Documentation of Dragon Fruit Production Practices under Agrisilvicultural in Natonin, Mountain Province

Abstract

A documentation of dragon fruit production practices under Agrisilvicultural was done in two barangays of Natonin, Mountain Province. There was 100% enumeration of the five farmers and identified respondents in the activity. All of the respondents were male and married with educational attainment from high school graduate to college graduate and age ranging from 35 to 55 years old. During land preparation and planting, only cleaning and weeding were done and only one applied fertilizer like chicken dung; they used vegetative part, particularly stem cuttings as planting material. The red variety was the only grown variety in the locality and most popular was the Hylocereus polyrhizus. The single post support system was being practice using tree fern or giant fern as the post. In water management, no one irrigates their crops while only one applied fertilizer, two to three times a year. Fortunately, weeds were the only problem in the farm and it can be controlled by hand weeding or manual cleaning. The harvesting time for dragon fruit is on the month of July to September. The identified postharvest practices are: cleaning, grading and sorting, packaging and transporting. The community residents was the main target market of the respondents with a price ranging from 80 to 100 per kilo.