Another popular Smyrna type fig  known to be highly flavored/crunchy  and ideal to dry.
Name - Cara Lisa  or Belmandil

 
 
 
 
 

Francisco
Portugal

Your wasp service is doing a wonderful job. :).

The highly skilled free labor chefs you ever run across. They give their lives to bring us the best figs possible

Beautiful fig, Francisco.

This one is still missing from my collection. I know i still don't have the wasp over here, so i may be collecting these wonderful Smyrna types for nothing, but i'm hopeful.
The potted caprifig Code 2 has a few pollinated figs that look good and are growing well, but still no signs of the next crop to maintain the little wasps.

I sure don't want to bother you every year asking for Profichi with wasps. Besides that, with the climate differences they tend to mature too early and most of my Smyrna types are still not receptive at that time.


P.S. Regarding the Smyrna types - just curious... Any news on the Black Bursa?

They look wonderful Francisco.Hope we will trade more symnra types next season.It will be great to add such good looking symnra types into my collection. How about yours Turkish varieties?

Beautiful blue fig Francisco !! perfectly ripened, you know that we have fantastic figs here in Tunisia, but with this one  i am envious.. you don't seem to have problems with bird at your location.. Smyrna type?
Congratulations.

jamel.

Thanks very much to all of you for your sympathetic commenting on this fig.

@ figpig_66 .- Right! the little bugs really do a fantastic job !

@ Jaime .- Once gone that far on the Caprifig project, you should not give up... need more trees spread in the area and a continuous provision of Profichis at the best timing
Have a few Caprifigs rooted to be taken to you...
As for the Bursa... waitted too much and birds got there first... still a second chance but remote !!

@ ercan. - Yes next winter we shall look into it. The Turkish varieties are doing OK - Thank you

Thanks for the incentive and all the help with the Caprifig Project, Francisco. I appreciate it.

Regarding birds... This year i haven't placed my hawk silhouettes yet and the birds are attacking the unripe figs viciously, at the slightest hint of color change!

Even the caprifigs are being attacked. Some of those that were pollinated on my Code2 graft are changing color and they are pecking them. Will have to move quickly to save them and try to preserve some wasps.

 

Francisco,

"Hopefully there will be sufficient Mammonies with wasps  to warrant a colony or colonies of wasps to enter the winter figs once they become receptive."

That's my concern. I don't see new figs developing in my caprifigs (grafted or potted). If a winter crop isn't produced, the wasps that may exist in those Mammoni will have no where to lay their eggs, to close the cycle, and they will be lost. Could they 'jump' to the younger, less developed, Mammoni?

Here's my grafted Caprifig Code 2 now:

 

Is the winter crop of Code 2 developing in Algarve already?

I know that over here everything is almost a month later, but last year i had no winter crop (off course, the caprifigs were much less developed then)

Jaime,
Although being always of very limited crops, then not easy to spot,  Mammonies keep an almost steady  (but very limited ) flow of wasps among Caprifigs, from August through October... when the first receptive Mamme show up  .Climate will dictate if one only crop of Mammoni is enough or if better 'make' an additional crop to grow to shelter the insects..
Have read somewhere that some of these 2nd Mammoni crop will persist on the years' wood and carry on through winter behaving just like Mamme.
On your questing regarding the Mamme crop the answer is no.. still too soon for the winter figs  they will button up by the second half of October.

Francisco

That's reassuring, Francisco. I do have some small Mammoni still growing. If they behave like a second crop maybe they can hold the insects until the Mamme finally appear (i hope they do, this year).

I checked the graft today and there's definitively more Mammoni maturing and looking quite edible.

Last year, i opened one of these pollinated Mammoni and the inside was just like an edible fig.

 
   

I don't suppose these 'edible types' can hold developing wasps with all that juicy and moist interiors?

So, where are the wasps larvae? Inside the Mammoni that don't ripe this way? Those tend to change color and fall off mid development.

It's quite puzzling...

Well.. Now you have proof that some wasp (s) did what they are supposed to do
They brought in pollen into this fruit,  sufficient to have so many female flowers to ripen and show those 'appetizing'  juices..
I am sure there will be developing wasps inside on some galls...their job inside that pool will not be easy..
Other Mammonies in this tree may behave differently. Nevertheless they will always have more or less female flowers.
BTW . what caprifig is this ??

Francisco

If the wasps can get out of that sea of syrup they are extraordinary insects.

That caprifig is the Code 2 you sent me. This year a few Mammoni are are also ripening in the same way. The birds have eaten the first one completely, so here's an unripe one (probably 1-2 weeks before fully ripe) that i sacrificed to see inside.

   
 
   

Hi Jaime..
This is progress. Confirmed caprification of these Mammonies which will give you  enough  fertile seeds you may decide to germinate. In the pictures, the pulp you see plenty of long pistillate flowers which are easily identified by their lengthy pistills and these will prove the fertile seeds (already there) ... and there are also several of the modified short pistill with larvae inside.
If we keep pushing I am confident that soon you may have your own wasp squadrons !
Francisco

Thanks for all the help with this project, Francisco.
I will follow your advice and will try to germinate some seeds so that, with luck, i can disperse a few more caprifigs in adequate places, nearby.

Can you guys taste the larvae in there?  Just curious ...

schang,

Caprifigs are usually dry and inedible, but those Mammoni last year were extremely similar to a good ripe fig. When i opened them, i searched around for immature larvae and didn't see any.

I tasted one of the Mammoni and it was good, despite being a big watery (i had several weeks of rain in late September and that explains it), but no larvae taste to speak about. 
Considering that most flowers inside those Mammoni have long pistills and the short pistill one's, where the wasps can lay their eggs, are in smaller numbers, the eventual larvae inside will probably go unnoticed, anyway.

Regarding pollinated non-caprifigs, the wasps can't lay eggs in their long pistillate flowers (the only one's inside non-caprifigs), so there are no larvae inside them.

Thanks.  For non-caprifigs, these wasps will die in there though.  We do not have fig wasp here, but other bugs can get in there and lay eggs as well, like spotted wing drosophila.  I usually pop the whole thing in my mouth, if the eye is closed or very small.  But if the fig is large with open eye big enough, I'd cut it open before I eat.  For what it is worth, I do not think I can detect any taste of these bugs/larvae because I am sure some of them passed my visual inspection without being detected.

Jaime,
I wonder what happened to a  black Caprifig shown in this forum with a Spanish name  (Cuervo Oscuro -?) - precisely when sporting its Mammoni colors and juices.. just like yours, this fruit also had a lot of female flowers.
As you know this is the exception.. not the rule! .  Mammonies usually carry 'a few' female flowers, - some authors even mention .. around a dozen ! It would be interesting to find out how good  was the recent Profichi crop of this CO.

Francisco
Portugal

Excellent information and by the way, excellent photography with your macro lenses!

schang,
Fortunately the bugs that lay eggs in fruits over here seem to prefer other fruits. Until know figs are not affected in a significative way, so we can have the pleasure of eating them whole without inspecting every one (and you are right, some fruit fly larvae can pass a visual inspection anyway)


Francisco,

I would also be interesting to know, Francisco. I have 2 spanish caprifigs, 'De Perilla' (Sierra de la Contraviesa) y 'Las Cruces' (Extremadura) but they are still small and no fruits yet (maybe next year).

These Code 2 Mammoni have much more female flowers than they should (really an exception, as you say). I have some ripening like the one i showed and the others seem to be shriveling and falling (not very reassuring, regarding my objective)

Tony,
I have a very good macro lens in my Nikon, but i'm lazy to carry it and switch lenses, so all those macro photos are taken with the Macro Mode of my Compact Camera (Olympus).