Visit Dragon Fruit Farm

My friends and I just visited a red dragon fruit farm at Bukit Tinggi, Pahang which is located about 50km away from Kepong, KL. The farm is about 7 acres but is only used 5 acres to plant red dragon fruits. Red dragon fruit becomes popular in local consumption in these few years. It takes about 8 to 9 months to bear fruit after planting with branch. The plants need a lot of organic fertilizer to boost the fruits. The fruit can be classified into 5 categories:

1) Size XL (above 800g each fruit, price $10.00/kg)
2) Size L (500-800g each, price at $8.00/kg)
3) Size M (400-500g each, price at $6.00/kg)
4) Size S (250-400g each, price at $4.00/kg)
5) Size XS (below 250g each, price at $2.00/kg)

A i was told that the time frame is 45 days from flowering to raped fruit. I think this is a good agriculture product at this moment because it is quite new to the market (Red meat). The species was imported to Malaysia about 4 years ago. Therefore, the market price is still high. However, more and more growers are looking for these opportunities and i expect the price will drop in the future. The cost of investment is quite reasonable at about RM30,000 per acre. The main cost is bio-organic fertilizer and labour cost. Most growers will get the return of investment within 3 years. From the statistic, there are about 1666 acres planted in Malaysia (as at Jan 2006). Only 400 acres are getting fruits.

For more information, you can visit the followoing websites :
AgroPAC Portal
Jabatan Biologi,UPSI
Dragon Fruit, Pitaya
Daabon Organic Japan
Dragon Fruit Viewer - Pine Island Nursery

I bought some dragon fruit branches to grow at home. Hopefully, it can bear fruits. :) For immediate taste the fruit, i do have buy some fruits in size M to try it out. Will let you know how good it taste later. :P