'Conadria'
This seedling was selected by Ira Condit at the University of California, Riverside in the 1950’s to bring down the production costs for the ‘Fig District’ of San Jacinto Valley in California. 'Conadria was chosen for its vigorous growth and precocious desire to set a crop. The name ‘Conadria’ comes from (Ira Condit - Con / Adriatic - adria), being a cross between ‘Adriatic’ and a persistent caprifig, eventually replacing the former Adriatic/Verdone fig in production.
There
are some good qualities that make ‘Conadria’ appealing enough to trial in our
maritime climate, one of them being this cultivars ability to ripen two crops
in our short growing season. Even though this fig is considered an early
ripening cultivar in the warmer growing zones I would say that in my climate it
can be more of a mid-season fig for us that ripens all the way up until we get
repeated frosts and freezes in the beginning of November. ‘Conadria’ is without
a doubt the most vigorous growing variety in my collection and along with its
preciousness to set a crop I really think this variety would do well grown as a larger tree.
It tends to grow just as wide as tall so consider where you plant it and if you
need to keep it small expect to do some extra pruning.
‘Conadria’ seems to respond to each environment it’s grown in differently. I think this is why there are so many conflicting reports on how this cultivar behaves. Some report it to have a red interior and others say it’s more of an amber tone. Due to my weather conditions and other factors I experienced a main crop with more of a pink and faint amber interior with a purple ring around the center where the breba crop had more of a full and deep red interior with no purple at all. When it comes to the exterior, I notice when these figs get close to ripe they get a slight pale yellow undertone that gradually shows through the green and occasionally figs with sun directly on them show a little bit of blush. Majority of the figs were what I consider a medium sized fig with a few on the larger size and I should add that there were no small figs from this tree. Most of the figs had a completely closed eye but there were a handful with an eye that opened up just slightly, but not enough to spoil the fruit. Something to note about the exterior skin is that the brebas was much softer compared to the tougher main crop skin. Regardless breba or main, the skin is easy to peel away from the fruit giving you the option to pass on the skin if you don’t like the texture.
This variety wasn’t bred to be a high quality fresh eating fig but I have to admit, I really liked the flavor profile. It was bred for its drying abilities and its productiveness, so with that in mind, if you know when to pick this fruit it can be a sugary treat and if you have a hard time eating as much as the tree offers then throwing some figs in the dehydrator is where this variety really shines. This is one of those figs that you have to let hang on the tree as long as possible before picking in order to get the quality of flavor it’s capable of producing. If you can hold yourself back from picking the fruits too early then you will be blessed with an abundance of sugar sweet figs that carry distant notes of honey and berry playing at the same time. It’s really hard to notice one distinct flavor more than the others because they blend together in such a way I can’t explain, but in each bite there is a noticeable sugary sweetness that keeps me coming back to the tree. The flavor between breba and main were similar but the texture was different. The brebas were syrupy, jammy and dense where the main crop seemed more permeable and jammy. Both had a light seed crunch that stuck around until the next bite and both crops provide me with exactly what we need more of in Western Washington, reliability.
This varieties ability to ripen two crops, the fact that the eye is either closed or just slightly open, the vigorous growth and seemingly desperate need to set a crop, enjoyable flavors and textures, fantastic drying capabilities because the size of the fruit is actually respectable…I guess I’m saying this variety has sort of impressed me so far.
