growing Dragon fruit in Thailand

[Asiantravel]

I am just curious to know if Thailand uses the same growing methods as in Vietnam where they use 400 watt halogen lamps during the night time to simulate 24-hour day sunlight.

I have never seen a night-time landscape in Thailand as I did last week north of Ho Chi Minh City where there were so many patches of high-intensity lights over the horizon that it looked like the sun was rising at 1 AM !

It must be a phenomenally expensive fruit to grow .

[sandyf]

I have seen a lot of dragon fruit being grown but never any lights involved. Here in Thailand it would appear that drainage is a bit of a concern as the ones I have seen have had a furrow between the rows of dragon fruit.

We have some in the garden but we do not get much fruit, I think a bit too dry where we are.

[Asiantravel]

13 minutes ago, sandyf said:

I have seen a lot of dragon fruit being grown but never any lights involved. Here in Thailand it would appear that drainage is a bit of a concern as the ones I have seen have had a furrow between the rows of dragon fruit.

We have some in the garden but we do not get much fruit, I think a bit too dry where we are.

it's it's interesting that you say you have never seen any  lights involved here in Thailand whereas the area I saw on the train last week (about halfway between Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang coastal city) went on for literally kilometre after kilometre and came right up to the edge of the train track which is what made me wake up at 1 AM!actually it was a spectacular and a rather surreal sight.

I might be wrong but I got the impression this method was used more for the red fruit than the white fruit because it allowed them to get a higher price.

[sandyf]

14 minutes ago, Asiantravel said:

it's it's interesting that you say you have never seen any  lights involved here in Thailand whereas the area I saw on the train last week (about halfway between Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang coastal city) went on for literally kilometre after kilometre and came right up to the edge of the train track which is what made me wake up at 1 AM!actually it was a spectacular and a rather surreal sight.

I might be wrong but I got the impression this method was used more for the red fruit than the white fruit because it allowed them to get a higher price.

I can imagine that being some sight. I have never seen any on that scale but there may be somewhere. Some that I can remember were off the main road down to Chantaburi but in hundreds of metres rather than kilometres.

When you mention red and white I take it you mean internally. We do not see a lot of the red ones around here but if I remember right they are smaller and cheaper. I do not encourage my wife to buy them as they remind me of beetroot.

[Asiantravel]

18 minutes ago, sandyf said:

I can imagine that being some sight. I have never seen any on that scale but there may be somewhere. Some that I can remember were off the main road down to Chantaburi but in hundreds of metres rather than kilometres.

When you mention red and white I take it you mean internally. We do not see a lot of the red ones around here but if I remember right they are smaller and cheaper. I do not encourage my wife to buy them as they remind me of beetroot.

ha ha yes I mean red or purple internallymaybe I got my facts wrong but I thought they said in Vietnam the red were more expensive.

Regarding the huge scale of operation one Vietnamese person was telling me that the Chinese are funding it.

[carlyai]

ha ha yes I mean red or purple internally[emoji2]maybe I got my facts wrong but I thought they said in Vietnam the red were more expensive.
Regarding the huge scale of operation one Vietnamese person was telling me that the Chinese are funding it.

Where I am the red ones are more expensive too. They have some small scale growing areas as you get into the hills around where I am. We have one growing in the back yard.

Don't like beetroot?

Seems to me, of late, that any purple or beetrooty colour fruit is very good for you. I try and keep healthy by drinking the deep red coloured wine.

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[Assurancetourix]

Here in Sakon Nakhon province; along the rd from Waritchaphum to Nikom Nam Un

[Assurancetourix]

The flower of the dragon fruit

 

[Asiantravel]

here is a picture of what it looked like from the train but imagine this going on many kilometres and way over the horizon. but the lamps I saw were much bigger much brighter

 

 

 

[tifino]

 

they want to go fruit qvik qvik qvik

all that sunlight near the tropics, and still need more light!!

 

We are down at 36 deg south, and with whatever natural light we get at this Latitude, it still results in good timely fruiting.

 

If you are interested for time-comparison purposes; I have below some extracts from a daily time lapse of our first (white) to fruit successfully:

 

Our monk tells us it tasted great!!

 

all in all - it was 17 weeks, from bud-to-table      (the natural way)  

 

 

 

 

 

[tifino]

 

they want to go fruit qvik qvik qvik

all that sunlight near the tropics, and still need more light!!

 

We are down at 37.8 deg south, and with whatever natural light we get at this Latitude, it still results in good timely fruiting.

 

If you are interested for time-comparison purposes; I have below some extracts from a daily time lapse of our first (white) to fruit successfully:

 

Our monk tells us it tasted great!!

 

all in all - it was 17 weeks, from bud-to-table      (the natural way)  

 

 

 

 

 

[sandyf]

18 hours ago, carlyai said:

Where I am the red ones are more expensive too. They have some small scale growing areas as you get into the hills around where I am. We have one growing in the back yard.

Don't like beetroot?

Seems to me, of late, that any purple or beetrooty colour fruit is very good for you. I try and keep healthy by drinking the deep red coloured wine.

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May well be the case like for like. My wife may be buying smaller ones they have trouble selling.

 

Like your last suggestion, should increase my intake.

[cobbler]

I am just curious to know if Thailand uses the same growing methods as in Vietnam where they use 400 watt halogen lamps during the night time to simulate 24-hour day sunlight.
I have never seen a night-time landscape in Thailand as I did last week north of Ho Chi Minh City where there were so many patches of high-intensity lights over the horizon that it looked like the sun was rising at 1 AM !
It must be a phenomenally expensive fruit to grow .

electricity is free in vietnam. Thats probably why

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[Asiantravel]

1 hour ago, cobbler said:

electricity is free in vietnam. Thats probably why

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I didn't know that. That's amazing!

[cobbler]

Only reason i know is because a mate of mine lived there for about 10 years.

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[CLW]

As I understand the light is just to stimulate flowering all year and what I've heard you
1.) Don't need a very powerful light source
2.) Doesn't need to run all night just enough to break the night cycle.
Yes I've seen farms in Thailand using this technique with a fluorescent light tube on each concrete post.
The reason they use powerful light and all night in Vietnam might be due to the free electricity....

[Pdaz]

Where to buy reasonable sized plants ? I'd like to put a couple in my garden. Never seen them at the Pattaya plant market or even at Jatujak.

[Ron19]

They grow very easily from cuttings and I can't recall seeing any in garden centres.

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[CLW]

If you not tried already, Google Dragon fruit + nursery in Thai language.
Usually you get some results for Thai farming forums where the nurseries advertise.

[Assurancetourix]

On 2/27/2017 at 6:36 AM, cobbler said:

electricity is free in vietnam. Thats probably why

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No, very cheap but not free

 

http://tuoitrenews.vn/society/26687/electricity-prices-in-vietnam-to-increase-by-75-percent-as-of-march-16

[Hereinthailand]

Ya know 9 years ago when I moved here dragonfruit were everywhere for sale and cheap too, trucks full on the side of the road, now its seems there are not that many and way expensive (compared to then). I fear with all the new bridges and roads going to china via lao the thais are in for expensive fruit and vegetables in the future due to the chinese having much more money to spend on food.