Visit To Brunei Darulsalam

I had spent my holidays in Brunei from 26th to 30th November.This is my first visit to the country. I crossed through Limbang, then to Temburong. What is interesting to me is that there are farmers already planting this fruits. I saw they used 2 cuttings per stake made from 'berlian' wood.
I had observed how the farmers made their own organic fertilizers and the farm was very clean. I traced out some secrets of how they control diseases using the cheapest way. The only disease I noticed was brown rust spot caused by Dothirella but it is under control.The weather was wet and dry. Brunei had a very good potential to produce dragon fruits however early works should be done such as suitable land establishment, good and reliable planting materials, management practices and marketing as well downstream activities must be well planed and worked out. The people are eager to plant if the incentives are right.

Prior going to Brunei, I was asked to go to investigate disease breakout in Johore. About 50 acres were infected. What I observed that due to flooding, but the farmers did not control the disease from spreading partly due to bad sanitation and field agronomic activities.Apart from that farmers did not practice the correct pruning techniques, the canopy was dense and crowded that harvest a lot of insects and fungus.One more thing they did not pruned at the joints, making easy infection of diseases to enter if the branches were half-pruned.

My Dragon Fruit Poster in Bahasa Melayu

I have to present a poster as well as fruit samples including tissue culture plantlets at one of the agricultural convention in the country. Here is my poster in Malay language.

A Fruitful Farm

This dragon fruit farm was located on a former oil palm plantation situated in Malacca. It was clean and fruiting well. One of the problems I managed to counter was that the fruits were attacked by fruit flies- no incidence have ever reported some where else. So the best way to control is hand-wrapped all the fruits at early stage of fruiting.

Dragon Fruit Plantation

Malaysia is blessed with good tropical climate. Besides fruits, many crops can be grown here like rubber, oil palm, paddy and cocoa . One of the most recent newcomers in the Malaysian fruit industry is dragon fruits (Hylocereus polyrhizus). After many trials and errors, dragon cultivation has made its way in the Malaysian fruit industry. Unlike Vietnam and Thailand which had long history of dragon fruit growing, Malaysia is keeping good pace to lead its niche market due to high local demand.

The local name for dragon fruit is ‘buah naga’ or ‘buah mata naga’. In Malaysia, the scale for dragon fruit crop cultivation is very small which is about 300 hectares compared to other crops however, the rate of expansion is increasing tremendously fast. The dragon fruit growing areas are in the states of Johor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang, Pulau Pinang and Sabah.

Since dragon fruits originated from different climatic conditions, it has to undergo environmental adaptations and agromanagement practices.

If R & D is been prioritize, then one day it will become one of the leading export earner of Malaysia. The pic above shows one of the dragon fruit plantation in Malaysia .This farm is araound 100 acres. There many such farms in the country.

Diseases of dragon fruits.

Like many other plants, dragon fruits are also attacked by diseases. We have found common disease that attack and caused infection. The common ones are bacteria and fungus.

Dragon fruit flowering

Dragon fruits flowers after 1 year old after planting. There are many factors that cause flowering. 1. Variety - some variety can flower very fast. 2. age of cuttings -cuttings taken from watershoots are not good because they are soft. 3. Adequate fertilization.-correct NPK is needed nutrient balance.

I sometimes see flower abortion. This can be due several reasons. a) not enough nutrient- should give foliar nutrients b) flower did not pollinate. - the stigma dries up and abort ; may be no pollinators around.