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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! 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: 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! 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 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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