Ramesh Reddy Basanthapur, born in 1989 to a farming family, transitioned from an MBA in New Zealand back to his roots in Zaherabad. As the visionary founder of BNR Exotics, he leverages international business acumen to pioneer large-scale dragon fruit cultivation. By specializing in premium varieties, Ramesh aims to revolutionize Indian agriculture, bridging the gap between traditional farming and global market standards.
In this exclusive conversation with Rashmi Kumari of Neo Science Hub, Reddy highlights his journey of transforming 100 acres in Zaherabad into a global dragon fruit hub. He emphasizes the crop’s nutritional benefits, such as high fiber and antioxidants, and its potential for sustainable profitability. Despite initial learning curves with fertilizers, he describes dragon fruit as an “easiest crop” requiring minimal labor and suitable for various soils. Ramesh focuses on high-quality red-fleshed varieties for their superior sweetness. His core mission is to elevate Indian horticulture, encouraging farmers to shift from over-produced traditional crops toward high-value, export-oriented exotics.
Welcome to New Science Hub, Ramesh! We’ve heard so much about you—from New Zealand to Hyderabad, back to your roots. How did you get the idea to pursue farming, specifically dragon fruit farming?
Actually, my parents and grandparents—all my forefathers—have been in agriculture. We don’t have a family background in any other jobs or business; it’s purely agricultural. Maybe it’s in my blood. But I’ve always wanted to do something unique, something different. That’s the intention with which I started dragon fruit farming. And not just for myself—I wanted this to benefit at least ten other farmers.
Most farmers stick to traditional methods—cotton, rice, sugarcane. I wanted to try different crops, not the regular ones. My goal was to contribute to the country while improving my own situation and helping others succeed alongside me. That’s why I started this journey.
Dragon fruit comes in many varieties—red, white, yellow. Can you tell us about these varieties and how you grow them?
Basically, there are three varieties of dragon fruit. The most successful and commercial ones are white and red dragon fruit. Yellow dragon fruit is a recent addition. White dragon fruit started growing vigorously in Vietnam first, then red, and then yellow came along.
In India, I was the first to commercially grow yellow dragon fruit. White dragon fruit has been around for some time in Maharashtra and other places. I was the first to grow red dragon fruit in Telangana. After that succeeded, we expanded with red and eventually added yellow plantations.
The most in-demand variety is red because it has higher sweetness. All varieties have similar nutritional values, but red is slightly better. Red has higher sugar content, so people with diabetes might prefer white. But red is very popular, especially with kids who love the color. When they eat it, the color sticks to their tongue and hands, which children find fun. The sweetness is also higher.
White dragon fruit also exists, but without the color, people don’t find it as appealing. Yellow dragon fruit looks good on the outside, but when you cut it open, it’s white flesh inside. Many customers get disappointed seeing white inside the yellow fruit. So generally, red dragon fruit is the best among all varieties.
When you started growing dragon fruit, what challenges or failures did you face? Did Indian soil support exotic fruits like this?
The first thing I should say is that I actually didn’t face any failures. In the first month or two, I did see some plants turn yellowish and die because I didn’t know and gave excess fertilizers. Once we avoided overwatering, the plants settled in.
Actually, dragon fruit is the easiest crop of all. Look, you put up a pole, plant the crops around it, lay down a weed mat underneath—so no weeding needed. The weeds in between can be removed with herbicide spray or tractor, or manually. Labor requirement is very low.
Just after planting, it reaches four to five feet in four to five months. The growth comes easily. You get crops in the first year itself, and because market rates are high and there’s demand, selling is also easy.
From day one until now, I haven’t had any major problems. Small issues come up in any crop, but they can be easily solved. It’s the easiest crop that anyone can grow. Even now, people are growing dragon fruit in drums on balconies and in large pots on terraces. I saw someone in Kerala who planted 100 drums with dragon fruit plants. Even a housewife can easily manage this crop. There’s no great difficulty involved.
When did you get the idea to grow only exotic fruits in India, especially in this region?
Maybe it’s because of my mindset, I don’t know, but I’ve always wanted to do something different. I like doing new things. Right from school until now, whenever I do something, I want to do it differently. I don’t like doing what everyone else is doing.
Without competition, marketing might be a bit challenging, but if you go into areas with less competition, it’s easier to stand out. That’s the thinking behind all my different choices.
For example, after getting into farming, we started dragon fruit. Then we started longan, which wasn’t available in Telangana. After that, we commercially started soursop. Last year we did chia, and this year we’re continuing. Many other farmers, seeing us, are also starting these crops.
Whatever I do, I do it differently. I don’t do what everyone else does. I’m not saying traditional methods are bad, but if demand matches supply, we get good rates. Look at excess production now—tomatoes, sugarcane, rice. Excess production leads to farmers going to the government demanding purchases. Even turmeric and soybean face the same situation now due to weather issues.
These problems don’t arise when you grow unique crops. We’ve seen tomatoes, okra, and ridge gourd dumped on roadsides because nobody buys them. If we produce only what’s needed, there’s no wastage. Ten rupees worth of produce sold in smaller quantities can fetch twenty rupees.
So instead of growing regular crops with high competition and sales problems, I’d rather grow different crops. Even if marketing is slightly challenging, my intention is to show results to ten other people by growing different crops and getting yields.
What type of soil is used to grow dragon fruit?
The good thing is that any type of soil is suitable for dragon fruit. However, I would suggest avoiding water-clogging soils.
Generally, the fruit season runs from May to November. Our rains start in June-July. Last year, we had continuous rains until October. During those rains, going into the farm to cut fruit becomes difficult when it’s full of water. You can’t step in easily, or if you do, it’s very hard. Work that should take one day takes three days.
What happens then is that after the fruit ripens, cracks can develop and it may split open. Or birds can damage it. That’s why we suggest avoiding water-clogging soils.
Otherwise, we’ve seen in Vietnam and Thailand that farms are right near backwaters. Even when water rises to this level, laborers still go in with baskets and cut the fruit. We’ve seen this in many videos and when we visited there. Some farms have lines like this with water in between. They have small boats—they take the boat and cut the fruit while floating.
So if we avoid water-clogging soils, we won’t have problems during harvesting. Otherwise, no matter how dry the soil—sandy loam, black soil, red soil—it doesn’t matter. Any soil type is suitable as long as it doesn’t have water clogging.
We’ve heard that you grow dragon fruit even in the off-season. How do you do that?
Actually, when it comes to season and off-season, look at mango—there’s an off-season for mango too. Mango comes during this time. Now if you look at totapuri, you can get it in the market starting from now. In Tamil Nadu, we get two seasons. Some come naturally, some come artificially.
If you look at flowering in plants like chrysanthemum and marigold, they start flowering when there’s less sunlight. This is the same—it needs more sunlight. Generally, in the May to November season, it gets fourteen hours of sunlight, so the fruit comes continuously.
Once late daylight happens—look now, the sun has already set. It’s almost five, five-thirty. In summer, we have sun until seven o’clock. So when sunlight duration reduces and they get only eight to nine hours instead of fourteen, they don’t flower much or go into dormancy.
To break this, what we do is add lights inside the farm. When we keep lights during nighttime, we can trick the plant into thinking it’s still getting fourteen hours of light. This way, by providing artificial sunlight through lights, we can get off-season dragon fruit. We can make it flower whenever we want by manipulating the light.
The advantage is that when everyone has fruit, rates are 80-100 rupees. But in off-season, we can sell at 150-200 rupees. Though the yield might be slightly less in off-season, the price is higher. If you calculate properly, we might get slightly more profit in off-season.
What’s the investment required for installing lights for off-season production?
For one acre—minimum is one acre, less than that isn’t worth it—the total cost comes to around 4 to 4.5 lakhs. This includes pole cost, lighting cost, wiring cost, and transformer cost.
We have to take an industrial connection or an agriculture connection where we pay per unit. Otherwise, if we take domestic connection, it costs a lot. Also, with domestic connection, it’s hard to get higher KVA transformers. For one acre, we need a 25 KVA transformer minimum.
Most state governments in India give subsidies for these lights. Some give 50%, some 60%, some even 70% subsidy. We have to purchase through their approved vendors. Even with subsidy, it still costs around 2 to 2.5 lakhs per acre after getting 50% subsidy.
I haven’t applied for subsidy yet. I’m focusing on the Telangana government since my farm is here. They have a subsidy scheme but no clear procedure. Local officers aren’t cooperating. So even though subsidies are available, if the procedure isn’t clear, farmers can’t avail them. I’ve been trying for four years to understand the process but haven’t succeeded yet.
Why is mist or fog spraying necessary in dragon fruit farming?
When dragon fruit plants bloom, the flowers only last for about 8 hours. They bloom around 7-8 PM at night. Next morning by 7-8 AM, they wilt. During these 8 hours, pollination must happen for fruit setting.
In countries like Vietnam and Thailand where this crop originated, or in southern India, natural pollinators like beetles and bees come. There, hand pollination isn’t necessary—70-80% fruit sets naturally. But in our region, Telangana, we don’t have many natural pollinators. We’re getting maybe 20-25% natural pollination, which isn’t enough.
Since we know flowering happens at night, and pollinators are active then, we need to create the right environment. That’s where misting comes in. To increase humidity in the area, we create fog-like conditions. Research shows that when there’s 70-80% humidity, pollinators become very active and come in large numbers.
By creating humidity with misting, more pollinators come, and our fruit setting increases from 20-25% to 50%. This is a recent development—just 2-3 years old. Until now, farmers were doing hand pollination, which requires a lot of labor. Because flowers last only 8 hours, you can’t do hand pollination during the day. It has to be done at night.
For one acre, you need 4-5 workers working from 8 PM to 2 AM. Even finding workers at night is difficult, and costs are higher. With misting, we can avoid all this labor and still get better fruit setting. The cost of installing misting is also around 1 lakh per acre, which is better than ongoing labor costs.
Can you grow dragon fruit in terrace gardens?
Yes, definitely. Dragon fruit can be grown in terrace gardens. People are growing it in drums, large pots, and containers.
For terrace gardening, I’d recommend using drums of at least 100-150 liters capacity or cement pots that are 2×2 feet. The bigger the container, the better the root development and yield.
One advantage of growing on terraces is that you can easily protect plants from rain and provide controlled conditions. In one pot, you can plant 3-4 cuttings around a central pole. Within 4-5 months, they’ll start climbing the pole, and within 8-10 months, you can get your first harvest.
The key requirements are good drainage holes in containers, well-draining soil mix (can mix sand with soil), adequate sunlight (at least 6-8 hours), and support poles for the plants to climb. Regular watering is needed but avoid waterlogging.
You mentioned growing chia seeds. Can you tell us about chia cultivation?
Like I mentioned before, we try to grow different crops every year. Last year we tried chia for the first time, and this year we’ll try it again. Chia demand is increasing—all dry fruit shops are selling it, and doctors are recommending people drink chia in water. There’s good demand for it.
For chia, any kind of soil works—black soil, red soil, or mixed. Currently, our farm has black and red mixed soil. Water requirement is less—weekly twice or once, depending on the crop stage.
Unlike dragon fruit which grows from cuttings, chia grows from seeds. Those seeds we eat are treated and sold to farmers. The treatment involves mixing with sand and using bed systems with 5 feet distance between beds.
We create beds and mix the seeds with sand for even distribution. For one acre of land, the growth is very good. In another 15 days from now, it will start flowering. Mostly black and red soils are very suitable.
When it’s time for sowing, we water the soil and wet it a little. Immediately after one week, the seeds sprout. The plants stay in this stage for 30-40 days.
The plant grows up to 4 feet, but if we give more nutrition, it can grow to 5-6 feet. However, that’s not necessary. After 2 feet, it starts flowering, so 3 feet is enough. If we give more nutrition, plant height increases but yield doesn’t necessarily increase.
For fertilization, we give organic manure as basal application in the soil. Recently, we applied 13-0-45 through drip for growth. In the next 40-45 days, we spray equal amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Before flowering, during 50-60 days, we can spray 13-0-45 again.
Fungal and pest problems are not a big deal. It’s a very easy crop, and within 4 months you get the yield. For chia, by the time climate is suitable, we should start sowing by end of November so that by end of February, we get the harvest.
Regarding marketing, my friends have wholesale distribution of dry fruits. They sell it to retailers for 130 rupees per kg. A farmer gets 13,000 rupees for 100 kgs, which is quite good.
However, chia might not be suitable for terrace farming in Hyderabad. It needs cooler temperatures and low light conditions. In Hyderabad, temperatures aren’t as low, and with all the lights on at night in the city, there may be light disturbance that affects chia growth.
What are your future plans? You’re introducing so many different crops.
We are trying different exotics, either in vegetables or fruits. We’re concentrating mainly on fruits. We want to introduce new fruits to new farmers so that farmers shift from regular traditional method crops to different exotics. That way, every farmer should see better income.
That’s our target—to help farmers diversify and earn more. We want to demonstrate that exotic crops can be successfully grown in our region and that they can be more profitable than traditional crops.
Did you get geotagging for all these crops through the government?
Geotagging has been going on for the last 4-5 years. The government is trying to calculate how much production, harvest, and consumption is coming from each farmer. The central government has come up with good schemes to educate farmers, and new schemes are being made.
But the problem is that government officers working locally within the state are not doing it properly. Last four years back, when the central government started geotagging, like recently—two months back—I had some work and was forced to come and do geotagging in the name of Ramesh Reddy, Narsimha Reddy, and Manjula.
The government is taking necessary steps, but the lower-level officers are not working. Geotagging is very important because if you know which farmer is growing which crop, you can easily analyze the demand of people in the country. If you coordinate this properly with farmers, they will get good income.
The system is there, the intention is good, but implementation at the local level needs improvement.
