They are a very tough plant. I dropped a cutting on the ground and it rooted itself laying on its side and took over a bush, well tried anyway. I do deep watering once a week here in California so the roots know where to grow too. I seen. TikTok video of a woman that ate a Palora and was giving a PSA lol. She said watch out or there’ll be some explosions coming after you eat. It was so funny 🤣
Second thing I’m seeing is a lot of composted tree bark in your soil. Compost is ok as top dress in your gratin fruit pots but that’s not good for the deep root system as it will turn into sewage and use the oxygen in the root system and choke the roots. A better mix would be 35% Pete moss 30% pumice 20 perlite 10 sand large granules 5% bio char. Then top dress pots with topsoil n compost fertilizer 😉
Thank you for your comment. There are no composted tree bark in the soil. The ones seen on the top of the soil mostly are falling leaves. My soil is mostly compost cow manure mix with native sandy soil. The plants have been very happy in it but when they got older, problem began. I don't like peat moss much. They significantly lower the soil PH and make it very acidic. It will be good for acid-like plants though.
The bamboo sticks were there when I transplanted the plant into the big pot 5 years ago. I just did not remove them. They basically doing nothing there and they are not supporting the plant.
I don't think it is the soil. The containers the plants are growing in have very good drainage and I don't water them everyday so the soil was not too wet. I think it is the ageing of the plant. The plants have been in the pot for 5 years. They start to show problems on the branches and the roots. This is not the first one has this problem. I am wondering if anyone else that growing dragon fruit for over 5 years has similar problem.
I’ve had my plants in for about 2-3 years now, I’ve had a few similar issues with my roots rotting. When I planted all my cuttings I used two different mixes, the first one was just sand/soil out the ground mixed with some potting mix (higher sand ratio). And then the other pots just had potting mix, so far I’ve had a couple of the dragons that were grown in the potting mixes develop root rot, however I haven’t had any rot which where grown in mostly sandy soils. I’ve watched a few videos on how you shouldn’t have plants growing in potting mixes (shredded tree/bark) long term as over time they will begin to break down and create an anaerobic environment for the roots (not much oxygen) which can/will lead to root rot. At the moment, I’m planting all my new cuttings in a mix of sandy soil from the ground with a bit of perlite, and then just using a potting mix/manure as mulch to keep the moisture in during summer
If you search ‘Gary’s best gardening’ you should find this channel and he has a few videos on soils, and Paul from rare dragon fruit has a video interviewing Gary on what soils to use for dragon fruit ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_sR1c-RMuMk.htmlsi=cFHJZJbpxJhy8sd6
