How to Tell if Dragon Fruits Are Ripe & Ready For Harvest?

About 3 days after the dragon fruits have turned from green to red, you can harvest them. Look for a pink red color on the skin & scales. Try wiggling the fruits on the stem. If they are still a bit stiff, then they may not be that ripe. If they are quite loosened, then they're more ready for harvesting.

Lightly squeeze the fruits a bit. If they feel quite firm, then it may be early. If they are softer, they are good to go. You may also see some wrinkles on the skin of ripe fruits. This is another good way to tell.

wrinkled-dragon-fruit — Ripe dragon fruit

In the pic above, the scales of the dragon are turning yellow & wrinkled. Their skin at this point is a bit softer & thinner. When you use a finger to slightly push into it, you may see a slight curve-down or impression on the fruit. The greener ones have thicker skin & firmer flesh. This one's flesh is a bit softer as well.

On the other end of the fruit where flowers blow out, you can see the shrinking or wrinkling up of the skin. My mom trimmed the scales off on these ones for easier stacking & getting them ready for an important event–well consuming. I am not sure if it's necessary, but she likes it though. The dragon looks bald-headed.

bald-headed-dragon-fruit — Wrinkled ripe dragon fruit with scales trimmed off

Some people wrap a bag around the fruits as they have just turned pinkish red to make them sweeter.

bagging-the-dragon-fruits — Putting bags on dragon fruits for protection and increasing sugar content

Other folks like the fruits a bit sweet-and-tart so they pick them early. It's the best taste to them. If you like it firm, pick early while the scales are greener. If you're selling your fruits, take into account the shipping time. Because of this, growers pick the fruits earlier so they can still be in good shape when delivered to the stores or consumers.

As you can see here, the dragon fruit is harvested when the scales are still green. We see a little bit of branch left from the cut-off. It doesn't look too dry either.

green-scales-dragon-fruit — Still green scales on harvested dragon fruits

Also, if the weather looks like it's about to rain the next couple of days, it's better to pick your ripening fruits earlier. The high humidity spike in the rain may cause the fruits to crack. Sometimes, a tiny bite of the fruit fly + the humid environment will give birth to little maggots near the edge of the cracked skin.

If we just leave the fruits to over-ripen on the trees, maggots will appear. You can tell this by peeling the skin of fruit and see the inside layer. If we see some little dots or scars, we know which 'partners in crime' have been messing around before we grab our hands on the fruits.

If the fruit is a bit too ripe, then we may see some brown parts like this when cutting it open. It starts from the tip going in. Sometimes, if we leave the fruits laying there for too long without consuming, when we cut them & have a quick sniff, you'll notice a slight smell of fermented fruit wine or some tartness or something similar.

Here is an example of the brown part:

too-ripe-dragon-fruit — Over-ripe dragon fruit

A guy on YouTube asked this question a while ago: What causes the clear jelly part inside the dragon fruit flesh? To be honest with you, we don't really know. But you may have seen something similar.

The clear jelly-like part is our favorite part of the dragon fruit. Because very often it is the softest, juiciest & sweetest part. The more opaque white part is slightly more tart & firmer.

It's easier to see when you hold the fruit against the lights. It may be a bit hard to see in this pic but it's the part that's turning quite translucent & clear. From our guess, this may happen when the fruit is over-ripe or more poetically, on the edge of ripe & over-ripe.

Unlike some citrus fruits like kumquats, which stop ripening once they're harvested off the trees, dragon fruits will continue to ripen after getting harvested.

Because of this, when people buy the fruits (when their scales are still green), they leave them there for about a week or more to reach that soft & sweet state. It is the best taste that kids will love.

You can pick the fruits by hand. But it's easier to use a sickle or some pruners to cut them off. If you leave the flowers on the fruit, pull them off as they should be dry & brown now when the fruits have already ripened. Bring along some basket to put the fruits in. It is the most fun experience ever.

From some experience, growers share that the different harvest times give different fruit results:

Bloom	Dragon Fruit	Reason
November	Super sweet	Dragon fruits get full summer sunlight
December	2nd & 3rd pushes not so sweet	The weather has cooled down

This is the observation in Australia! Ohh, that's why! So, in Australia spring is from September to November. If the dragons bloom in November, it will get the full summer sunlight from December to February, when fruit production will be the best and sweetest.

If it blooms later, when the weather has cooled down a bit as they reach the fall/winter season (March-May/June-August), the second and third pushes may not be as sweet.

Confusing at first, I know, if you're not from the area. But without the month names, the seasonal pattern is very similar to other places in the same hemisphere & easy to understand.

Regarding the yield, some dragon fruit varieties give you 2-4 pushes a year. If you live someplace where it's warmer & humid year-round like Florida, you may get 4 harvests a year. In Southern California where it's more temperate, you may get two fruiting pushes a year. The Asunta red-flowered variety currently gives only 1 push a year.

See some harvesting time frames in US vs Australia here:

Dragon fruit blooming & fruiting in the US (around October).
Harvesting dragon fruits in Australia (around March):

Picking Yellow Dragon Fruits

If you're picking yellow dragon fruits, it's quite a different story than the other varieties. Because of... wait for it... those thorns! These fruits are really spiky.

There's about 12 spikes per petal of this variety. So, you might need some clippers, gloves & a brush. Even though a bit more time-consuming to harvest, it's really easy. You just put your gloves on, brush off the thorns, then clip off the fruits. See the harvesting in action in the video below (the brushing starts at around min 0:59):

5 Tips How to grow a ton of dragon fruit

In the picture below is a yellow variety. It's the Thai Yellow we believe. Unlike the spiky Palora, this one doesn't have thorns on the fruits as you can see. There's only scales on it like the red-skin one.

When they ripen, all of the scales will turn into a yellow color. The ripe fruits will also be a bit lighter in weight than the greener ones because of the loss of moisture.

In the picture right below you, this ripe yellow one is about 1.5 lbs (688 grams). It's about 20 grams (0.7 oz) lighter than the green one we saw above. It's the same fruit. Only difference is the weight after ripening.