Opuntia spp.

[waterboy 2.0]

I have become interested in Opuntias, only by chance, found one recently snapped a cutting and has flowered and give it an ID of O.tormentosa (orange flower/red "highlights").

Well I find its a declared weed in 5 states . Not here, but definitely a first as a find of an "escaping" opunita for me. So a few more species I've been looking into have worse form than that (o.robusta one example).

My interest is for food/emergency stock fodder. I can find several ornamental ones,but I like multiple use species.

I am keen to get some feedback , if any, on what I can gather are opuntia species in aus. that are suitable for the above that are not hated by several states?

WB

Edited March 18, 2013 by waterboy

[Sallubrious]

Burbanks spineless Opuntias were originally bred as stock food to be grown in desert regions of the U.S., several Burbanks' cutivars were bred for the pads and some were bred to have edible fruit too.

Burbank sourced spineless and near spineless Opuntias from all around the world and created his own hybrids that showed the traits he was looking for. He literally grew millions of them and culled most of them only keeping the best.

When I first looked into it some websites suggested he released about 8 cultivars, but I've read that a lot of his paperwork documenting his work was lost in a fire and that there are many more in circulation.

[waterboy 2.0]

Thanks Sally, i'll look into it - keen to also know what species he used.

The one I nabbed came from a "weedy" patch on a steep slope. There were very spikey ones through to virtually no spines/glochids . Of course I grabbed these ones, but they'll still have some wide variety in them by the looks of the patch. I couldn't find a motherplant anywhere.

Really would like to use these plants, but dont want to harbor potential fugitives

[Bert&Ernie]

Do we have an Opuntia thread??? as this would make a good one if you don't mind that WB?

Anyways I was wondering what the spineless var is as it would make a good food stock i would assume because you would not have to de-spine it or anything like that... It would probably make good grafting stock aswell

[Stillman]

Burbanks spineless is a very awesome opuntia, I'd like to have a go at it for my cacti fruit orchid.

[Sallubrious]

Thanks Sally, i'll look into it - keen to also know what species he used.

The one I nabbed came from a "weedy" patch on a steep slope. There were very spikey ones through to virtually no spines/glochids . Of course I grabbed these ones, but they'll still have some wide variety in them by the looks of the patch. I couldn't find a motherplant anywhere.

Really would like to use these plants, but dont want to harbor potential fugitives

From what I can make out most of the Burbanks' spineless were ficus indica hybrids. They look a lot like a normal ficus indica sans spines and generally grow larger pads than a normal ficus indica.

I have a book here - Luther Burbanks Spineless Cactus Identification Project by Roy Wiersma , in the book he documents many cultivars that have a spineless or near spineless growth habit and most of them seem to be closely related to ficus indica. Even with the book it's still difficult to get a positive ID on many Opuntias as they all look so similar and have different growth habits when grown in different geographical zones, even botanists struggle with Opuntia ID's at times.

Burbanks classed most of his cactus as either ficus indica or tapuna. I think the tapunas are the ones that produce palatable fruits, don't quote me on that though I haven't read the book for ages.

As far as Opuntia being weedy and problematic, most of the problems were associated with O.Stricta but any plant outside it's native habitat can become weedy.

Edited March 18, 2013 by SallyD

[shaneygrog]

I don't know about specific species but generally there are quiet a few opuntia spp that have gone wild in parts of Australia. In central parts of the Flinders Rangers there is one they call Wagon Wheel that's like Prickly Pear with rounder bigger leaves that are more bluish in colour but only grow about 1 or 1.5 meters tall. This is a weed there and has had the locals hadt at it trying to remove it. You can also find this north of Bendigo in the forests and it's out of control around Baringup, north east of Maldon in Vic. This species has edible fruit and is good for fermenting (so I have read but not tried) and is a very nice plant to grow as far as i'm concerned. When I had a small garden in Melbourne I had some of it in my garden with all my other cacti/succulents but when I moved to central Vic I thought it best not to bring it here as when the birds got into the fruits then all the locals would have it and then they would all be looking at me! The wild goats love eating the flesh too!

Anyways there are many species gone feral that I have seen around different parts, I hope this is of some help? (I am new here)

Shane

[Stillman]

So Sally d the spineless don't produce good fruit?

[waterboy 2.0]

I had been going through Jeff Nugents - Permaculture plants - agaves and cacti (1st edition 1999 if anyone hasnt found it ), and my initial interest list is getting smaller lol. (EDIT - FYI http://www.permacultureplants.net/agavescacti.htm )

A link I found of interest : http://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/weeds/data/03030800-0b07-490a-8d04-0605030c0f01/media/Html/Opuntia_tomentosa.htm theres a few opuntias listed here (damnit).

Wagon wheel is likely O.robusta (damnit) http://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/weeds/data/03030800-0b07-490a-8d04-0605030c0f01/media/Html/Opuntia_robusta.htm

Edited March 19, 2013 by waterboy

[shaneygrog]

Yeap, that's Wagon Wheel. Would loved to have brought some up here to my farm and eat/brew up some of the fruits.

[Sallubrious]

So Sally d the spineless don't produce good fruit?

My understanding is that most of the Burbanks spineless were bred mostly for the pads for stockfeed, they still produce fruit but a lot of is too seedy to it make it worthwhile eating.

The Burbanks' cultivars that were bred for fruit production are said to have very high quality tasty fruit. Sourcing them in OZ would be a real crap shoot though as Opuntias are not permitted to be imported on the AQIS database.

I have a near spineless O ficus indica which is almost devoid of glochids that produces nice edible fruit though.

[shortly]

There are a couple of commercial Opuntia orchards in Oz presumably using carefully selected variety's. There is/was a woman down in Jabulam country (around Drake i think?) who has been selectively breeding Opuntias for commercial fruit production for years.

Apart from needing lotsa room there isnt anything stopping any of us developing aussie prickless pears for fruit production, there is no shortage of O ficus indica seed around in season.

@ Stillman it was SallyD's "near spineless O ficus indica which is almost devoid of glochids that produces nice edible fruit" is the cut i dropped off.

[Sallubrious]

Has that one fruited for you Shortly ?

Mine hasn't produced any fruit yet, perhaps it's the climate diffference?

I have another one that has sligthly larger, thinner pads that's fruiting it's head off at the moment.

[Optimystic]

also look into O. Cacanapa 'Ellisiana'... There is at least one that produces no spines or glochids that I know of though many advertise theirs as spineless but when I ask them they say there are still glochids...Im not sure if you can find one in Aussie.. I finally found it last year here in the same state and the guy told me it will produce a random glochid every once in a while but that it would be very difficult to find... just a few baby pads have grown so far but no glochids

Im not sure how it tastes but having a really spineless one will be very convenient in the future as a multi purpose plant... its certainly edible as I think most of them are even if you have to burn the needles off lol its also a pretty blue color and grows those curly things at first and is known as "tiger tongue"... I hear the green ones are supposed to taste better but I am not particularly fond of them... maybe I should have added salt and pepper... i've got two other spineless varieties which are greener, but no name for them... one of them has huge glochids and the other has tiny glochids lol the big ones sting alot worse but at least I can see them! The ones they sell at the market for food are the really large but thin pads... Im not sure if those are ficus indica or not but I hear thats one of the more common ones grown for food in mexico... I think another is Cochenillifera but they also use those to capture those bugs to make dye ... I just got a variegated one and can't wait to see this plant grow

I have several varieties, like more than a dozen by the end of this week likely, but all pretty small,, if i can find this thread i'll be happy to report on the fruits and or grafting success but it may be some months or years lol

Edited March 20, 2013 by Spine Collector

[shortly]

No joy Sally, it started producing a couple of nice flower buds but then they aborted when cyclone oswald dumped a shite load of rain on us. Cutting every second new growth to pass around wouldnt be helping either.

[Swiper]

http://www.discoverlife.org/20/q?guide=Opuntia

Found this website whilst trying to ID an Opuntia spp.

[Snowfella]

I picked up what was supposed to be O. cacanapa from an Ebay auction about 2 years back, came with a pad of O. macrocentra as a freebie, and it's anything but glochnid free! It's still way to small to really be putting out any serious amounts of flowers but after potting it up a few months back it seems to be kicking into growth. Same goes for the macrocentra, that acctually flowered for me this spring, potting it up really accelerated it's growth.

Funny thing looking around is that all species bar ficus-indica seem to be on the controlled weeds list, and still there's species sold through commercial nurseries like Hamiltons and I've even seen Opuntia fruit for sale in a local fruit market. Makes you wonder if all the O. microdasys that Hamilton's/Bunnings/Masters are pushing out is against local weed regulations.

[waterboy 2.0]

http://www.weeds.org.au/cgi-bin/weedident.cgi?tpl=plant.tpl&state=&s=&ibra=all&card=S28

http://www.weeds.org.au/cgi-bin/weedident.cgi?tpl=plant.tpl&state=&s=1&ibra=all&card=T24

http://www.weeds.org.au/cgi-bin/weedident.cgi?tpl=plant.tpl&state=&s=1&ibra=all&card=S12

Don't know when this happened but heres 3 Opuntia spp. on the WONS list.

EDIT - found more

Edited March 21, 2013 by waterboy

[Stillman]

That spineless piece I have looks like it has a flower bud forming. fi I was to grow out the seed what % of the offspring would be spineless I wonder?

Id the plant your talking about spine collector?

http://www.plantdelights.com/Opuntia-cacanapa-Ellisiana-Ellisiana-Spineless-Prickly-Pear/productinfo/5564/#.UVlMyY4-6gE

[shortly]

At a guess i'd say about 0.001% spineless.

Not to say its not worth doing, you may produce some fine fruiting lines but i wouldn't hold my breath for the spineless trait, just grow lots & lots & lots.

.

[Snowfella]

Just wait till your nice spineless pad all of a sudden goes and does this out of the blue, this one had no sign of spines when I got it.

Few months later, 5 inch spines and buds.

Edited April 7, 2013 by Snowfella

[waterboy 2.0]

Not very clear but they appear to be very old and tough ..... growing on rock opuntia spp.

[Stillman]

thats a very old cacti orchard do you know where that was taken, its awesome.

[Rum and Monkeys]

That last picture looks great! Cool

[poisonshroom]

Snowfella - your's looks like my O. macrocentra from hamiltons (i think - I emailed him and asked if he had any, and he sent me 3 or 4 pads for $5). I have a seedling of a "o. macrocentra", but its not the aqua colour with purple edges like my other ones, and the spines are different ( fairly dense, not many glochids, and not that nice red/black colour). Has anyone eaten the fruit or cladodes (pads) of this species?

I have a heap of other species Iv collected from around the place - I love them, but also hate them lol One day ill get around to trying them all.

that orchard picture is cool too