Archived News: Binh Thuan Agriculture

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New Variety of Dragon Fruit in Binh Thuan

05.03.06 A new variety of Dragon Fruit is available in Binh Thuan province thanks to the efforts of Tran Thi Oanh Yen, who works at the Southern Fruit Research Institute (SFRI), with the assistance of Pham Ngoc Lieu and Tran Kim Cuong.

In 1995, Yen received dozens of Colombian red pulp dragon fruit cactus branches from a friend. After 2 years of growth, the cactus finally started to bear small fruit with red pulp.

Yen decided to try cross-breeding the red variety with the Binh Thuan strainin 1998. "Vietnamese dragon fruit flowers often pollinate at 10:00p.m. or 12:00a.m. while 3:00-4:00a.m. is suitable for Red dragon fruit, so I didn’t sleep for many nights," Yen said.

After pollinating two different kinds of dragon fruit, she developed a fruit the same size as Vietnamese dragon fruit but with red pulp. Yen took the seeds from this new variety, sowed them and five years later picked the best specimen to develop further. In 2005, SFRI’s council allowed the large scale development of Long Dinh 1 Red dragon fruit.

Although native to Colombia rather than Vietnam, Binh Thuan province is considered to be the world capitol of Dragon Fruit by many, because of how well it grows here and the large quantity of produce that the province exports. Countless stands selling the fruit flank the highway passing by Phan Thiet, the provincial capitol.