Now that is a torture ! it is still cold in Canada you know.

The Black Madiera (DFIC 144) was donated on 15 January 1988 by C. Todd Kennedy of the CRFG to the NCGR. He sourced it from a collector in California as I understand it. Jon or others may have more of the details of the history of this cultivar.

The ARS-GRIN.com web site lists the donation history for all the ficus carica accessions at the Davis NCGR. It also lists the actual molecular typing data/results for the DNA typed accessions. In the case of Black Madeira, 14 SSR loci were typed. The PCR primer sequences are also listed as well as the exact PCR reaction conditions. So, it would be very easy for any DNA typing lab to type any sample you provide them. I do not know if anyone has gotten a quote from any of the labs out there, but I bet it is fairly expensive. The costs are all up front for a typing lab. Assuming they have PCR machines and the proper electrophoresis equipment to resolve the DNA fragments generated in the PCR reactions, their costs are buying the plant DNA isolation kit, the PCR primers, the Taq polymerase to run the reactions and the labor. You can do dozens of typings from the original reagents purchased. As I said, all their major costs will be up front. Of course any cultivars found to be synonyms by DNA typing will generate a lot of debate about the resolution of the DNA typing and whether 2 synonyms are really the same. My personal approach is to not collect multiple synonyms by DNA typing even if others' experience is they believe they are different.

Anyone who knows more about the history of Black Madeira should feel free to jump in!

Closet related fig on the UcDavis DnA chart is Gazir maybe i mispelled the name its been a while since i last looked and have CRS.

DWD2 - there is some thread here by Sue in SD about the Madeira figs.  A lady who immigrated from Madeira is the source of the original 'Black Madeira' offered by the USDA repository at Davis.  Another lady from Madeira in the SD area is the source for Figo Preto (similar or identical to Black Madeira), Abebereira, and Figo Branca (which I assert should be named Figo Branco to use a masculine adjective with a masculine noun).

A friend of mine who works in the profession of a geneticist has offered some advice to the folks at the Davis USDA repository recently and she's visited my farm a couple of times.  We were talking recently when walking through my pomegranate orchard (about 70 varieties) and she said the technology exists to allow for easy and immediate field testing to verify varieties.  She has encouraged development of such equipment at her business meetings.  Would be interesting to use!

Great comment, HarveyC!  Talking about all fruits, in general, for variety-testing?

Yes, that's what she said.  She said that the technology has advanced without looking at applications on how folks in the field need tools to address their issues.  In our monoculture society of most ag, it's probably not much of an issue, but there are always mix-ups and it would be great to catch and eliminate those.

Harvey,

I would be pretty interested to learn what technology your friend is talking about. I do molecular genetics in my professional life. SSR (simple sequence repeats) is currently the typing that gives the most discrimination, most cost effectively for plants. I think I am fairly current, but I'm always ready to pick up something new as plants are my hobby and not my area of focus. i am not exactly sure what she means by field testing. If she is talking about walking up to a tree, clipping some leaf tissue and getting an ID in a few minutes on the spot, I do not think that is currently possible unless possibly in a very specialized case. Certainly all the cultivar typing for figs and all sorts of other cultivated plants that I am seeing in the current scientific literature are based on laboratory DNA testing methodologies with PCR based SSR typing being the by-far dominant method.

I do think we all will agree a cheap, quick way to type cultivars and stop fig name explosion would be a real help. Like a lot of DNA testing, differences observed by SSR typing demand that the two cultivars are different. But identity by SSR typing does not insure that two cultivars are the same. Even if you observed complete identity with total genome DNA sequencing, that does not mean that two plants derived from the same ancestor will be phenotypically identical. Epigenetic effects are well known in plants (but not studied in figs to my knowledge) and silencing a section of one chromosome can have a significant impact on a plant. Isn't complexity wonderful?

DWD2, my friend says that they do not have the technology/equipment yet, but it has been proposed and it certainly can be done.  They would rely on fewer markers than done in the lab.  Perhaps it's something that will get done in the next five years.  I don't understand much of the technical "stuff".

Black Madiera and Preto are still very much misunderstood. Some folks say Preto is a Black Madeira that ripens earlier and needs less heat. No one I know of has done much to test this yet. I'm going to keep 5 Preto and 5 Black Madeira in the exact same conditions here in VA in z 7 until I can get some idea of their relationship. I will post about it. 

I look forward to hearing about the comparisons in the future, Michael.  I have several Preto myself, and if it's similar enough, I'll never need a BM.

i should have BM putting out a fig or two this year, and Figo Preto possibly doing something. FP is much slower growing for me. i started BM as cutting last spring and FP as rooted 1 gal from a member. will find out in next few years as they mature.

Maybe growing them side by side might prove interesting.

If anyone has a spare Black Madiera to send my way, I'd be happy to try that too.  ;)

Gina, better update your wish list! ;)

I do have them both growing side by side.  But my BM is much larger.....a 4yr old tree.  My FP are in 5 gallon pots.  This year will be the year to see if they are related.  For those who never tasted a Black Maderia, to me...notice I said to me...it's in a class all by itself.  It has a superb amazing flavor.  But I also think Smith in a blind fold taste test could inch out Black Maderia!  But another amazing fig to taste is White Triana.  To me, it the sweetest fig I've ever tasted and Toni's Brown Italian is in a close second!  There are so many other figs out there that are just as good when picked at the ideal climate, temperature and ripeness. 

yes, it's a tortoue. i just have 6, 7, 8 or more months left to see if i can taste one.. so close.. yet so far away.

My baby BM has very deformed leaves and dark green spots! Should I let it live with its handicapness or should I destroy it- not to pass the virus to others?

all and any figs from UCD will have some sign of FMV. give it chance and see if it will grow out of it. my BM had that typical mosaic issue on the leaves, but they actually looked better than some others. leaves were not deformed and figs looked great, before i knocked 'em off.

HarveyC,

Are you referring to this post by SueV? If not, will you please point us to the post where she identifies a woman in San Diego as the source of the UCDavis Black Madeira? As I read your post, I got the sense that you were referring to the Preto of the Madeira Trinity (of Abebereira, Branca, and Preto); and not referring to Black Maderia. Hopefully, Sue will chime in to reconcile the information attributed to her.

Until a few days ago, I had Preto and Black Madeira side by side in a large trade pots. I can independently confirm what Dennis has noted and that is a) Madeira grows better here than does Preto, b) Preto grows slowly (not as slow as Coll de Dama), and I will add c) has not been cold hardy, and d) never fully ripened a fig (it tried unsuccessfully to ripen one). My hypothesis includes that my 8B climate crosses a humidity and rain threshold that is not acceptable Maderia and Preto to flourish. Madeira has ripened a few for me and the figs were not memorable.

FYI. I sampled Preto from the mother tree on a fig trek with Sue. Work brought me to Point Loma regularly and I eventually got to sample ripe fruits from each of them. Preto, from a mature tree like that, is in a class of its own. To date, Abebereira is also very good. It has shown to be more inclined to grow better here than Preto and Madeira.

For me it is a medium vigour fig that doesn't show the virus until mid-late summer (mid july to august) It is going into it's third year and it is about 3 feet tall (or would have been if I didn't try to take an air layer off the top)  I got 3 figs from it last year at the end of september to start of october, they were good, not too sweet, some distinctive flavour but only subtle, probably too cold for full flavour, but it was syrupy (like a watered down honey) and I am happy to grow it again and again even if I get a dozen figs this year (maybe more like 20) I will be happy to know that I will likely get 100 figs a year from it when the weather co-operates (it is in a 30 gallon tub now and may go into the 50-60 gallon later on)

I also trippled the fish fertilizer feed on it and that pushed it to really grow the first year and last year, I have 1 cutting for someone else and it shows the virus right away, mild, but still there so I hope it will survive.

JD, it took me a half hour of searching.  I've discussed this some with Sue and with Jon before and with so much going on, I get some things mixed up about where I read them and who said what.  Anyways, Forrest has also had discussions with Sue, etc. and posted this a while back http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/show_single_post?pid=1275837181&postcount=60  I'm too tired to do more searching, but you can write Sue or Jon for more details, if you want.

In this post of mine http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/show_single_post?pid=1276381654&postcount=16 I wrote some of the same after I had read some of the posts and had some of the communications, etc.  I don't remember all of the discussions but I remember Sue saying she wondered if maybe I and the lady with the Point Loma owner where you visited were related, but I won't publish why.  I'm pretty sure we are not.

maybe it's the east coast thing. it seems jd and dennis noticed the same thing as i did. Figo Preto grows slower here. as to whre the Black Madeira came from, i read somewhere that it came from some lady in CA somewhere and it has been in CA for last 50 yrs or more. it was collected by someone at CRFG and donated to UCD.