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Question about Encanto Farms Excell

Jon, I just ran across this post from a 2007 thread about Hollier:

Posted 01/05/08 #18 
gorgi,

That is what is so frustrating, sometimes. Did you screw up (mislabel, swap cuttings, mix up tags, etc? Did the person sending the wood to you screw up (mislabeled, from wrong tree, mixed up wood), or did the person your donor got their wood from screw up? And so on, for the past 100 years, or more. Or were the descriptions made by someone who screwed up somewhere, or always had the wrong wood with the "right" name? That is the point of all the pictures I take. Whether correctly labeled or not, I KNOW what it looks like - and hopefully someone comes along at some point and says "this doesn't look right" or "it doesn't look like my so-and-so". And then there is the whole cultural/environmental affect that makes them look different in different places.

My Excel definitely doesn't look like the one at USDA/UC Davis - so I guess I collect some more excel cutting, and try to determine which one is the "real deal". The one I have is still a great fig, but I wonder if it is really "Excel".
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While this may be common knowledge to others, I was unaware that your Excell, accession 2305, was different than UCD's Excell. When it fruited for me for the first time last year the fruits did not resemble what I'd read about Excell and I wondered if I had mislabeled my cuttings or otherwise screwed some things up. I also have a labeled Vista Mission that came as cuttings from you the same year as the Excell that resembles Excell 2305 - I am now sure I managed to mislabel that one, all due to a nasty windstorm a few years ago that blew plants out of pots, scattered many labels and disappeared others, leading to some confusion for somebody who did not then have a properly generated list of his figs. Anyway, thanks to that post I now understand the mystery of my Excell. The doubly good news is that I picked up cuttings of Excell from a CRFG exchange in January that I expect is the UCD variety - the leaves seem a better match for that Excell at this point in their young lives.

Now that I've digressed for a period, I can get to my question: Have you or anybody else ID's Excell 2305 as another variety at this point? I expect not, as it still appears in the F4F Varieties pages, but I thought I'd ask anyway.
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The Excel accession 2305 is not Excel.    Jon has the whole story, but here is what I remember.   Look at this link showing photos of Excel and this fig http://figs4fun.com/Thumbnail_Excel.html     You will notice that the leaves and fruit are quite different.    Jon received that fig labeled as "Excel" but it is obviously not the true Excel.   I thought that it might be Igo, but according to Jon's observations it is not, even though there are similarities.   It also looks like Falls Gold but is different.

I have not eaten a fig from it yet, but am hopeful that it will produce this year.   I think that it is a very attractive fig plant.   The leaves are a unique shape, more whole with shorter lobes. 

Ingevald
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Don't have any more light on this one yet.

May get to compare it with the Excel from Dave Wilson this year (which I am assuming originated at USDA/UC Davis) and thus how the USDA compares when not caprified.
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I wanted to ask for sometime now but didnt think its worth a topic- i am trying to root an excell cutting and out of 4 cuttings non rooted yet. had also tried before to no success

I realy want to grow this variety-is it known to be hard to root?
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UCD Excel was not hard to root. i rooted 4 and kept 2. both moved into 1 gal and doing fine.
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Thanks to all who posted. Your answers were what I expected but I held out some hope that somebody might have put an ID to Excel 2305. It's a good fig, sweet with some richness, and it was among my more productive figs last year. It's also a good grower for me. 
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eli - i have few air layers i set on my excel. if one of them will be ready in 3 weeks i might be able to send it to you
i will pm you later
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