Agriculture Business Week

For 18 years, husband and wife Rey and Rebecca Villacorta of Barangay Kaingin in San Rafael, Bulacan had been in dealing dressed chicken. Their business was doing so well that they established outlets in public markets where they were delivering some 1.5 tons of dressed chicken daily.

But as the technology advances, modern chicken dressing plants started to rise one by one and the competition became stiffer and stiffer until the couple’s business gradually declined.

Their fallback was a 3-hectare rolling land that they borrowed from a cousin. They developed the farm and planted sinta papaya and tissue-cultured lakatan bananas. They sourced the technology and planting materials from an agricultural college in Cavite.
Their papaya and banana production boomed. They even earned millions from their 2,000 papaya trees and 2,000 banana trees, and became the source of quality planting materials of their neighbor farmers.

Their prosperous business, however, was destined to end. Their farm was ruined by typhoon Milenyo. As they try to recover their losses, their friend from Cavite, Eddie Silam, introduced to Rey an alternative crop that is resistant to typhoons: dragon fruit.

Also called as pitaya and strawberry pear, dragon fruit (Hylocereus undatus) is a vine-like epiphytic species of cactus that thrives well in hot climate with a lot of rainfall. It can withstand drought and some of more adverse weather conditions. Its flowers bloom only at night and emit an exotic, wonderful odor. Pollination is completed in a single night and the fruits mature at 30-32 days after pollination.

Dragon fruit is said to have originated in Mexico and in other parts of South America and have transported by the French to Vietnam where it was first cultivated in Asia.

At first, Rey doubted its market potential for it is a relatively unknown fruit in the Philippines. But Eddie assured him that it’s really marketable. In fact, Rey can find dragon fruits on display at supermarket where it is sold at P120 per kilo.

Rey said that Eddie himself has developed a 9-hectare dragon fruit farm in Indang, Cavite. Eddie said that supply is short all the time for only a few hectares in the country are planted to dragon fruit.

Due to Eddie’s encouragement, Rey planted a few hundred seedlings as test crop in his farm. He had spent at least P600 per hill in which three seedlings are planted. After a year and a half, his initial planting started to bear fruit.

To find prospects and means for largescale cultivation, Rey decided to expand their farm. So he bought another hectare, and this can hold 1,500-2,000 hills at a planting distance of 3 meters between rows and 2 meters between hills.

He also studied dragon fruit propagation using cuttings. And as he perfected the production of seedling materials through cuttings, he also perfected the soil mix for planting. He uses one-third sand, one-third garden soil, and one third organic matter as soil-base mixture, which he applies before planting
three seedlings per climbing concrete post.

Although it is recommended to use concrete posts as the climbing medium for the dragon fruit, he sometimes uses branches of kakawate trees as wooden posts to save on cost.

At the early stages of growth, dragon fruit should be watered once a week. To meet this requirement, Rey sources water from a domestic shallow well. He also observed that the major plant pest that affects dragon fruit in its early stages of growth are ants which he finds easy to control.

As the couple started harvesting ripe fruits from their first hectare of dragon fruit, its market also began to expand gradually as they were introducing it in public markets. They supply fruit stands along the road and these attracted foreign tourists who buy in bulk.

Apparently, Taiwanese, Korean and other Asian tourists are familiar with the dragon fruit; they know about its health property. It controls hypertension and is rich in anti-oxidants, phosphorus, dietary fiber, vitamins B1, B2 and B3, and vitamin E.

It is also believed to help in reducing weight. Rey, for instance, was overweight when he started to regularly eat dragon fruit. He said that by eating I kilo of dragon fruit a day, he lost 1 kilo per day. So in a week, he lost about 5 kilos and maintained a normal blood pressure. Moreover, the extra fat in his belly was gone.

Now that his search for the perfect crop that is drought-resistant and wind-resistant has ended, he decided to plant his entire three-hectare farm to dragon fruit. To date, he has some 6,000 hills of dragon fruit at different stages of growth, and one-third of which are now mature.

Harvest time is from May to October. And every year, Rey harvests 50-100 kilos of dragon fruit per hill. It can complete at least ‘four to six fruiting cycles annually. Buyers are asking for more and some of them even went to Rey’s farm to buy fresh, ripe dragon fruits which he sells at a farmgate price of P80 per kilo. These, however, are sold at P100 per kilo in fruit stands along the road.

Dragon fruit production requires a considerable initial investment. But it is an annual crop that lasts for at least 25 years. In fact, a dragon fruit shrub planted in Hawaii more than a hundred years ago has grown three times the size of a football field. It has been attracting tourists; they all want to smell the nocturnal scent of this dragon fruit.

On the other, hand, Rey is happy and confident because none of his standing dragon fruit crop was uprooted when typhoon Frank lashed Central Luzon months ago. He also looks forward to the next 25 years when his dragon fruit farm yields at its full potential.