Tina Vanhove
It is summer, the beginning of fig ripening time. We will give you some useful information about figs later in the article but want to begin with information that you can’t use—except for idle conversation.
Back in 2006 an archeology team from Bar-Ilan University was digging at Jericho, and found seeds of parthenocarpic figs that dated from the pre-pottery Neolithic times—around ten or eleven thousand years ago! We won’t bother you with exactly what parthenocarpic seeds are, but essentially it means that the seeds have no embryos and cannot germinate. The plant can only be propagated by some bright person rooting a cutting from the parent tree. It also means that people were “fig-farming” around five thousand years before the Sumerians and others from the “fertile crescent” were raising millet, barley, and wheat.
So, why raise figs as a food crop? Figs are nutritious, taste great, and can be stored for long periods of time—in arid climates. Nearly all of the figs we grow here in the south are of the parthenocarpic type and can be stored for two, maybe three days. We have a very humid climate but, in season, figs are nutritious and taste great.
There are several “what ifs” and “maybes” in that paragraph, but we want to start by saying that our fig season is short: enjoy them while you can. Now for some practical information. Sometimes the early June weather is so dry that a lot of figs fall off before they are ripe. Long ago, our friend the late “Duke” Kimbrough used to joke about the “little fig showers” that we were getting in early July. Actually, Duke was teasing Ed about his efforts to breed figs with closed “eyes” so that water wouldn’t get into the internal fruit and make it begin to sour. Ultimately, Ed was rather successful, most of his varieties have very tight eyes that resist souring except when we have very frequent fig showers.
Now, for a trick that will give you ripe figs earlier than anyone else. This trick is something that immigrants from a Spanish isle brought over from the old country and managed to keep a secret for a long time. Immigrants from Minorca (the Spanish island) living in St. Augustine, Florida had a reputation for producing ripe figs earlier than anyone else. Back in 1831 a man discovered the secret and presented a paper about it before the Horticulture Society of Charleston, South Carolina. The trick was to dab a bit of olive oil over the eye of each fig several weeks before it was ripe. The fig would swell up into ripe fruit in three or four days. This report did not go over well with the fig experts at the meeting simply because it didn’t make sense. They went home and tried it—the trick worked. But no one knew why.
This was still the situation in 1961 when Leon came to L.S.U. and met Ed. Leon, having learned all about plant hormones at the University of Wisconsin, was amazed when Ed showed him that it did work, and we set about designing research that would discover the ingredient in olive oil that ripened figs so quickly. To be honest, we never did any research on it but did have long discussions at the coffee table about the project. Soon after that, a man at Texas A&M published a paper showing that ethylene gas was a plant hormone and that it promoted ripening of most fruits. You’ll see the connection in a moment.
Two paragraphs ago we started telling about the trick for ripening figs but got side-tracked. Here are the details. Start with a fig about half the size it will be when ripe. The center must be hollow, with just a hint of pink in a fruit that is mostly white. You will need to cut a few to get a sense of the proper stage of growth. Figs with solid insides are too mature for this to work and the smaller figs will fall off if you treat them with oil. A Q-tip is convenient for using the oil because you only need enough to cover the eye of the fig. Any kind of oil will work, but olive oil sounds like a magic, natural, treatment. The point is that when the fig is just beginning to ripen, it produces a small amount of ethylene gas but much of that goes out through the open eye. If you cover the eye with oil the gas stays in and ripens the fig very quickly. Maybe amazingly fast is a better term. In two or three days you will have a big, ripe, tasty fig. The big hazard is that the birds might find those ripe figs early in the morning, but they probably won’t be around because only you know that those figs are going to ripen so quickly.
There are two commercial products that can be used as a spray to release ethylene gas. One is called Floro-something and is used on ornamental plants to delay flowering and allow the plants to grow larger before they do flower. The other is used in a way that you already understand. Commercially grown tomatoes are picked just as they are beginning to turn pinkish (or maybe grass green) and shipped to a warehouse where they are treated with ethylene to make the fruit turn red and taste a bit like a fresh ripe tomato. Then it is shipped to the local supermarket. It is also used to spray fields of pineapples so that the fruit will all ripen at the same time – this makes mechanical harvesting easier. Actually, the pineapples do taste like ripe fruit, or seem to. This brings up a question; ethylene is a true plant ripening hormone and it really does ripen figs and pineapples quickly. Why does it only turn tomato skins red but doesn’t make them taste like vine-ripened fruit?
Now for a warning. One of our friends, who should have known better, sprayed his entire fig tree with the ethylene material. Well, all of the small figs fell off and the too-mature ones rotted but he still had a tremendous amount of ripe figs that he had to pick and make into preserves before they rotted. The oiling trick will provide you with a nice, small, crop of ripe figs and you can repeat the process whenever you want to. We should also mention that this oiling trick is too labor-intensive for commercial use with today’s market. Back in the eighteenth century those Minorcan fig producers could make a profit on it.
Ed O’Rourke, Jr. and Leon Standifer are the authors of Gardening in the Humid South (LSU Press, 2002), now available in affordable paperback.
