The Negros Oriental Agriculture Office is propagating seedlings of Pitaya, commonly known as dragon fruit, provincial agriculturist Gregorio Paltinca said.

The PAO has decided to propagate around a thousand seedlings of dragon fruit, after it noticed the huge market demand in Cebu and other neighboring provinces. Aside from the local market, there is also demand fro more dragon fruit to be exported as main ingredient for juices, ice cream, jam and other  processed fruit products.

He said dragon fruit belongs to the cactus family that can grow perfectly and produce fruit in tropical countries. Studies show that the dragon fruit stays on thew cactus-like trees 30 to 50 days after flowering and can sometimes have 5-6 cycles of harvests per year.

The plant can flower between three and six times in a year depending on growing conditions. Paltinca added that the dragon seedlings cam from the Ferrolino farm in the town of San Jose, which is also one of the demonstration farms of the PAO.

The cuttings are grown into seedlings for the mass propagation of the fruit. Like others in the cactus family, a healthy piece of the stem broken off may take root in soil and become its own plant. This is a much shorter route to reproduction.