THE MMSU Dragon Fruit Production Project is proving itself as a very lucrative agribusiness venture as shown by the figures obtained from the sales of the fruit.

From the 648 posts planted in three strategic sites in the main campus, the university has already harvested about 700 kilos of fresh fruits from January to July, which gave a little less than P70,000 gross.

“The plants are still at their peak production period until September. That’s why we expect to harvest more fruits in the next few weeks,” Jojo Battulayan, one of the caretakers of the dragon plants, said.

While other dragon cactus growers in the province harvest the fruits of their crop once a year within the July to September regular season, the university is harvesting the fruits twice because of the application of the off-season production technology for the crop.

Meanwhile, Prof. Maura Luisa S. Gabriel, in-charge of the project, said there were other factors that hampered the smooth production of quality fruits this year, however minimal. She was referring to fruit flies that destroy the emerging fruits. The pest buries its eggs in the fruit and the larva would later eat its way out, making the fruit unmarketable. She said, however, that they were able to address this problem through bagging.

Since the Saniata variety of dragon cactus has become a very profitable agribusiness venture in the university for the last five years, the demand for the fruit starts ahead of the regular season, thus, the university applies the off-season production technology to meet the demand.

The off-season production technology is applied in November when the plants receive less amount of sunlight due to the effect of the incoming winter solstice – a situation when the earth is at its farthest axis from the sun. During this period, the dragon cactus cannot produce enough hormones to induce itself to flower. Thus, the technology involves the use of 6-watt Light Emitting Diode (LED) bulbs, and 26-watt compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) which are used to light the plants between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. 

The demand for dragon fruit increases by more than two times higher in off-season months than in regular season. In Ilocos Norte alone, market demand starts in early parts of January.

In most cases during regular and off-season months, harvesting dragon fruits in the university is done by order due to limited supply. Usually, the harvest is done twice a week with a minimum of 80 kilos per harvest.

The selling price per kilo depends on the season and the volume of harvest. From January to March, the fruit is sold at P150 to P180 per kilo, while it dips to P75 to P80 per kilo from July to September. Some growers in the province even disastrously compete with other farmers by lowering it to P50 to P60 per kilo. (By Reynaldo E. Andres)