Video Guides

Hello dragon fruit enthusiasts! This is Jay, with Hybridizing Dragon Fruit, where we teach YOU how to make your very own dragon fruit varieties! Today’s tip of the day is about: Creating with Intent. I would like to share some thoughts and tips that will help GUIDE you, in YOUR journey to create your very own dragon fruit hybrids. There is quite a bit to go over, so let’s begin…

Planning should be the VERY first step when you decide to develop a brand-new hybrid! Simply crossing together two RANDOM dragon fruit cultivars is certainly NOT the best way to go about creating a brand-new hybrid. Because the goal is and should always be to create a hybrid that is SUPERIOR to its parentage.

For instance, let’s say your favorite tasting cultivar produces a very small fruit. You may want to consider crossing it with a variety that produces much larger fruit. With that in mind, your new goal should be: to look for a seedling that has the fruit TASTE of its mother, but has the fruit SIZE of its father.

However, it’s not as straightforward and easy as just growing a single seedling and getting the result you want on the first try. The mother plant, the one that is ACCEPTING pollen, will make up ROUGHLY 60% of the genetic material in your crossing, with the father contributing somewhere around 40% of the genetics. Keep in mind though, this does NOT account for both DOMINANT and RECESSIVE genes, which can throw off that balance QUITE a bit.

For example: Ocamponis genes tend to be very dominant, just like Costaricensis and Guatemalensis genes to name a few. And, while it's true that you normally will get more genes from the mother than the father, if any of these were the father, it would still seem as if it were getting more genetic material due to those dominant genes that tend to express themselves pretty frequently. For instance, even with Ocamponis as the father, the brachs on the fruit of your hybrid will almost always have that Ocamponis look to some degree.

Now, the genes donated from each parent plant will be expressed differently in each and every seedling. So, in order to get the result you are looking for, ideally you want to grow out as MANY seedlings as possible! Allowing each one to grow out until producing a single fruit, which then can be initially evaluated. Now it can take years for the fruit to truly mature, but at this stage, the first will be sufficient  to decide the next course of action. Seedlings that fall outside of our acceptable range can be cut down at this stage, and those that pass, can move on for further evaluation of traits.

And on that note it’s time to discuss traits. Traits… are… EVERYTHING! A SINGLE bad trait can ruin many MONTHS or even… YEARS of progress. Let’s say FOR instance: you have a favorite dragon fruit cultivar that you want to use as your mother plant. You have grown it for some time now, have gotten to know its growth habits, its fruiting cycles, and it’s a dragon you VERY much enjoy.

Now one day, you decide to cross it with another cultivar that has a REALLY incredible looking fruit or flower, whatever the case may be. So, you head to your local nursery, or online retailer, and pick up a cutting and grow it out until the day, it FINALLY flowers. How ABSOLUTELY exciting! You collect your pollen, and  then subsequently cross pollinate your favorite dragon with this new pollen. After a few days that fruit takes, and the excitement builds, as you think about all the INCREDIBLE possibilities…

HOWEVER, in your HASTE to pick out the traits you wanted to ADD to your favorite dragon when making your choice, you were not aware of some of the BAD traits that many cultivars HAVE that few people talk about. ESPECIALLY many of the sellers that distribute them.

So, in this PARTICULAR case, the father plant you chose had a trait that makes the plant less hardy and extremely susceptible to both heat and cold. And while this gene is expressed in the father plant and will display these symptoms, incidentally, the mother plant actually carries this gene as well, only it was recessive so you may not have known about it in the FIRST place unless you understood its parentage.

What ends up happening, is: Since both parents carry this gene, the likelihood of the resulting seedlings actually EXPRESSING this gene would be VERY high. Which would be INCREDIBLY devastating to find out some MONTHS, or even YEARS later after having grown out, or even worse… having distributed it out to other people.

Remember, not only should you be thinking about the wonderful traits you are trying to EXPRESS in your hybrids, but the ones you want to AVOID, as well, because a dragon that not only has nice fruit, but is also RESILIENT, is what we ALL strive for…

If you would like to learn more about creating your own dragonfruit hybrids, please give us a thumbs up, a subscribe, and be sure to join our Facebook group @Facebook/groups/HybridizingDragonFruit.

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Hello dragon fruit enthusiasts! This is Jay with Hybridizing Dragon Fruit, where we teach YOU how to make your very own dragon fruit varieties! Today's tip of the day is about canopy grafting. This is a concept that isn't nearly as widely known as I had originally thought, and I know this is a method that will help you immensely in getting your dragons to flower and record time! So, what is canopy grafting? Let me explain in greater detail...

Most people learn to graft in the traditional way, using a mature root stock of a variety that grows well in your climate, and is roughly around 12 in or so in length. This is a fairly ideal situation for grafting a mature scion and will even work with seedlings as well. But if you do plan on grafting your seedling hybrid, there's a much better way!

What you want to do is wait until your root stock puts out a new growth about a few inches long, like this right here! Then you're going to want to cut that in half. Now this is where you should graft your seeding instead, because the new growth from your mature root stock has young cells just like the ones in your seedling, the graft will heal even faster and provide the best connection, so your graft has has the best chance possible!

Now, even though each variety will vary in how long it takes to flower for the first time, generally speaking, a graft such as the ones we just discussed will take anywhere from a year, to two years, to produce its first flower and fruit. THIS is where canopy grafting really shines, as it can cut down your flowering time down, from a couple of years, to as fast as a few months!

Here's how it works: Why settle for a tiny little root system for your mature scion or hybrid when we can use the incredible MIGHT of a full grown dragon! That's right, go big or go home! We are going to graft to the canopy of a well-established dragon. Your graft will not know the difference and think it's full grown as well! 

Here's how it works: If you are grafting a mature scion to your canopy, you will want to select a branch from your canopy that is similar in thickness and in maturity. This will make for a solid connection when it comes time to tape it down tightly.

If you're grafting a seedling, however, you will want to select branches that are fairly young. As we talked about earlier, young tissue grafts best, to young tissue. Just as mature tissue, grafts best to that.

Once you find a suitable branch that is close to the crown of your canopy, and is the right size and maturity. You will want to cut the end with a sterilized knife, and apply your graft here! Use twice as much tape as you would use in an indoor grafting situation. You want to make sure the connection is as tight as possible to ensure a mechanically strong connection after healing. After doing so, I recommend tying a dark colored shopping bag over the top of the graft, to protect it from both the sun ,and from drying out.

The reason this actually works so well, is you're essentially exploiting what dragon fruit naturally do in the first place... grow until it finds light... hang... and then finally fruit. In that order! Your graft once fully healed, cannot distinguish itself from the rest of the full-size dragon. It becomes ONE! It has full access to the roots, the nutrients, and even the structure it needs to fruit... an already hanging branch!

Canopy grafting can cut your flowering time down, from a couple of years, to just a few months! And when you are creating and evaluating hybrids, especially with limited space, this is a game changer! So next time you have a cutting laying around that is now five feet tall, and you don't know what to do with it. Don't throw it away! Canopy graft right to the top of it, and shortcut your way to some quick fruit!

If you'd like to learn more about creating your own dragon fruit hybrids, please give us a thumbs up, a subscribe, and be sure to join our Facebook group @ Facebook/groups/HybridizingDragonFruit

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Hello dragon fruit enthusiasts! This is Jay, with Hybridizing Dragon Fruit, where we teach you how to make your very own dragon fruit varieties! Today’s tip of the day is about: Fast Growing Seedlings. I would like to share some tips that will have your seedlings growing at potentially MULTIPLE times the rate, so you can get to flowers and fruit in record time! There is quite a lot to go over, so let’s get started!

Let’s start at the beginning! Take your seeds, and soak them for 24 hours. But don’t use plain water. Add a few sprays of hydrogen peroxide to the water. I tend to only use a spray or two as that seems to be enough. You see, hydrogen peroxide is wonderful at rejuvenating old seeds and increasing the germination rate pretty substantially. It gives you the best seed start possible, so don’t skip this step!

After a day has passed. Take your solution of water and seeds and, as evenly as possible, pour it over your pre-prepared soil like this. Gently sprinkle a very light layer of soil on top, just enough to cover them up. At this point, I like to put them in a drip tray so I can bottom water them, which makes them incredibly easy to maintain. Just throw some water in the tray when the seedlings dry out, and you forget about them for a week or two.

Now, nothing makes me more sad than when I see growers posting pictures of their one-year-old seedlings that look similar to this right here. There is a much better way…

See these seedlings here? They are the SAME age as those tiny ones you just saw… And that leads me to a HUGE tip that will help your seedlings grow at literally multiple times the rate! Put them under a full-spectrum LED grow light and keep it about a few inches above the seedlings… Here is the kicker: you are going to leave the light on… 24-7… without ever turning it off. You heard me right! Zero rest period! You are going to trick these seedlings into thinking it’s perpetually spring! This will have your seedlings furiously growing around the clock, as long as you can keep them warm and moist. The amount of growth you get from doing this is absolutely INCREDIBLE!

Now you are truly off to a fantastic start. If you have been following our steps so far, your seedlings should have sprouted incredibly fast and with a HIGH germination rate. Keeping those seedlings under a capable LED will have them multiple times LARGER as well, which makes them a LOT easier to graft. Grafting by taping down the cotyledon’s is best when they are small, but I prefer to tip graft them when they are a little larger…

As we discussed in a previous video, grafting young tissue to young tissue will give you the best chance possible for a quick healing and solid connection. So, make sure you graft to new growth on your mature rootstock whenever possible, because it’s worth the extra effort. And speaking of extra effort, I have another tip that will have your seedlings growing multiple times faster!

And that is thumbing off undergrowth! This is one of the biggest things slowing down the growth of your seedlings. Countless times in groups and posts, I see people telling others to let nature decide and leave the growths. This is some of the WORST advice you could listen to. Nature is wonderful at adapting to all kinds of situations, but it’s human ingenuity that truly realizes a plant’s potential.

Each one of those branches is dividing your seedlings’ energy, and slowing down its growth. Think of your seedling as if it were a garden hose. With each split in the hose, the water pressure drops. The water rushes through exponentially less vigorously the more outlets there are. That’s why you want one single growth tip. This will have your seedling growing the fastest when doing a traditional graft. Now just to be clear, if you are doing a canopy graft, you can allow at least 3 branches to hang down, but any more than that and you will just be stunting the growth rates.

It’s the exact same thing as thumbing the undergrowth off an adult dragon, only you have to be a little more delicate. This will very drastically affect the growth rate of your seedlings. When all of its energy is focused, it will mature much faster, and you will get flowers and fruit faster as a result.

And on to our last and final way to completely optimize the growth of your seedling hybrids…. And that is to fertilize with an organic fertilizer containing lots of nitrogen during the maturing stage of your seedlings’ growth. Your seedling will grow at multiple times the rate if you give it an infusion of nitrogen to send it growing into overdrive. This is exactly what we want for now, until your seedling gets to the point that it is growing actual mature branches with adult spines. It’s at this point you need to change your strategy.

Once the emergence of a mature branch has taken place, it’s time to let that baby hang! This is a huge step in the development of your hybrid, and now we can prepare to force a bloom. Now that you have a mature branch hanging down, you need to stop giving it nitrogen altogether so it stops being in vegetative growth.

This is the time to introduce a bloom boosting fertilizer such as: Flora Nova Bloom, or you can take the organic route and choose something like Dr Earth Flower Girl Bloom Booster. Adding lots of phosphorus and potassium to the soil will shift the plant from its state of vegetative growth, and force it into a blooming state early, if it’s capable…

If you would like to learn more about creating your own dragonfruit hybrids, please give us a thumbs up, a subscribe, and be sure to join our Facebook group @Facebook/groups/HybridizingDragonFruit.

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Hello dragon fruit enthusiasts! This is Jay, with Hybridizing Dragon Fruit, where we teach YOU how to make your very own dragon fruit varieties! Today’s tip of the day is about: Tip Grafting. This video was a request from one of our members at HDF, in which I am going to share with you, my favorite way to graft my hybrids. Let’s begin…

Let’s start by getting everything we need together. This is surgical tape. It’s clear, has micro holes, and generally sticks just right. It’s my favorite to use by far. You also want to be sure to have some alcohol or hydrogen peroxide on hand so you can sterilize your blade before making any cuts.

Now, normally I would like to do a graft with a new growth, but unfortunately I broke off one of my recent grafts, and have to reattach it. So, I'm going to show you how to do that right now. You're going to want to take your sterilized knife and make a nice even cut right near the tip like that.

Make sure it's nice and flat, there we go. And here is the graft that broke. I get a nice flat cut right there and before I even start, lets get some tape ready. I like to use surgical tape. Going to put two on just from the start just enough to get this in place.

All right and line that up for now. We're just going to line it up making sure that's approximately in the center. Make sure that's on there nice, just like that. It does NOT have to be dead center, just so you know. Once you've got it anchored on there, what you're going to want to do now is start making sure it's down really tight!

Whenever you're doing a graft like this you have to make sure it's extremely tight! That's what's going to ensure that the graft takes a nice tight connection ensures a nice mechanical, err, mechanically strong connection later on. There we go. Nice and snug! Now often times, what happens with this tape is; it likes to peel off after a little while. So, you're going to want to put some across too, to kind of hold that on there...

Now, the nature of this surgical tape is that it does peel off it's one of the reasons I like it. It holds just long enough for the graft to take, then it starts to peel off, so it's not a danger to you when trying to remove it. You don't have to worry about yanking your graft off, as well. All right, I'm going to give that a go with one more strip across just to make sure that doesn't come undone. All right, nice and snug! And there you go!

Lets get it right here... and we're just gonna, yank, yank, yank, yank, YIP them, right there. This is a tip graft.

All right, well what I have here, is a two-sided growth. It's not exactly ideal for this type of thing but on short notice it will do. The important thing is, we cut it nice and level here. Like that. So we can provide a nice flat surface for the graft to attach to. Here we go, we're going to make sure our tip graft here, is nice and level, as well. We're just going to take this guy here and apply a little bit of tape, so we can get it initially placed.

Oh boy... behave. There we go. Oh, and I yanked that right off... that's okay. Put you right on there... yes I got butter fingers, this is not easy to do on camera! Haha. All right, that is actually looking fairly good!

So, here is what you'll do if your seedling is very small. Too small to tape down. First, we're going to cut our root stock. Alright, get a nice clean cut, and then we're going to do the same with our seedling. Nice clean cut here and the surface tension from putting these two together will hold it in place.

What you want to do is; you want to get this generally over the center like that. Nice fresh cut like this, and to push down on it. Make sure that's nice and aligned and you're going to leave it just like that…

Put it on a shelf, put it somewhere nearby, where it's not going to get disturbed in any way. And as long as it's indoors, like I'm doing here, you don't even need to throw a bag on it! You can leave it just like that, and it will take! It's one of the simplest ways to do a graft... one of my favorites too!

Hello dragon fruit enthusiasts! This is Jay, with Hybridizing Dragon Fruit, where we teach YOU how to make your very own dragon fruit varieties! Some of our members here at HDF were curious if removing the nodes off of your cutting, really has that much of an effect on the growth rate. So, today’s tip of the day is all about: focusing your cutting.  Let’s get started…

Your dragon responds to every stimulus with a chemical response. From temperature swings and thinning buds to damaged limbs and more, your dragon is sending hormones throughout, to ensure its survival.

For instance: when the weather is warm and favorable, your dragon will start to throw branches from multiple areols at once. Because the conditions are just right, the plant sends chemical signals to multiple node sites that make them form branches. This way the plant can take advantage of as much of the available resources as possible while they are plentiful.

Nature is wonderful at adapting to all kinds of situations to ensure survival… but it’s only through human ingenuity that a plants true potential can be realized. Knowing what we do about the way our dragons respond to stimulus, means we can actually control the behavior of the dragon to suit our needs.

Let us start with branching in general. Days before you see any evidence at all, your plant is focusing its hormones towards the nodes it intends to activate. Then, soon after, is when the swelling of the node begins. This is the tell tail sign that you are about to see a bud or branch forming at this site within a few more days. Finally, you will see a crowning, as the spikes are pushed aside to make room for the forming bud or branch.

Now, both the energy and hormones used to do this across multiple nodes, may not SEEM like much of a burden. But, it’s actually having quite a bit more of an impact than you may think. And this is even more-so the case the larger, and more node filled, the cutting happens to be.

Your cutting has to spread that hormone across multiple different nodes, leading to there being a lower concentration of that hormone present at each individual site overall. That lower concentration also happens to mean, far less vigorous growth. As does having to split the plants energy, trying to generate tissue at multiple sites simultaneously.

Even if you are diligent like myself, when doing your daily rounds and thumbing off undergrowth. You are still missing out on quite an immense amount of vigor, that you can actually FOCUS to your advantage! This is where that human ingenuity comes into play…

By removing the nodes from your cutting, you FORCE the plant to concentrate all of its growth hormones to a single site. Avoiding days of signaling and response at the wrong sites, and ultimately stunting potential growth. This makes an incredible impact on the amount vigor your seedling or scion will grow with. By focusing your cutting, it becomes like a tuned engine channeling constant power at 100% throttle! The larger the cutting you do this with, the greater of an impact this will make as well.

This is a clip I used to demonstrate just how much of an impact this can have by comparing the growth rate of a dragon on its natural roots, versus the very same dragon, being grafted to a focused cutting:

Here is an Ax that I received... last summer. This guy right here. Now from this little piece down here... I'd say right about, here. There is a piece that I cut off. Now that little piece that I cut off, I grafted to a larger piece, and I cut out those nodes. And here is that piece right there. That tiny little guy right there, that I cut off the end of that same ax you saw over there.

Now here's the root stock I put it on. It's a nice big fat Halley's Comet that grows like crazy in my climate! Now watch this. This was grafted AFTER I put the other one into that pot, and just look at the growth on this guy now! Remember, they are the same age! This is what you can do with a properly focused cutting!

As you can clearly see, focusing your cutting by removing all the nodes can and WILL make your seedling or scion grow as fast as possible! So, whenever you plan your next graft. Pick a large, thick, mature cutting that grows fast in your climate, and remove all of the nodes. It’s like strapping a rocket to your dragon and watching it fly off into the distance…

If you would like to learn more about creating your own dragonfruit hybrids, please give us a thumbs up, a subscribe, and be sure to join our Facebook group @Facebook/groups forward slash HybridizingDragonFruit.

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Hello dragon fruit enthusiasts! This is Jay, with Hybridizing Dragon Fruit, where we teach YOU how to make your very own dragon fruit varieties! Today’s tip of the day is about: DeGrafting! But, what is DeGrafting? And why is it so incredibly important? Well let me explain…

While grafting your seedling to a vigorous rootstock is an essential step in creating your new hybrid. It is important to remember that doing so is only a temporary solution to help your seedling to fruit as fast as possible. This is not meant to be permanent, though. At a certain point, in order to properly evaluate your hybrid, it must be separated from its host and allowed to form its own natural rootball.

...But why is that?… Well, when you graft to a rootstock, you get certain benefits from that rootstock. Such as weather resistance, disease & pest resistance, and even increased growth rates. For instance:

In the “Focusing Your Cutting” video we did here at HDF, I showcased an Ax that had been grafted, versus an Ax on its own natural roots. The difference… was absolutely staggering! One of the reasons the grafted version shot past the other in growth so dramatically, was not only the vigor of Halley’s Comet, but its wonderful cold resistance as well…

You see, both cuttings were started late summer, and established by fall. Ax grows very slowly and practically hibernates when the temperatures start to drop. However, Halley’s Comet does not care one bit, and continues to grow vigorously throughout the winter.

Because my Ax was grafted to Halley’s, it grew throughout the winter while the other Ax sat quietly, waiting for things to warm up… By spring, the difference in growth was enough to shoot a video over, and makes for a good example of how useful your choice of rootstock can be. It also shows just how much of an influence it can have on your plant’s traits, and how it can muddy the waters when it comes to evaluating your hybrid.

This is why at a certain point during the evaluation process, degrafting your hybrid is absolutely recommended! Only then can you see how your hybrid truly reacts to its environment on its own natural roots, being powered by its own innate engine so to speak. This is how you kick those tires and see what your plant is truly capable of.

Now, some growers like to degraft shortly into the dragon’s lifespan for an immediate evaluation. There are also those that choose to degraft after a first fruiting. Either practice is absolutely viable. However, for my circumstances, I prefer to degraft after a first fruiting. As I am evaluating many hybrids at once, this is a great way to weed them out early and make space for dragons with superior genetics.

Once degrafted, you should allow for no less than at least an entire season to pass, for a better idea of how your hybrid will react to weather conditions throughout the year. This will also give your new hybrid a chance to further mature. As the seasons go by, the fruit may and often times do change in size and flavor complexity. Some get better with age… though some do not, haha. But, this is why we are spending so much time evaluating in the first place!

If your goal is to create the best hybrids possible, it’s important to take the time to properly evaluate it on its own natural roots… in all its true glory… And degrafting is an absolutely necessary step to make that possible!

If you would like to learn more about creating your own dragonfruit hybrids, please give us a thumbs up, a subscribe, and be sure to join our Facebook group @Facebook/groups/HybridizingDragonFruit.

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Hello dragon fruit enthusiasts! This is Jay, with Hybridizing Dragon Fruit, where we teach YOU how to make your very own dragon fruit varieties! Today’s tip of the day is about: how to cross pollinate a flower that is already self pollinating! But, how do you do it without contamination? Well let me explain…

So you have a dragon that is self pollinating and would like to create a hybrid from it by cross pollinating. But how? As soon as the flower opens up you risk contamination from the mother plant, right? Well there is a very easy way to do this, but it’s going to hurt you, more than the plant…

On the day a flower is to open, it will swell up and you see a hint of petals peeking through. It’s at this point that the flower is actually mature and receptive. However, the pollen sacs on the ends of the anthers are still closed tight. This is the time for action!

(For the purposes of this video, I used a flower I had collected pollen from. As it’s the beginning of the season I need all I can get. However, the demonstration holds true)

Okay now, take a deep breath and be brave. It’s time to break out the scissors, and start butchering this beautiful flower. Start by cutting away the outer petals, making sure not to damage the stamen.

Try to find it with your fingers as you cut away the petals and uncover the anthers. Bend them away from the stamen and cut them all away, until you are left with the base of the flower with just the stamen poking out.

Tease the stigma open gently with the end of your brush, as you don’t want to get the oil from your fingers on there. Apply your foreign pollen generously, then place a solo cup over the end to protect the newly pollinated stigma. Wrap a plastic shopping bag over top of the cup and secure it at the base snugly, with garden tape or velcro so nothing can get in or out. You can remove the bag and cup the next day.

It’s pretty unnerving the first time you do it. But it gets easier with each successful pollination. Remember, practice makes perfect, and the more you do it the better you will get!

If you would like to learn more about creating your own dragonfruit hybrids, please give us a thumbs up, a subscribe, and be sure to join our Facebook group @Facebook/groups/HybridizingDragonFruit.

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Hello dragon fruit enthusiasts! This is Jay, with Hybridizing Dragon Fruit, where we teach YOU how to make your very own dragon fruit varieties!

Today’s video is a very special one! We are going to go over some incredibly important principles, that are absolutely essential to growing the kind of quality dragons that will stand the test of time, and will one day, end up in everyone’s back yard.

Ever wonder why Paul Thompson’s hybrids are so incredibly good? Well, we are going to go over some of the very same concepts he used when creating his hybrids. In addition to some new innovative insights that will help you to more reliably transfer your desired traits by stacking the deck, to grow the very best seedlings possible!

We are going to talk, in detail, about: choosing the ideal parents, large sample sizes, trait expression, and much much more, to ensure a crop of seedlings that will produce your next game changing hybrid! This is the kind of hybridizing instruction you can ONLY find here at HDF! And with that… let’s get started!

In Section 1, we are going to talk about parent selection, traits, and phenotype, in the planning phase of hybridizing dragon fruit.

When it comes down to creating a high quality dragon, the gold standard you are striving for, is a hybrid with traits superior to its parent plants. You want to combine the best traits of both parents to achieve a form of what is called “Heterosis,” or more commonly, “Hybrid Vigor.”

Dragon fruit parents are not “pure lines”. Like corn, they are complex genetic mixes. This means that even in the (F1) also known as the first generation you can achieve hybrid vigor. While hybrid vigor can produce plants stronger than their parents, by crossing two genetically different plants, it’s not guaranteed and is actually a rare occurrence! Breeding is a numbers game, and the more times you roll those dice, the better your chances of finding a superior plant will be.

A second generation, or (F2) crossing of two hybrid plants, exhibits the most genetic variation. This is often desirable for breeders because it unlocks traits hidden in the (F1). Recessive traits (which can be positive OR negative), will appear more often in the (F2) at around 25% for a single gene. So, what does this tell us about choosing parent plants? Well based on what we just learned, it sounds as if the (F2) sounds like the sweet spot. However, the reality is… what’s actually more important, is that we should choose parents based on their phenotype (how they look, perform, taste, etc.) regardless of whether they are (F1) or (F2). You see, a phenotype is the actual expression of a trait, as a result of the plants genetics interacting with environmental factors, such as temperature, light intensity, etc.

Now, every time a seed is formed, its genetic outcome will be different than the next. Each one is completely unique. In every fruit  you harvest, the dice is rolled once for each individual seed that reaches maturity. Giving you potentially hundreds or even thousands of recombined genetics to discover! Remember, the more dice rolls you have, the better your chances for a successful outcome. This concept is of vital importance, and will directly dictate your level of success (along with a bit of luck!). So, if you are growing out just 2 or 3 seedlings from unknown or highly inbred parents and hoping to get a quality dragon… well, this is NOT going to be a very realistic outcome to expect. I’m sorry to say…

This is one of the big reasons there are a flood of varieties with exciting and sometimes misleading names available, that are rather lack luster in overall quality; due to slow growth, production, hardiness, etc. It’s the result of a lack of knowledge when it comes to actual hybridizing. And that is something we here at HDF are very passionate about changing, as we teach more and more people how to use genetics like a wonderful paint brush on the world ’s most beautiful canvas… But I digress.

In section 2 we are going to talk about trait expression, large sample sizes, and the nuances of flavor, in the execution phase of hybridizing dragon fruit.

In this section we are going to share some of our results with you to better illustrate, quite beautifully, what is possible with proper planning and a bit of luck! I am going to teach you how to have better control over the traits transferred in your hybrid creations, and give you a clear idea of what you need to do to be more successful!

For our first round of hybrids we choose two varieties that rivaled each other in a few desirable traits that we wanted in our finished hybrid. Such as: a rapid growth rate, incredible hardiness, great flavor notes, and fruit production. While having just a few different traits, such as: fruit size, and opposing resistances, that we will attempt to transfer through breeding, using some advanced techniques.

For example. Both parents chosen are rapid growing and incredibly hardy! One more against heat, the other more against cold, and neither are particularly weak to the opposing element. Now, barring the negative recessive outcomes, our chances of achieving a hybrid that is strong against one of those elements should be incredibly high! This is a sound breeding strategy often called stacked traits.

If both parents already possess high vigor or resilience, the “FLOOR” for the seedlings is HIGHER! Remember, you aren't trying to "fix" a weak plant, you are refining a strong one. And while the chances of getting both traits is absolutely possible, it will not happen nearly as often. However, this is still a pretty favorable situation though, genetically speaking. Better setting us up for success!

Now let’s talk about the fun part, the traits themselves and how to better transfer them, by stacking the deck successfully. Here at HDF headquarters we have developed a variety of dragonfruit we call “Peachy Keen” that is primarily peach flavored. Pretty cool right? Ever had a dragonfruit that tasted like peaches? Me either! Would you like to know how did we did it? Well, the answer is: large sample size growing!

One of the parents we chose is a rare species that has fruit with many flavor notes, like many dragonfruit that have some complexity to them. Those flavor notes are different in each fruit, and vary in strength. The combination of those notes, and the weight each one carries determines how your fruit tastes, from a genetic standpoint (as other environmental factors can also greatly affect flavor).

One of the flavor notes in the mother plant’s fruit has a nice peachy aftertaste. In order for us to get this flavor note as a prominent  flavor instead of a more background flavor was the result of sheer brute force (and a bit of luck!).

Because flavor is so complex, most seedlings will taste "muddy" or average at best. It takes a very large population to find that one specific seedling where the genetic "volume sliders" for those aromatic compounds hit the exact levels to mimic a peach. This is a great real-world example of whats called transgressive segregation (where offspring have a trait more extreme than either parent).

We grew out 30 hybrids to full flowering maturity. That means we had 30 different recombinations of the available flavor notes in varying levels of intensity (essentially, flavor profiles). Out of 30 mature plants only two had an increase in the amount of peach flavor intensity. With the first hybrid expressing this flavor somewhere in the middle ground, and the latter one, having that peach flavor as a primary flavor note!

And the final topic I would like to talk about is Brix readings, and  how they actually relate to the flavor of your fruit. Brix is a metric that has been grossly overemphasized in the advertising and perceived worth of a particular cultivar. While a high reading will indicate an increased sugar content, which can be good. It says less than you think about a cultivar in most cases, and more likely about its care or harvesting method. Now don’t get me wrong, you are not likely to ever find a dragonfruit that tastes pleasant at a 12% Brix reading. It has merit, as It does affect flavor, but in ways you may not expect…

Any experienced grower can tell you, they have had a fruit with a low brix score (lets say 15 or 16) that either tasted incredibly good, or even tasted as if the sugar content was much higher than what the reading should indicate. And the same thing, vice versa. That is because there are so many incredibly complex factors that go into how your fruit actually tastes. Such as:  a complex blend of aromatics that make up its flavor notes and profile, the amount of nutrition the plant has received, the amount, and intensity of sunlight, and very importantly… the timing of when the fruit is actually picked.

Waiting until your fruit has brown brachs and is cracking (due to ripeness, not overwatering) is commonly advised in the dragon fruit community. Extreme ripeness or even overripeness will produce fruit with superior brix levels, making them noticeably sweeter. However, this comes at a cost that many growers are not aware of. Substantially less flavor complexity. As more sugars are created the fruit often times starts to lose quite a bit of its acidity and complexity that often times leaves the fruit very one dimensional in flavor, even if pleasing. 

However, had you picked that fruit just a couple days after the fruit had turned color (for a surprising amount of varieties) your fruit will have a more balanced combination of sugars and acids that lead to an often much more complex flavor that is even better than you had expected or experienced before. So make sure you harvest your fruit at multiple points during its fruiting cycle to determine where the profile is at its peak, and record that timing for future reference. This is often different from variety to variety, trial an error will be your best guide here. So, don’t be dazzled by high Brix numbers alone as they don’t always end up tasting the best in the end. Flavor is a far too complex of an experience to be summed up in a single number.

With all of this new found knowledge let’s start stacking the deck together. Don't just cross two plants because they have impressive sounding names. Make sure you are using the best possible parents to ensure a much more favorable outcome! Use the HDF Worksheet to see where they complement each other, and take full advantage, to help you pick the optimal parents!

(you will find the link to the FREE download, in the description below)

Be mindful of known undesirable traits as well during the planning phase, so that offending parents can be avoided at best, and the bad trait is tracked if parent selection is… unavoidable. Think really carefully! Especially about important factors such as flavor, growth rates, productivity, and resilience. Try to choose cultivars that display the stacked traits you specifically desire, to better ensure it transfers over to the next generation. For example: If Parent A has a 9/10 growth rate but a 5/10 for cold hardiness, you want to choose a Parent B that is much higher like  an 8/10 or better for cold hardiness, and a similar 9/10 growth rate, to stack the deck in your favor! Writing all of this down will be an absolutely invaluable tool to help you choose the best parents possible, to achieve your ideal hybrid creation. So, be sure to use our HDF Hybridizing worksheet! 

And last but certainly not least: having seasons of experience with the plants you wish to hybridize is absolutely the one of the BEST ways period, to make an informed decision, and have a better understanding of how the offspring of your union, are likely to develop. There are many insights you will develop through observing your plant’s phenotype. Witnessing how it reacts to a myriad of environmental factors spanning multiple seasons. This is how the best hybrids are made! With an understanding of what you are working with, in the first place…

If you would like to learn more about creating your own dragonfruit hybrids, please give us a thumbs up, a subscribe, and be sure to join our Facebook group @Facebook.com/groups/HybridizingDragonFruit. And if you want to learn more about our very own HDF exclusive hybrids, be sure to check out HybridizingDragonFruit.com!

Grow something… AMAZING!

Hello dragon fruit enthusiasts! This is Jay, with Hybridizing Dragon Fruit, where we teach YOU how to make your very own dragon fruit varieties! Today’s video is one of THE most important steps you need to take before sharing your creations. We are going to talk about: Evaluating your hybrids! And by the END of this video you are going to know all the tricks of the trade to ensure your varieties come out, absolutely… AMAZING!

In order to ensure you are creating only the highest quality hybrids, your potential variety must pass a number of rigorous tests before it’s ready to be distributed to growers everywhere. So, when is the right time to start evaluating your new hybrids? Well you want to, right from the start, when your seedlings are only a couple months old. Now is going to be the best time to sprout as many as you can, as it will take the least amount of space when they are this size. What you are looking for at this stage, are outliers that display unique qualities.

But before we begin, it’s important to remember that in order to properly evaluate your seedlings, the growth conditions have to be identical. That means that some of the seedlings in your setup cannot get more light than others, be at different temperatures, or receive more or less water or nutrients. Differences in any of these factors will skew the results too much to make any reliable observations about phenotype (the expression of a trait).

Identify those that seem to grow the fastest. These will be the priority when at the seedling stage. Those that display incredible vigor should be tested to see if this is sustained vigor (the gold standard) or simply temporary vigor. If you grow out enough seedlings, you might even get lucky and find one with a meaningful expression of ‘hybrid vigor’, which tends to be a rare occurrence.

While seedlings often times present larger due to variance in growth rates from slow to superior, those with extreme ‘hybrid vigor’ can be noticeably larger than their siblings. Because this expression is such a rare occurrence among seedlings this is more of an icing on the cake situation, rather than something you make a growing requirement. As this is not guaranteed to happen in even extreme sample sizes, nor does it guarantee better flavor! So keep that in mind.

Other genetic variances should absolutely be explored as well. For example: you might have a few hundred seedlings growing and a few of them have different colored tips than the rest. Or perhaps, the branch shape is noticeably different or unique in some way to what is commonly seen in this batch of seedlings. These are all examples of genetic variance, from recessive genes and possible mutations, which may or may not lead to something worthwhile down the road. Some would argue that this is one of the most crucial steps in the hybridizing process. So keep your eyes peeled, and record notes on your seedlings of interest, for when it comes time to start grafting.

The next stage of evaluation happens as soon as the graft takes place. Watch closely and record not only the day of each graft you make, but take a picture of it as well. This will come in handy in a few weeks time. In the next few days following your graft, be sure to check in on your scions daily and note the quality of the graft. Those grafts done from young flesh to young flesh are always going to heal faster under the proper conditions, and thereby start growing faster than those done to mature flesh. Noting such things will help you to notice trends in the growth rates of your new batch of freshly grafted hybrids despite the grafting styles that may vary the more grafts you complete. Once the grafts have fully healed they can be acclimated to the sun slowly over the course of a week or two and then placed in their new home.

This is the point where the very first critical evaluations will take place. Failures will be identified and culled to make room for dragons with superior genetics, during the growth phase of your new hybrid. Which can take anywhere from a few months to over a year depending on your parents and climate. It’s during this critical time that you need to be observing each seedlings phenotype very closely.

Those that show defects such as: slow or stunted growth, abnormal branch development, constant disease, etc, need to be destroyed right from the get-go. Only the strong may survive if you are to realize your dream of creating high quality dragon fruit varieties! You spend quite a lot of time nurturing these new lives you have created, and inevitably become attached. So, it may seem cold hearted to just cut them down, but this is an important part of hybridizing and has to be done. It does get easier with time, I promise you…

Once the growth phase has ended and your remaining hybrids have starting producing mature branches, the flowering and fruiting stage of evaluation is at hand. This is by far the most exciting time of growing your own hybrids. The anticipation is absolutely incredible! Upon budding you get your first real insight into what you are growing. Especially so, if your parents have very different looking fruit. You will see almost a sliding scale of how much it looks like either parent and may foreshadow characteristics favoring either parent. The only way to find out is to see it through to its conclusion!

And with that said, this is a great time to get out your notes again and start recording the dates that your buds first appeared. I like to take pictures of the developing buds and subsequent flowers for reference and comparison. You want to also note and picture the flowers opening, noting the time of day it began. A few other very important observations you want to make are: the number of flowers produced, the stamen length, the thickness of both the stamen and stigma, the flower size, and the amount of pollen produced.

If you are growing a stenopterus hybrid, hoping to get a particular flower color or shape, now will be the time to decide if your hybrid passes or is cut down depending on your desired result. If you have multiple flowers on your hybrid it’s also recommended that you cross pollinate at least one to test the fruit, and if you have another flower to spare, this is a wonderful time to test for self fertility and save some valuable time later (be sure to emasculate the flower as shown in our video “crossing, self pollinating”). After you have successfully self pollinated your first flower, cross pollinate your remaining flowers with a dragon preferably from another species altogether (such as a: Setaceus, Polyrhizus, etc) to ensure the best chances of a successful pollination. Now, the waiting game begins…

Once your developing fruit blushes (turns color) that signals that your fruit is nearly ready. It’s time to get out your notes once again, as it’s nearly time to evaluate your very first round of fruit! If you are lucky enough to have multiple fruit fully developed it’s highly recommended that you pick each one at a different progressive date to determine when the fruit is at its peak flavor, as this will vary from variety to variety. This is a huge win for your hybrid if it can to do this in its first flush, though if it does not, it’s nothing to worry about at this point. Many dragons make few or small fruit on their first flush.

Once picked be sure to take pictures of the fruit before cutting into it. If you have a scale, now is a great time to record its weight and size. Keep in mind that as many dragon fruit plants mature their fruit may change slightly in flavor and/or size, though not all do, to be fair. So treat this as only an initial fruit evaluation and only partially representative of what this plant may be capable of. It should be enough to know if the plant is worthy of continuing on to the final evaluations, or if it’s time to be cut down though.

After recording its weight and size, now comes the most exciting part of being a hybridizer, and that is cutting into a fruit that you created yourself. What color will it be? What will it taste like? This excitement is what it’s all about! After picturing and noting the color and seed to flesh ratio, it’s time to break out the brix refractometer and take a reading.

Taste is a rather subjective thing, so there is no hard fast rule on what is good and what is bad beyond YOUR personal preferences. I have sampled fruit that is very pleasant in flavor with brix levels as low as 16 in my experience, though many people generally prefer their fruit at a reading somewhere around 17-19, which is considered a high brix score. There are even varieties that go well in excess of 20+ brix, these are considered some of the sweetest available but often take excessive amounts of time for the fruit to develop. As a side note, if you are trying to create a commercially viable variety, note the thickness of the skin. Fruit with thick skins better resist damage during shipping and handling of the fruit and that is incredibly important. So, is self fertility.

Well, now that you have pictured, measured, weighed, and documented nearly everything about your fruit, the time has finally come! Time to evaluate your fruit’s flavor, texture, and juiciness! Now, while there are many dragon fruit plants that successfully mimic the flavors of other types of fruits (like purple haze tasting like grapes for instance), not all dragons do this and most will have very unique flavors that are all their own. However, if you happen to notice specific flavor notes, you should absolutely record it for future reference and breeding.

While things like texture and juiciness are somewhat subjective, most will agree that a somewhat firm texture is generally preferred to a mushy one, and juiciness is often preferable to a more dry fruit. After your evaluation has completed, be sure to take a mature cutting of your hybrid and start rooting it immediately. More on this later on…

Now that you have completed multiple rounds of evaluations throughout the lifetime of your last remaining hybrids. Unfortunately your job is still not done! As a matter of fact, you just now hit the halfway mark. I know you are probably thinking. “Wait!? What!? Halfway!? I thought we were done here! What’s left to do now!?”.

Well, now comes the hardest part of being a hybridizer… After you have nurtured a plant from seed for the better part of a year now, constantly tending to it and watching it grow each day. Building hopes and becoming excited with every test passed. And even after passing every… single… evaluation. It’s now up on the chopping block… yet again, one final time.

The final stage of evaluation is the most important of them all. Degrafting! Now that you are sure you have a hybrid worthy of becoming its own variety, it needs to be tested on its own roots. While grafting is a wonderful tool to help us create hybrids faster, it also will skew the results of your final evaluations. Your hybrid gets quite a number of benefits from your chosen rootstock that help it. Such as possible increases in growth rate, increased fruit size, resistances to certain weather conditions or insects, and root vigor to name a few.

In order to know how strong and resilient your dragon truly is, it must not only grow, but thrive on its very own roots. It’s only then you can observe its actual phenotype. Not only is it important that you allow your new hybrid to grow on it’s own, but to allow it to go through an entire season own its own. This way you can observe how hardy it really is, the average fruit size, among many other things.

If you have friends in other climates than yours, this is also a great time to share your cuttings with them, so they can test your hybrid under their growing conditions, as well! This can tell you quite a bit about your plants actual traits, so it’s very highly recommended! Your hybrid may do very well in your climate but it possibly may not in another, so this is something you should absolutely test for…

So, by starting off with a large sample size and evaluating your seedlings multiple times thorough out it’s life cycle. You will be able to identify the very best of the best, and ensure that in the end, you will grow something worthy of all your hard work!

If you would like to learn more about creating your own dragonfruit hybrids, please give us a thumbs up, a subscribe, and be sure to join our Facebook group @Facebook.com/groups/HybridizingDragonFruit. And if you want to learn more about our very own HDF exclusive hybrids, be sure to check out HybridizingDragonFruit.com!

Grow something… AMAZING!