I always enjoy hearing about forum members and assume others feel the same. While traveling last week in Utah I had the pleasure of meeting F4F member Tom King (aka bluesguy) and some of his fig trees at the charter school where he works. I lived in Salt Lake City about a quarter-century ago and never would have believed it was possible to grow figs there in the ground, but Tom has them thriving all along the front of his school, as well as at his home. I was particularly interested in an unidentified old tree he has mentioned previously on the forum (http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/Unknown-White-pruned...-3913289

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/Trying-to-identify-a-fig-variety...-3620800),

so we drove a few blocks to take a look. It is situated at the top of a steep stairway, high above the street, growing against a house where it gets some cold protection. He calls it “A” Street after the address where it’s located. We helped ourselves to several ripe, mildly sweet brebas (he knows the residents) and he gave me a spare rooted cutting to see how well it likes Tucson. We also stopped by another house with a probable Brown Turkey; he also knows of several other in-ground figs in the area.

Looks a bit like Green Italian 1906

Mike   central NY state, zone 5 

Ken,

This is a really nice post!  Thanks for sharing!  Good luck with your latest acquisition!

Suzi

Ken,

It's always nice to see a fig enthusiast growing figs outdoors where they're not supposed to make it.  Thanks for posting.

Hey, Ken

Do you know if those figs' stems have an unusually strong attachment to the tree when ripe and form a drop of honey/resin in the eye?

Thanks all.

Ruben, if I remember right, it did seem like those brebas hung on pretty tight. Tom mentioned that they often get a honey-like drop in the eye, which dries and can get a little chewy--although I didn't notice any on the couple that I sampled.

Sounds like my Kadota. Bought it at a local Lowes in Jan 2010 as a Black Mission. Figured out it was a Kadota.

Ruben, that looks pretty likely. The only difference I can see is that your Kadota figs have a much longer stem, however, I don't have enough experience yet to know whether that characteristic can vary much from tree to tree in different climates. Does yours produce a lot of brebas? I have a young (2 year) Kadota that is just starting to develop a few main crop figs, but it hasn't had any brebas yet. I'll see how much A-Street resembles it when they're both growing in the same location.

Ken this tree has been very variable over the years. It produced breba fruit in 2010 with short stems. The main crop that year was more flattened and almost no stem. Color was light green. Kadota/Dottato's variability based on location is well documented in Condit's Fig Varieties. In 2011 it was frost killed to the ground and this past Winter it was killed to one short trunk. It does grow back very fast and produces a main crop. This year the stems are longer than in the past.  Here are some of its faces:

Great pics Ken. By Ruben's pics, looks like a match.



luke

Very nice pics (and a good story too).  Both sets of pics have me still wondering if the Green Italian 1906 in Jon's "Varieties" site pages is also Kadota/Dottato.   (Or at least something very close... after all what we choose to identify as a cultivar versus individual variation within a cultivar can sometimes be a little bit arbitrary).  Do you guys think Green Italian 1906 is same as Kadota/Dottato?

Mike

Mike,

Looking at the variety page for '1906, I don't think so. Too many differences. Pulp color, texture and appearance; checking on skin; eye color, auricles on basal lobes; stem thickness; hollow cores; ribbing (on both immature and ripe figs), etc.

I have no experience with Green Italian (and very little with Kadota), so I can't offer much, other than comparing A-Street to my Kadota in a couple of years. Speaking just for myself, it's easy to jump to conclusions. I had a white unknown from a cutting I took from a neighbor's tree, and ended up giving it away away because I was "pretty sure" it was a Kadota and I didn't feel like using space on duplications. However, now that I've had more time to watch my Kadota, the two don't seem very similar. I was also pretty sure that my Georgiafig White Hybrid Unknown was really a Conadria--last year the trees, growing next to each other, looked identical, but this year they're very different. I guess all this means is that with hundreds of known varieties out there, and who knows how many unnamed trees, fig identification is pretty confusing!

I have a couple of Kadota 1 (DFIC 0066 from NCGR in Davis, CA) and it seems different to me than the "A Street" fig. The trees are young, but so are several of the ones from A street. Anyway, maybe the Kadota 1 fig is not the same as other Kadota figs, I don't know.

Tom, that's the same Kadota I have, so I guess that answers the question.