I am sitting in the Sacramento Airport as I write this. I spent almost 7 hours in the germplasm field collection today, photographing one half of the collection. I know, it's a tough job, but someone had to do it. Unfortunately, I had to taste more than 150 figs today, and it spoiled my dinner. (Remember what your mother used to say about between meal snacks!!) I took over a thousand pictures, and hopefully will have enough decent images to display nearly the entire collection.
The collection is divided into two parts, each one a duplicate of the other, though some trees are missing in each half. There is an incredible diversity of tree types. Some are a foot in diameter, which others barely survive. Some are short, and others gargantuan. It has been a hot summer in Davis, and most of the trees were near the end of their season, though a few have not started to ripen, when this should have been somewhere close to the middle of the season.The curator of the collection says this is one of their worst seasons ever (no big surprise since I had a visit scheduled - inherited family ability to put a monkey wrench in things without even trying, which has provided some amusing moments over the years. If you manage to always find the slowest checkout line at the grocery store, you have a slight understanding of the problem.) However, any day at USDA/UC Davis is a good day. AND it beats fishing!
I had an opportunity to sample most of the numbered accessions, and there are some surprisingly good ones which need to be discovered and propagated. As expected, the caprifigs lack moisture and flavor.
When I have time I will post the pictures over the coming weeks, as a Figs 4 Fun exclusive.
I also met Ken Love, from the University of Hawaii, who was, likewise there to photograph the collection as part of a project to bring more fig varieties to Hawaii (they have three currently, headlined by Brown Turkey). Not sure where this connection will lead, but holds some interesting possibilities (maybe another tough assignment, this time in Hawaii).