More fig tasting with Ram. Ponte Tresa, JFE Black Madeira, Grosse Monstrueuse and Saijo Persimmon

A big thanks to Ram for ripening 3 more varieties that I've never tasted before. It's the day after thanks giving and Ram's come to my house to review a few figs (Ponte Tresa, JFE Black Madeira, Grosse Monstrueuse) and one Saijo Persimmon.

Ponte Tresa                              JFE Black Madeira

Grosse Mosntrueuse                           Saijo Persimmon

Ponte tresa

Grosse Monstrueuse di Lipari

JFE Black Madeira

Saijo Persimmon

JFE Black Madeira 27.1 grams

27.1 grams

Rooting figs in agar. Let's get Nerdy and grow figs via Tissue Culture

Tissue culture plants isn't a new thing but it's relatively new to Figs. I've purchased a few varieties grown in this method and they tend to grow very bushy with lots of suckers. I wanted to try this for rare figs since it would make sense to put so much effort into growing a Dessert King this way.

After some research, I purchased some key ingredients to making the agar gel.

Ingredients

Sugar
Distilled Water
Plain Agar powder
Kinetin .1 gram dissolved in 100 ml if water. then use 2.5 MLs of that solution
Murashige
Sterilizing Tablets
Microwave
Cups with caps

The most important part of this process is keeping your work space super duper clean. Which is tough because I have 2 small boys that are constantly sick and love getting into everything.

After mixing the ingredients accordingly and microwaving the solution until the agar is melted into the water I poured the solution into pre sterilized cups and wrapped them with saran wrap.

The point of this project is to easily reproduce rare varieties without having to lose too much wood from doing cuttings. I pinched my Ponte Tresa (which is somewhat rare still) to induce branching and fig production. I took the tip, washed it in bleach and alcohol to get ride of any mold spores. I then cut the green stem into little pieces and placed them into the agar gel with nutrients.

Keep in mind to spray all of your equipment with your alcohol solution. You cannot be too cautious about that. The last thing you want is a petri dish full of mold.

This is my 1st crack at this and for all I know I could've just made a cultivation for a bunch of bacteria but we shall see. More to come.

Update: 6/15/17
Just as I feared, looks like I did not properly clean the cuttings and I've got a crazy amount of mold growing.

6/25/17 Round 2: This time I'm using a Black Madeira. Cleaned extra long with bleach, alcohol, and hydrogen peroxide. I also made sure to clean my tweezers. They may have been the culprit the last time.

Update: 7/5/17
Well I'm really good at growing mold. Keeping a sterile environment is much harder than it seems.

Fig Update + Hydroponic Fig + Ponte Tresa Update

Update on figs, cuttings, grafts, my hydroponic fig experiment, and Ponte Tresa fig

Ponte Tresa - The Manute Bol of Figs

Oh Ponte Tresa Fig you were virtually an unknown fig tree living a modest life on the border of Switzerland and Italy until some traveler discovered you, plucked you out of obscurity and thrust you into the lime light of the fig world.

Much like Minute Bol the Sudanese basketball player from the 1980s, nobody knew who he was until some recruiter brought him to play basketball in the US. He wasn't much offensively but he was one hell of a blocker. He was the only player to block more shots than score points. At 7ft 7 inches. It was probably like me blocking shots against 5 yrs olds.

Now that you've been discovered, everyone wants a piece of you.  I guess I can't blame them you do look like an impressive fig! The flavor is described as berrylike dripping with honey and a hint of citrus in the skin. Sounds delicious.

However the prices for such a rare fig has been esoteric. Almost $1000 for a small plant and $200+ for 2 cuttings. And it's cause a bit of a shit storm with certain members of the fig community. But I won't get into that. I generally pull out the popcorn and watch the fireworks as an observer.

Fortunately for me, I was able attain a single 10 inch cutting from a generous friend and I'm very grateful for it. 3/9/16.

To maximize my chances of success I made 2 node cuts for grafting onto hardy PNW rootstocks and bagged up the rest for rooting. I hear they are aggressive growers which is great news and probably be the thing that helps drives prices down for this fig.

Here's the graft cut.

And this is the final product using buddy tape.

And of course the bagged up cutting. Labelled with love and ready to go.

Update: 4/26/16
6 weeks later