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Source for Ountia ficus-indica cultivars?
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Posted by
fabaceae_native z6 NM (
My Page) on
Mon, Oct 22, 12 at 15:34
| The cultivated prickly pear is one of those fruits that is greatly under-appreciated in this country, perhaps as a result of the scarcity of information and availability of it's varieties. I'm guilty of this ignorance too, as it took me years to get up the courage to buy one of the greenish yellow varieties (I thought they would not be ripe). Turned out it was excellent, but I can't find any place that sells anything other than "Burbank Spineless" which seems not a specific cultivar at all, but a group of spineless prickly pears, which pretty much all of them are nowadays.
Any help would be great... |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Source for Ountia ficus-indica cultivars?
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| fabaceae_native, You will find more than you ever dreamed of here. I plan to go to the nursery soon myself. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Cold Hardy Cactus from the American West and Beyond!
RE: Source for Ountia ficus-indica cultivars?
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| Thanks milehighgirl, for that fantastic link! They sure have an amazing variety of prickly pears (Opuntia) but unfortunately no ficus-indica, probably because it is not cold hardy. But there sure are some interesting species and hybrids with amazing flower colors. Incidentally, I just ate the last few prickly pears from my Opuntia engelmannii, which is a wild form growing near Albuquerque. They were very ripe and tasted fantastic. Unfortunately most were eaten long ago by the packrats and never ripened fully. These, along with my Opuntia macrocentra, are among the best flavored hardy species I have tried, but they still lack the edibility factor of those cultivated green Opuntia ficus-indica. Those taste just like good honeydew and have a nice texture. |
RE: Source for Ountia ficus-indica cultivars?
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| I am out of my depth completely with "tuna". I plan to visit the nursery and acquire the most tasty for zone 5. But where to put it, that's the question! |
RE: Source for Ountia ficus-indica cultivars?
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| I will be interested to know what they suggest for the tastiest in your zone. I've found several of the hedgehog cacti (Echinocereus) to have exquisite fruit when ripe, which are spineless and have small edible poppy-like seeds, but they set very few fruits and these are quickly eaten by every sort of creature. The flowers of this genus are also incredibly beautiful. Thus I've focused more on finding really good Opuntia. The plants are much more vigorous, easy to propagate (just rip off a pad from a plant you want and stick it in the ground), and way more prolific than the above, but the fruits have spines and/or glochids, and can range from sweet watermelon-like in flavor to sour, gooey, and even 'gamey'. Best I've found are O. engelmannii and O. macrocentra, both should be hardy in your area in a good microclimate. O. phaeacantha, even hardier, has smaller but quite tasty tunas. Several others, such as O. rodantha, O. polyacantha, and O. basilaris, have dry fruits at maturity, but are still worth growing for visual appeal. |
RE: Source for Ountia ficus-indica cultivars?
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| From what little info I can find it seems that most of the selections for flavor are not from O. ficus-indica. Indian Fig does seem to have the best flavor and be the most popular in the tropics but it doesn't seem like anyone is working with them as far as breeding goes. Rumor has it that various colors and flavors exist in Mexico (both the fruit and the pads!). I have stumbled upon people mentioning certain forms that have made it to California but I don't know if those fruits taste better than Indian Fig. When I did grow Indian Fig in a pot it didn't make many fruits. |
RE: Source for Ountia ficus-indica cultivars?
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| There must be hundreds of cultivars of Indian Fig, mostly they seem to be grown in places like Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Italy, and the Middle East, so the info on the web in English regarding this species is very minimal. I only ever see two types in the grocery stores here (and these are Mexican or Asian type markets), a red one and a green one. Many varieties of this plant are grown for the pads, and never seem to fruit, but the one I started from a single pad in a pot last winter produced five new pads and one fruit (unripe still). |
RE: Source for Ountia ficus-indica cultivars?
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| All the fruit I've tasted in the Caribbean were just local varieties (and the flavor varied from island to island). No one was actively breeding or isolating better performing plants. I think it is because it is so easy to grow there that no one ever considered breeding for better performance. I've seen the same situation in Mexico and South America. People may gush about a certain region having wonderful tasting tunas but no one is trying to breed for it. The bigger breeding programs that I have heard about are with other Opuntia and not ficus-indica. There are supposed to be nopales and tuna with distinctive flavors (citrus being a favorite) but they seem highly regional and no one seems to be importing them. Last year I found a website selling pads and products from a farm in California that was working on various Opuntia species and hybrids. It was mostly focused on the medicinal value and not about fruit flavor. I'll dig around and see if I can find it again. |
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