff like that. So, when you guys are buying fertilizer, just choose something that has a balanced NPK when you're trying to grow new branches. So, during early spring, I like to use this blend here. This is by Dr. Earth and it's called Exotic Blend. And right here is for palm, tropical, hibiscus fertilizer. And I use this to grow um you know like an all-purpose one if I wanted to grow new branches or just keep it healthy and keep it feeding so that way it has some nutrients to keep it you know lush green grow fine and when it's ready for fruing season

21:31 they're ready for it. So this one's a really good one that I use. The NPK on this one is five four and six. So five four and six here. So this NPK nitrous phosphorus and potassium. So this one is very close to being equal. So something like this is good to use all year round. But once it gets to flowering season, which is during summertime, like early summer. So during early spring, all of spring, I'll be using an all-purpose fertilizer like this one. Um, but once it gets closer to the beginning of summer, that's when fruits and flowers starts to bloom, I will change it up into this one. This one is called Dr. Earth uh Bud and Bloom Booster Flower Girl. So, this one was is really good at feeding your plants for when it starts

22:16 to fruit. So, if you guys are having dragon fruits that hasn't produced fruits yet, try adding a cup of this once a month and it will start to stimulate it to start producing buds. So, if you guys did all of those four reasons I showed you guys and you still don't have buds, last one is fertilizer. Fertilizer really stimulates them and help boost them, giving them their energy and nutrients it needs to produce buds and flowers. It takes a lot of energy from the plant to produce fruits and once you're feeding them, you're just giving them everything they need. So that way it gives them a reason to start producing fruits. So definitely fertilize your plants. I like using Dr. Earth because they're granular and it's very easy to use. You can just, you know, get grab a handful, throw it in your pot, mix it within your soil, and water it and just and it will start

23:01 feeding your plants for a month. So every month you can just go ahead and do that with this here. Dr. Ursa is a very good one. I like it cuz it's organic. It's easy to use and you can find it very easily in a lot of big box stores. So, it's great fertilizer for dragon fruit and they absolutely love it. So, if you guys have not tried stimulating bud growth with fertilizer yet, give that a try and soon you will start seeing fruits produce for you guys. If you made it this far, then you're the lucky few that's going to see the bonus tip. So, this one is just an extra one that's going to help you guys induce more buds and fruits and it's called tipping the branch. You guys hear me talking about it throughout this whole video, but I'm going to take some time to explain to you guys what that what that exactly means. And tipping the branch just means you're literally going to a branch that's still growing

23:48 horizontally, and you're going to look at the tip. And this tip here will continue to keep on growing this way, and the branch will only keep on getting longer and longer and longer. And I don't want that to happen. So, what I'm going to do is cut that tip off. And once I cut that tip off, it's going to stop the growth right here. It's going to start swelling up this branch and it's going to create the branch to start putting off new growth. It also gets plump with water because now it's not putting out any more growth this way. So, it starts to swell up and become a mature fruing branch. And once you do this at the right time, I like to do it during the summertime or sometimes even early spring to set up my branches to mature so they can start fruing. Here's another example that we'll show you guys. This one still has it growing. We call this the scion, the tip of the scion. So, what I'm going to do is go

24:35 ahead and just cut that tip of the sign off. We're going to prevent the growth from growing this way. And now, let this branch mature.