last year i visited a backyard nursery in vista california. the owner was an old-timer. he told me had a nice carica with a fancy leaf shape, but despite trying numerous times, he could never get it to grow from cuttings. when he showed it to me i was like, well yeah, it's johannis.
i also tried and failed to grow my johannis from cuttings. it's kinda interesting when you think about it. johannis has a relatively wide natural distribution, so we'd expect to see some decent variation, which means that some varieties have to be slightly less challenging to grow from cuttings. maybe back 10,000 years or so, it stands to reason that the best tasting johannis varieties with the largest figs, that grew the easiest from cuttings, were the ones that people spread around. birds ate the figs, distributed the seeds, and the seedlings with the biggest and best tasting figs, that were easiest to grow from cuttings, were spread even more by people. and voila, we have carica!
not really "voila" though, more like some arbitrary threshold. while caricas generally grow way easier from cuttings than johannis, it can't be the case that all caricas grow equally easy from cuttings. but in 10,000 years the caricas will grow so easy from cuttings they will make our current caricas seem like johannis.
people in the middle ages were too dumb to realize that they were in the middle ages. it's funny because we're always in the middle ages.
on instagram i mentioned to a botanist about johannis being difficult from cuttings. he said that the trick is to use smaller stems. i haven't tested this out but it seems reasonable. personally, when i want more johannis i just graft it onto carica.
the selection pressure when it comes to fig size and taste is deliberate, unlike how easily a plant grows from cuttings. we don't deliberately select for caricas that grow easier from cuttings. we just try to grow lots of different caricas from cuttings, and the better and faster rooters get spread around more.
inadvertent selection is kinda fascinating. each time i try to pull a weed, and i only manage to detach the stem above the root crown, but i'm too lazy to dig up the rest of it, i fully appreciate that i'm inadvertently helping to select for more annoying weeds.
also in the category of inadvertent selection, is the selection of caricas that do better with regular irrigation. we're impatient and want more figs faster, so we water more. the thirstier caricas are not weeded out. instead, they grow faster and their cuttings are spread around more. in theory, caricas in general should be significantly thirstier than johannis. if this counts as a real difference, then i lied when i said that there's only one real difference between them.
recently @"Figology"#21 donated 21 caricas in 15 gallon pots for my public fig forest that i started earlier in the year. woohoo! my plan is to graft male johannis to all of them so that there will be more variation in drought tolerance among the seeds dispersed by birds and coyotes, which will facilitate faster adaptation to local conditions. but i imagine that random people will see the stems with fancy leaves and try to cut them to take home to try and grow. they will never know why they failed, unless they happen to find this thread. yeah, i should try to hide the fig trees as much as possible so that the grafted johannis stems get large enough where a few cuttings won't make much of a difference.
no idea how much community support would be needed to turn an informal fig forest into a formal one. main street would have a huge banner "home to the largest fig forest incalifornia the world!" people would travel from all over the world to visit it. they would marvel at the incredible variety and diversity of all the different figs. the smartest people would only take a tiny bite of a fig so that they could make an informed decision whether to eat the entire thing or save the rest for the seeds. i love/hate that dilemma. the better a fruit tastes, the more you want to eat it, but the more you should abstain from doing so in order save and sow the seeds. is this a conundrum or a paradox?
in this thread i made the case for broadening the appeal of this forum. i concluded with...
if the largest fig forest in the world didn't have any crosses between sycomorus and carica, then everyone who visited should be given refunds. "minor detail" that admission would be free. maintenance of the food forest would be funded by the figfanatic members who donated for a category dedicated to the fig forest. and a good chunk of that funding would come from the ficus fanatics, who also helped to make the sycomorus and carica crosses.
i also tried and failed to grow my johannis from cuttings. it's kinda interesting when you think about it. johannis has a relatively wide natural distribution, so we'd expect to see some decent variation, which means that some varieties have to be slightly less challenging to grow from cuttings. maybe back 10,000 years or so, it stands to reason that the best tasting johannis varieties with the largest figs, that grew the easiest from cuttings, were the ones that people spread around. birds ate the figs, distributed the seeds, and the seedlings with the biggest and best tasting figs, that were easiest to grow from cuttings, were spread even more by people. and voila, we have carica!
not really "voila" though, more like some arbitrary threshold. while caricas generally grow way easier from cuttings than johannis, it can't be the case that all caricas grow equally easy from cuttings. but in 10,000 years the caricas will grow so easy from cuttings they will make our current caricas seem like johannis.
people in the middle ages were too dumb to realize that they were in the middle ages. it's funny because we're always in the middle ages.
on instagram i mentioned to a botanist about johannis being difficult from cuttings. he said that the trick is to use smaller stems. i haven't tested this out but it seems reasonable. personally, when i want more johannis i just graft it onto carica.
the selection pressure when it comes to fig size and taste is deliberate, unlike how easily a plant grows from cuttings. we don't deliberately select for caricas that grow easier from cuttings. we just try to grow lots of different caricas from cuttings, and the better and faster rooters get spread around more.
inadvertent selection is kinda fascinating. each time i try to pull a weed, and i only manage to detach the stem above the root crown, but i'm too lazy to dig up the rest of it, i fully appreciate that i'm inadvertently helping to select for more annoying weeds.
also in the category of inadvertent selection, is the selection of caricas that do better with regular irrigation. we're impatient and want more figs faster, so we water more. the thirstier caricas are not weeded out. instead, they grow faster and their cuttings are spread around more. in theory, caricas in general should be significantly thirstier than johannis. if this counts as a real difference, then i lied when i said that there's only one real difference between them.
recently @"Figology"#21 donated 21 caricas in 15 gallon pots for my public fig forest that i started earlier in the year. woohoo! my plan is to graft male johannis to all of them so that there will be more variation in drought tolerance among the seeds dispersed by birds and coyotes, which will facilitate faster adaptation to local conditions. but i imagine that random people will see the stems with fancy leaves and try to cut them to take home to try and grow. they will never know why they failed, unless they happen to find this thread. yeah, i should try to hide the fig trees as much as possible so that the grafted johannis stems get large enough where a few cuttings won't make much of a difference.
no idea how much community support would be needed to turn an informal fig forest into a formal one. main street would have a huge banner "home to the largest fig forest in
in this thread i made the case for broadening the appeal of this forum. i concluded with...
if the largest fig forest in the world didn't have any crosses between sycomorus and carica, then everyone who visited should be given refunds. "minor detail" that admission would be free. maintenance of the food forest would be funded by the figfanatic members who donated for a category dedicated to the fig forest. and a good chunk of that funding would come from the ficus fanatics, who also helped to make the sycomorus and carica crosses.
