Cactus pear variety named DAR 1-27-24 Orange

Abstract

A new and distinct variety of cactus pear having the following unique combination of desirable features:1. A fruit with a yellow / orange colored edible interior portion.2. An average Brix of 13.1%3. An average firmness of the pulp of 3.1 lb4. An average pulp percentage of 55%.5. A fruit weight ranging from 140 to 220 g.6. Cladodes that have a low percentage of areoles with spines and those areoles only have 1 spine per areole of maximum length of 10 mm.

Description

Latin name of the genus and species of the plant claimed: Opuntia ficus-indica L. Miller.Variety denomination: ‘DAR 1-27-24 Orange’.No federal or state sponsored research funding was used in the development of these materials.Fruits of spiny and spineless Opuntia ficus indica are about 110-180 grams, range from 12 to 15% total soluble solids (Brix), have a variety of fruit colors, i.e. green, orange, red and purple, and have been grown in many arid regions of the world such as Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Italy, Israel, and South Africa for commercial fruit production (Parish and Felker, 1997). The market use of the fruit is to be consumed fresh after the peel is removed. Mexico is the world center of production with great variation in spines, fruit colors, dates of maturity and Brix (Mondragon and Gonzalez, 1996). While the lime green variety ‘Reyna’ is the leading cactus pear variety in Mexico (Mondragon and Gonzalez, 1994), this variety has long spines that prevent it...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The patent is about improving the firmness and taste of cactus pears by hybridizing them with other plants. This results in cactus pears that are easier to bite into and have more sugar."

Problems solved by technology

No federal or state sponsored research funding was used in the development of these materials.

While the lime green variety ‘Reyna’ is the leading cactus pear variety in Mexico (Mondragon and Gonzalez, 1994), this variety has long spines that prevent its cultivation in the USA due to objections from harvesting crews.

Mondragon and Gonzalez, (1996) have reported fruits of many colors, but they have not provided experimental details on field design, laboratory methods or coefficients of variation for these properties and they do not provide data on firmness of the edible inner portion which Felker et al., (2005) have suggested needs to be greater than 2.2 lb for a good quality fruit.

In spite of acceptable fruit sugar concentrations of about 13% in high yielding varieties, such as Italian ‘Rossa’ and ‘Gialla’ types (including 1281, 1277, 1320), these varieties have very low pulp firmness of about 2 lb (versus 4 lb for spiny orange 1287 and green fruited Argentine and Chilean varieties) which lead to poor consumer acceptance in Argentina (Felker et al., 2005).

While firmness is the parameter measured, the objectionable quality is that pulps with low firmness value lack structural integrity and may break apart when the peel is separated from the pulp.

Perhaps due to the cooler weather of the growing region in the USA, the red fruits do not break apart when peeled, but they are not as firm and juicy as other types.

Unfortunately the presence of multiple 2-4 cm spines at each areole prevents commercial harvest of the TX 1287 fruit due to safety considerations.

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