Xtremehorticulture

Some Cacti Can Be Grown for Fruit

Nopal fruit or tunas Q. I would love to put op-a-la-ah (not sure of spelling) cactus. the kind that looks like mickey mouse ears and grow red cactus pears aka prickly pears. several of my neighbors have them. the problem is the tiny stickers on the fruit. I have heard that there is a variety that does not have stickers. please advise me what they are called and where to get them. A. I am sorry but I could not figure out what cactus you mean. However, I have grown cactus for their fruit. The fruits that we see commercially typically come from Opuntia cactus. These fruits, called tunas in Mexico, are harvested ripe from the pads. Typically we can see both red and yellow or green fruits. If you have the right type of cactus or selection they can get pretty high sugar content. Dragonfruit orchard in Vietnam             I don’t know of any totally spineless ones that have good fruit but there are some which are nearly spineless but you still have to prepare them with caution. Wear gloves or use newspaper to protect your hands and use a sharp knife. If you look at the harvested fruit it resembles a barrel in shape.             The ends of the barrel are cut off and the sharp knife then cuts down the fruit lengthways (barrel end to barrel end) just below the skin of the fruit. The skin is then peeled back exposing the inner pulp. The pulp is full of hard seeds but the pulp is sweet.             Other cacti can be grown for their fruit as well such as the vine cacti like the pitayas and dragonfruit, some columnar cacti like the cereus.

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Having Trouble Locating Copena V1 and F1 Nopal Cactus

Nopal cactus growing at the Orchard. Copena V1 and F1 have different shaped pads, different flower and fruit colors. Q. I’ve been having a difficult time acquiring these two varieties of nopal. Do you know how I might find them? A. They are not really varieties but selections. Varieties in the horticultural sense meant to be cultivated varieties. I have them at our facility in Las Vegas but they would have to be propagated from a couple of pads. The only other source I know of would be in Hermosillo, Mexico. You could try contacting Everardo Zamora at the University of Sonora, Hermosillo, Mexico, but getting across the border into the US might be a bit difficult or time consuming. Everardo Zamora ([email protected]) There are other selections/varieties available online that you could look at being grown in southern California and Arizona. There are some with some huge tunas (fruits) that are very eye-appealing but I have never grown them, only the Copena’s which are grown commercially in Sonora.

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