Jolly Rancher From The Fig Hunter

Italian4u

Italian4u

Well-known member
So my Jolly Rancher which I sourced directly from the fig hunter website year one dropped all of its figs. It grew real nice and I finalized it shape year one. It produced allot of figs but dropped them all. Year two I got 4 types of figs off the tree. I would say there were equal in quantities as 25% of the fruits still dropped, 25% ripened to a yellow inside and tasted terrible, 25% ripened to like a rose color inside allot like a Campaniere interior but the photo I posed doesn’t capture that as well as I have seen…sorry for that but it’s taste was watery and lacking, then 25% ripened to red interior and were actually good. The 25% that ripened red inside you can tell would be better as the tree ages. This year it will be going into its third year and I’m hoping a higher percentage of them will ripen red inside. All my fruits were not caprified at all so photos are of uncaprified fruits. You can tell the red ones if they were caprified would be more intense in size and flavor. It is a highly productive variety I would say in my top 3 along with Ronde De Bordeaux and my San Daniele. I do believe that Jolly Rancher is one of those varieties that needs a handful of seasons growing to really pump out the good figs so I will not pass final judgement until my tree has reached its 5th season. At that point I will make a decision on if the juice really is worth the squeeze on this variety. Figs generally can be between 20-30 grams uncaprified. It’s not a massive fig but the ones that ripened red were tasty little bombs that I will say did have that Jolly Rancher tang of acid which was nice. My tree was grown in a 7 gallon fabric grow bag facing south in a micro climate here in the Chicagoland area zone 6A and formally 5B. This year it will get placed on a drip system and fertilization will stay the same as previous years. Hopefully the continuous watering will help it out more so there should be no excuses for it to not perform well for me. I’ve attached photos of the types of figs it ripened. The figs it dropped I did not take any pictures of but use your imagination lol. 😂
 

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danssale11 said:
Cool. I'm in Chicagoland as well. 5B. Do you find growing them in grow bag dries the soil quicker needing freq watering
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I grow exclusively in air pruning pots and grow bags. My heart is with the air pruning pots but grow bags I can stack so when winter comes grow bags are easier for stacking purposes otherwise if I could stack for air pruning pots all my trees would be in air pruning pots 100%. Both dry out faster than a standard pot but I will be installing a drip system this year so those issues should technically go away. Did a watering experiment last year and generally from pots 7-10 gallons they like about a gallon of water daily give or take for spring, summer, and fall. They like that amount of water distributed to them evenly every 6 hours. So a 1/4 gallon 6am, noon, 6pm, and midnight will be my regimen. I was doing it with hand watering but with as many trees as I have I was like forget that. To me them drying out in between waterings is a good thing. Helps prevent anaerobic conditions that solid pots can sometimes have.
 
When you say terrible what did amber ones taste like? Bitter? Water? Something else? Could you tell if they were breba or what
 
snarfing said:
When you say terrible what did amber ones taste like? Bitter? Water? Something else? Could you tell if they were breba or what
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No Breba as all my trees get a buzz cut in fall. If the tree produces Breba period I do not know because of the pruning I do. Everything I posted was main crop. Yellow ones tasted like trash, the rose ones were just watery, the red ones tasted like a weak version of a cherry jolly rancher which I can see with time being better and with clarification being dead on with a cherry jolly rancher.
 
@Italian4u Do you make notes of which trees are in which spot in your yard? Do you try to keep them in the same exact spot year over year, or do you take them out of the garage and where they end up is where they stay for the season?
 
RedSkip said:
@Italian4u Do you make notes of which trees are in which spot in your yard? Do you try to keep them in the same exact spot year over year, or do you take them out of the garage and where they end up is where they stay for the season?
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I keep notes here things go. It helps me identify varities that require low light to set and ripen good fruit and those that need max light. They are all facing south so they get the most amount of light possible but I have high density with the varieties I have so some get shaded out just a little bit but they all still get way more sun than anything that would not be facing south.
 
Italian4u said:
I grow exclusively in air pruning pots and grow bags. My heart is with the air pruning pots but grow bags I can stack so when winter comes grow bags are easier for stacking purposes otherwise if I could stack for air pruning pots all my trees would be in air pruning pots 100%. Both dry out faster than a standard pot but I will be installing a drip system this year so those issues should technically go away. Did a watering experiment last year and generally from pots 7-10 gallons they like about a gallon of water daily give or take for spring, summer, and fall. They like that amount of water distributed to them evenly every 6 hours. So a 1/4 gallon 6am, noon, 6pm, and midnight will be my regimen. I was doing it with hand watering but with as many trees as I have I was like forget that. To me them drying out in between waterings is a good thing. Helps prevent anaerobic conditions that solid pots can sometimes have.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I may need to consider grow bags. I grow carrots in my grow bags but requires freq watering
 
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Italian4u said:
I keep notes here things go. It helps me identify varities that require low light to set and ripen good fruit and those that need max light. They are all facing south so they get the most amount of light possible but I have high density with the varieties I have so some get shaded out just a little bit but they all still get way more sun than anything that would not be facing south.
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Thanks for review, i have cuttings sourced from you off figbid. The red ones look very good. Appreciate all your doing in the fig community too
 
Italian4u said:
So my Jolly Rancher which I sourced directly from the fig hunter website year one dropped all of its figs. It grew real nice and I finalized it shape year one. It produced allot of figs but dropped them all. Year two I got 4 types of figs off the tree. I would say there were equal in quantities as 25% of the fruits still dropped, 25% ripened to a yellow inside and tasted terrible, 25% ripened to like a rose color inside allot like a Campaniere interior but the photo I posed doesn’t capture that as well as I have seen…sorry for that but it’s taste was watery and lacking, then 25% ripened to red interior and were actually good. The 25% that ripened red inside you can tell would be better as the tree ages. This year it will be going into its third year and I’m hoping a higher percentage of them will ripen red inside. All my fruits were not caprified at all so photos are of uncaprified fruits. You can tell the red ones if they were caprified would be more intense in size and flavor. It is a highly productive variety I would say in my top 3 along with Ronde De Bordeaux and my San Daniele. I do believe that Jolly Rancher is one of those varieties that needs a handful of seasons growing to really pump out the good figs so I will not pass final judgement until my tree has reached its 5th season. At that point I will make a decision on if the juice really is worth the squeeze on this variety. Figs generally can be between 20-30 grams uncaprified. It’s not a massive fig but the ones that ripened red were tasty little bombs that I will say did have that Jolly Rancher tang of acid which was nice. My tree was grown in a 7 gallon fabric grow bag facing south in a micro climate here in the Chicagoland area zone 6A and formally 5B. This year it will get placed on a drip system and fertilization will stay the same as previous years. Hopefully the continuous watering will help it out more so there should be no excuses for it to not perform well for me. I’ve attached photos of the types of figs it ripened. The figs it dropped I did not take any pictures of but use your imagination lol. 😂
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Sounds like a very interesting variety. Looking forward to hearing more about it as it matures more.
 
danssale11 said:
This might be a silly question. But I'm new to figs. The jolly rancher tastes like jolly rancher or it's just a name
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The Fig Hunter named it I believe because of how close its flavor resembles a jolly rancher candy. I’m sure that description is after he ate them in California where those figs got caprified. In the red ones on a second year fruit it had hints of it and I could see with more age and possibly caprification that flavor would be gosh darn close.
 
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