Thanks to Francisco, after a couple of years i was able to taste a few Inchários Branco e Preto in my zone.

I don't have the figs wasp over here, so when i rooted and grafted a few Smyrna varieties it was a gamble as i could never taste a single fig  without some exterior help.

After 2 years the grafts were big enough to produce a few figs that would drop unless pollinated. Francisco has sent me a few mature Profichi in early June.

   

I hanged them near the grafts of Inchários inside a net.

   

The Inchário figs were still very small but, hopefully, a few would be already receptive. I couldn't wait any more as the Caprifigs in Algarve were giving its last Profichi full of pollen and wasps.

Inchário Branco (these were the biggest figs i had in the grafts at the time - June, 10)
 
Inchário Preto
 

The same figs after a couple of months - August, 15

Inchário Branco

     

Inchário Preto
     

3 days later a few started to look ready to pick.

 
 

A few photos of a few mature figs.

         
       
Being a first crop i believe they haven't shown me their full flavors. Nevertheless, the richness of the pulp, the complexity of the flavors and crunchiness of the small almond like seeds made the whole experience extremely worthwhile (those that i picked later in August were even better tasting).

I hope i can repeat it next year and in the future install and stabilize a colony of local wasps so i can appreciate these precious figs every year.

Thanks again for all your help. Francisco.

Congratulations Jaime! Thank you for sharing that nice set of pictures as well as the close descriptions.
That's a fine job what you have accomplish
Let's keep a close follow up  and pushing for establishing those colonies of insects on your various Caprifigs.
Some will develop better than  others but with a bit of good luck and weather helping, feel that in a few years the system will hopefully work entirely by itself.
Meanwhile will provide all support you need.
All the best

Francisco

Amazing job.

Congratulations Jaime. All of that hard work is finally paying off. Good job.

Great work.
I've never tried this but after your successful experiment I'm tempted to keep my Bursa tree.
Perhaps Francisco could shed some light on the lowest temperature those wasps could survive at and whether they would be available the following season if a Caprifig was available in Zone 8b.

Thank You

Congratulations Jaime, these are very encouraging results! I hope you will have a permanent wasp colony soon.

Hi,
This is called obstinacy !
Nice that it worked.
IMO, in the long run, having the bugs send from your south will be easier.
As you're in a zone not suitable for the wasp, all it would take is a single stronger winter to kill your local colony.
But with the global warming and a greenhouse ... Who knows !

Good job!

I think you have a good climate for the Blastophaga, in Italy and other european countries this insect thrives in areas much colder than your zone.
The most important thing is to have as much receptive caprifigs as possible to ensure the colonization.

Nice work guys ! and great photos. Cant wait to see your follow-up post.

Thanks for all the nice comments and best wishes of success with my project.

Before i reply to some of the questions, a few more photos of late August (27th) pollinated Inchários Branco e Preto. These were even better tasting than the first one's i picked in mid August.

 

    


 

   
 

jdsfrance,

The problem with asking someone to send me Profichi every year (besides the inconvenience - thanks again, Francisco) is that when those caprifigs are mature in Algarve (much warmer zone than mine), over here some of my Smyrna varieties are still not receptive.

For instance, i have Bardacik and Sarilop (3 year trees) and they have never matured a fig. When the little figs start to appear, the mature Profichi have ended in the warmer zones, several weeks before. So it would be impossible to receive them in time for adequate pollination of these later varieties. If all fails, i can always try to place them in a greenhouse so they develop a few weeks before, tough. 

So, my best best is to try and install some caprifigs and see if they can sustain the 3 crops with wasps inside. If there's an exceptional cold year and the wasps die, with mature caprifigs trees i can always restart the process much more easily. But the main advantage i see, is that the caprifigs will probably adapt to my conditions and delay their crops. If they delay the Profichi crop i will have a better chance of pollinating these late developing varieties.

And i can always keep some caprifigs in pots in a sheltered location or greenhouse to give a few wasps more chance of surviving a colder winter.


Sas,
I also have Bursa Black (too young to have figs yet). In the coming years we will see if i can mature a few of them. If i were you i would try to pollinate them, as i did.

Fico,
I don't see why the wasps won't survive over here. In Spain they have wasps in locations that have much lower winter temperatures than mine. But they also have much warmer summers. That can probably affect the crop cycle of the caprifigs (i still have to see a winter crop in my grafts - but they are still young, so there's still hope). I have several different caprifigs varieties (from Portugal and Spain - still don't have any from Italy). They are in pots and some are grafted. I will be planting a few in the ground this year.

I think the diversity in crop maturity of each one of these varieties is key to a successful project. If a few fail, the other's will serve as backup. In a few years, i will see which one's adapt better over here. 

Interesting, my UKN Pastilliere already produced it's first wave of pollinated figs last month.There is a new crop emerging will they ripen? Hmmm

A side effect of placing Profichi full of wasps and pollen near my Smyrna types is that some of the Common figs seem also pollinated. 
Here's a graft of Coll de Dama Roja done on a sucker of my grafted adult tree with the Inchários. The bag of Profichi is on a branch of Inchário Preto but the Coll de Dama Roja figs are just a couple of feet away.

Here's the Coll de Dama Roja (Pons) in June,26
 
And in August, 29

 
   
The figs are much bigger than i expected (here's one in the middle of the Inchários)

   

When i opened them, the seeds seem full. 

   
I have yet to see if they sink to confirm they were pollinated, but they were extremely juicy and jammy.


Since it's a first crop (it's a graft with 1,5 years), i have no point of comparison. Anyone has photos of Coll de Dama Roja pulp so i can see how they usually look?

brianm,

I have heard good things taste wise of UKN Pastilliere. In the future, if i am successful in installing the wasps here, it sure is one variety i will consider adding to my collection.

Hi Jaime

Finalmente as vespitas do Liceu -  did it right -  !
What have you done ?? I am curious. They seemed to have lived much longer than expected..or am I wrong ?
That CDD Roja seems a great one!
Talking of fig wasps in cold areas ...
had lost track of the info  but found it now.
a forum fellow member in Bulgaria (Pen)  in zone 6a does caprify his figs and showed his trees and local wasps males and females ..here :..
https://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/in-search-for-caprifigs-6692018

Great job Jaime!
keep on doing the good work
Francisco

I must've missed the post about Zone 6a wasps. Francisco, Thank You for bringing this one to our attention again.

Just repotted my Oakleigh and Purple Capri figs.

Had them sitting in tiny pots for the past couple of years neglected while wondering what to do with them.
Although, I ended up discarding a few Smyrna type trees that I had, I'm glad that I kept those Capri fig plants.
I will try to duplicate your experiment in my zone 8b in the next couple of years as soon as those newly repotted trees put out some figs and providing that I could get some Profishi when the time is right.

I have a Zidi that I would like to try this technique on.  

A stupid question for y'all:

Can we manually pollinate those caprifigs using a thin wire or something similar like an air brush ? Given that a lot of forum members pot their fig plants, the amount of figs need to be pollinated can not be that much of a work? I would not suggest to do this commercially, just for fun though.  If it makes sense, I may try it on my Desert King main crop later on.  The question is when is the proper time you can do this thing?

Also, can you do it on common figs among themselves without a caprifig?

Francisco,

You are right. I am amazed at the quantity of figs that were pollinated. Much more than i would have expected since only a handful of each variety appeared to have reached enough size to be receptive when i placed the Profichi near them.

Since the Caprifig variety you sent me was different from the one you sent last year, that could be a factor.
Last year, with the Caprifig Code 2, i saw much more wasps doing the actual pollination, but that seemed to have lasted only a few days, and only a few Smyrna figs had enough size to be pollinated at the time.









Some of these figs were so small that the wasps seem quite big in the photos (very misleading). By the size of the wasps in the next photos you can see just how small these figs were.








Here's a photo that shows their true size (the figs are smaller than a fingernail):




In this photo the wings of the wasps that entered the figs are visible (they lost the wings because they have to squeeze themselves to be able to enter between the scales of the ostiole)




Last year, in the first few days since i placed the Profichi, the wasps were so many that they had to compete to enter a fig.





When i opened those Profichi i also was able to see lots of active wasps running around. They all seemed to have developed at the same time.


This year this new Caprifig variety seemed much less prolific (see photo in the first message). When i opened a couple of caprifigs, it was difficult to see a single wasp ready to leave the fig.
But, although i didn't saw any wasps pollinating the figs, i did a few macros and reviewing the photos they showed some wings in the ostiole (and sometimes a dead wasp that couldn't get in), so i confirmed that they did their job.
And they did it along a couple of weeks





So, it seems that the main difference, this year, is the extended time in which the wasps developed inside the Profichi, probably leaving with pollen for,
at least, a couple of weeks, giving the Smyrna types enough time to develop to a receptive stage.

You have to send me a few cuttings of this Caprifig variety to add to my collection :-)

 The wasps even allowed me to mature the second crop of Lampa Preta (a San Pedro variety) for the first time. I have only the following 3 photos, but almost all those figs matured perfectly, unlike the previous years. And they sure are worth it.

     

schang,

You probably are asking if it's possible to pollinate some Smyrna type with pollen taken from a Caprifig (Profichi crop). The answer is yes, but it's difficult to do. There are some techniques, some involving blowing the pollen inside the fig to be pollinated. The problem is getting enough pollen inside to do the job correctly. The greater the number of flowers that get pollinated inside the fig, the bigger the fig will get (it can even burst, if there is too much pollen available - and can happen when too many wasps get inside a fig carrying pollen)

You need the Caprifigs and the Profichi crop (usually matures around June) to do the job, because it's the only one that produces pollen, so you can't use Common fig to pollinate Common figs.

Hi Jaime,
Thank you for those details describing the pollination sequences of the last 2 seasons
I believe to have packed, on both occasions, a mix of 'ripe /soft  and about ripe/ still a bit hard Profichis ' so...
you had, on arrival and after that poor CTT performance keeping the packs undelivered for a couple of days...plenty of insects were ready to get into the Smyrnas, which I am confident were entering at their receptive mode.
It's very difficult to keep track of the wasps and when we say.. none were near the figs... I didn't see any etc-- this is a wrong assumption!  When we not looking, in our backs they keep pushing and doing what they are there for!
One only insect will be enough , getting inside a receptive fig, to pollinate it
Also noticed that around the fig' eyes on your pictures there were not much pollen grains .. this meaning that there were not an excessive number of insects.. and this is fine.
OK you tell me when you intend to receive a few scions from this season Caprifig (Liceu)
As suggested before,  next season need   to plan a swift move to have the ripe Profichi fruit near the Smyrnas with the shortest delay
Francisco

Hi Francisco,

I know that you placed a mix of figs in different mature states in both occasions. What i believe was the problem, last year, was that the batch of less ripe one's was stored in the fridge (vegetable drawer) for a few days, in an attempt to prolong the pollination period... And when i took them out of the fridge, i didn't see a single wasp coming out of the figs, the following days/weeks. Maybe the cold was too much and stopped their development.

This time i didn't do that mistake and all the Profichi were placed near the trees simultaneously so, being in different ripening stages, the wasps could do their job for a much longer period.

>>It's very difficult to keep track of the wasps and when we say.. none were near the figs...
I know. They did their job this year and i didn't noticed. I was just compairing with last year.
The shear number of wasps leaving the Profichi was impossible to overlook, as the following photo from last year shows..

 

For comparison, i didn't see a single wasp leaving the Profichi this year (not one).


>>One only insect will be enough , getting inside a receptive fig, to pollinate it

Seeing the amount of pollen one single wasp can carry on their body when they leave the Profichi, i have no doubt that a single one can pollinate a fig.

 

When we exchange cuttings i will remind you of the Caprifig (Liceu). Thanks.

I will try to give my potted Smyrnas a jump start next year (in my new improvised greenhouse), so they have a better chance of being ready when the Profichi season arrives over there.

Usually, only Caprifigs have male flowers. And, only Caprifigs produce viable pollen in their Profichi crop. So, the answer is yes. You do need Caprifigs to provide pollens for the DK main crop. I have Lampa Preta (also a San Pedro) and this year i could taste the second crop because they were pollinated by the Profichi pollen.