Dragon fruit or pittaya as called in its original home in Central America is thus an introduced fruit in the East. Taiwan is amongst the first country to grow them.
There are 3 variants of flesh colour - white, red and yellow of which red is the preferred one grown commercially. It is sweeter than the other two types.
Earlier on pittaya is a popular fruit to venture into because being a cactus it is hardy to less fertile soil, do not require much water, no pest problem, and fast cash crop.
However, after some rapid expansion in planting there appeared a virus disease affecting the plants. This is probably due to diseased materials brought into country for propagation and distribution for growing. Farmers become discouraged and hence plantings are less found nowadays.
Rooted cuttings are used for planting.
No comments:
Post a Comment