Wanted: Frankie's Red Dwarf & Tyalgum Purple Pitaya (forum)

Tommoz starts with ...
Any extra info other than what is in Daley's catalogue would also be appreciated. Pads/cuttings should be easy to post.

Time: 5th December 2015 4:17pm

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S t a r l i n g says...
Hi Tommoz,

I do have frankie's for sale, but cannot sell TP yet. All of my cuttings are 45$ each which includes postage.As the person who supplied Daleys with TP, I can tell you that there are exactly three people with TP other than myself, and only two os us have fruiting specimens. None of us will have cuttings to sell anytime soon. Daleys will be the first vendor to release. I can post Frankie's and others express, but really, this is absolutely unnecessary. This is also extremely uncommon in Australia and only a handful of people are growing it.

On a point of order:

Although Daleys lists TP as a pitaya, this is a misnomer. 'Pitayo/pitaya is an colloquial mexican term for any columnar cactus fruit (such as c. peruvianus, gummosus etc) and despite what wikipedia suggests, this term is not often applied to dragonfruit in Mexico--in fact, in Mexico dragonfruit are considered mostly inferior to other cactus fruits, even tuna (prickly pears). There are two main types of pitaya marketed in Mexico; pitaya agria (sour) and pitaya dulce (sweet).

TP is technically an epiphylum, though it does have dragon genes. Which particular type of dragon will remain a trade secret.

Do not get used to the name Tyalgum purple; that is going to change in the next month or so as soon as some paperwork clears, we're n the process branding it. This has proved arduous and expensive, but the creator and I hope it will pay off. We're very excited about introducing this crop into the wider market. It is superior to dragonfruit in every criteria other than abundance. This however can be overcome by simply planting out more.

I have several fruit ripening as of now. Epiphylum fruits take a while to develop (up to 3-4 times longer than what are referred to as 'dragonfruit'). I will post images of the cut fruit in about one month (They've not yet begun to colour).

Frankie's red is an American megalanthus hybrid bred out of either the yellow namibian orange megalanthus or the ecuadorian yellow and a standard red. It is one of the best mega hybrids along with natural mystic, which is purple fleshed. It will not perform well outside of northern NSW and up unless placed in a greenhouse/artificial habitat, and demonstrates less aggressive negative phototropy than hylocereus type dragons, from my own personal observation. It is not as heavy bearing as hylocereus either. The dwarfing habit should be thought of in terms of form--it is much less spurious than H. Undatus/ocamponis for example, and has a growth form more akin to selenicereus- type fruits such as grandiflorus; that is, thicker, denser tendrils but less of them. As a general rule, if it has large thorns ( as opposed to glochids/hair like spines) it has probably got selenicereus genes in it, though there are exceptions, as the cereus genus is extremely diverse, and nobody really knows what has which genes. There are even columnar type fruiting cactus genes in some varieties--indeed, this is where the serious breeders are turning their interest. The Israelis, for example, have already begun such developments close to a decade ago and have bred amazing varieties such as desert king (no, I don't have this). In reality, columnar species such as stenocereus Gummosus and especially stenocereus queretaroensis produce considerably superior fruit to all dragons, but are not commercially viable. I have done an S. gummosus hybrid cross this year. We'll see how it turns out. It's a lottery of genetics, in the end.

Tyalgum purple is, by contrast,much more cold tolerant. It does not require full sun to set fruit. It is truly self pollinating as per the description, which is very rare for an epi. Morever, it responds well to nitrogen rich feeds, especially liquid feeds, which is incredibly rare given that fruiting cactacea almost invariably will not fruit if given excessive nitrogen. Basically what we have is a small, very tough, self-fertile, spineless, drought and shade tolerant plant that produces fruit with a stronger flavor and higher brix rating than dragonfruit that will take garden variety fertilizers and perform well under these regimes. It is actually close to being a miracle. Breeders outside of Aus have as yet not produced anything like it despite fairly intensive breeding programs.

I'm working on another variety using an extremely cold tolerant epi that is proven to fruit in melbourne. The fruit quality is less than great however and the challenge is retaining this tolerance whilst improving size, brix and yield.

Hope this helps.

Time: 8th December 2015 5:59pm

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Original Post was last edited: 9th December 2015 9:51am
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echinopora says...
starling, do you find the ripening period for the frankies red to be materially different from the red types and yellow (Is is worthwhile having to fill in the gap in the fruiting season).

Rob

Time: 10th December 2015 2:46pm

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S t a r l i n g says...
Megalanthus take longer to ripen, yeah. Frankies take about the same time as the yellow mega to ripen.

Very good, worth growing of you have the space. I rate natural mystic slightly higher, but that's my purple type bias showing.

Time: 10th December 2015 4:06pm

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Tommoz says...
I got as low as -2.5

Time: 10th December 2015 9:06pm

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S t a r l i n g says...
I don't really like the yellow mega that gets around, though the giant thornless mega I'm growing might be better. The standard yellow is very sweet ( for a dragon) but has some kind of strange otheryness that I'm not fond of. As for cold tolerance very much doubt it performs better than the reds. I believe the giant viet white is the most cold tolerant. certainly it is the most shade tolerant. Unfortunately it also sucks--a very bland dragon. However, it is the best pollinator.

If you want them sweeter, just sprinkle on a little sugar and voila. Dragonfruit chips are absolutely amazing, my favorite dried fruit.

Dragonfruit just aren't a very sweet fruit, and even the best CV's have a delicate flavor. The highest brix rating ever recorded for a dragon is 18, and belongs to the variety Edgar's baby, which was bred by dragon Guru Edgar Valdivia. It is a red type. I am growing this, but it will be at least another two years before I can post a report as my vine was wrecked by marauding cockatoos. A flock set me back years earlier in the year across a range of varieties.Bastards.

You can watch Edgar talking on pollination here. He is a pioneer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aVIQnccNGw



Time: 12th December 2015 12:47pm

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Bella says...
Hi Starling, thanks for the information it’s impossible to find any good info about this one. I’ve noticed Daley’s now have taken down their information regarding this variety. You mentioned that a name change for the variety was on the cards ......has there been any development with this and is this variety going to be available soon at all? Do you have any photos of an established plant or fruit by any chance?
Bella

Time: 10th January 2021 4:14pm

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