Question Dragon Fruit fungal and plant care help

Mich_L

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Hello All,

Two years ago my boyfriend and I acquired a Dragon fruit plant from a neighbor. As we are both unfamiliar with the plant, I let my boyfriend do what he wanted. With that said, I am looking at the plant and telling myself that the plant is crowded and needs a really good "haircut". Every picture I've seen on websites show a main stock supported by a post with the rest of the plant flowing over.
My question to you all;
1. Is our plant properly tied up?
2. Does it need to be trimmed?
3. Is the fungal damage because of the crowded branches?

I've included a few pictures for you to see. Also we live on the west (wet) coast, which is why our plant is indoors at this time. Any advice, tips, or resources would be of great help.

dr01.jpg
dr02.jpg
dr03.jpg
 

ClissAT

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Hi there Mich_L & welcome.
The thing about dragon fruit is they are huge plants, far too big for indoor use.
Your plant needs to go outside onto a huge trellis where all those shoots can grow to their full potential & flower to provide you with lovely fruit.
If it was outdoors you could spread those shoots out more thereby preventing fungal damage.
Also there probably isn't enough light for it so it is sending up more shoots to gather more light. They need full sun & hot humid weather to grow well & flower. Tying the shoots together to keep the plant neat is not helping it to be healthy.

Many photos you see online are of the fruiting segments all stuck neatly into a pot with the fruit hanging off halfway up. That's a traditional way that Asians sell the fruit. On the farm, once the fruit is full sized, they cut the whole segment off the vine & place many together into a pot for sale. The fruit continues to ripen using the nutrients from the cut segment. Once the ripened fruit is removed from the segment for eating, that segment is usually thrown away or some will stick it in the ground at the base of a big post to grow on. It will take a couple years to mature to fruiting age.

These pots of fruiting segments are not how the plant is grown. The growing plant on the farm is very untidy & huge.
Here's a link to a previous thread about growing dragon fruit that you may or not have read.
It shows the potted fruit for sale & the farmed vines.
https://www.selfsufficientculture.com/threads/dragonfruit-growing-different-method.1125/
 

Mark

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Yep, what Clissa said...

There's no problem with two or three stems coming up from the base if it's climbing up a big post and then branching out from the top but grouping them together is not ideal.
 
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