US/Canada Source for Eastern Prickly Pear? Optunia sp.

[oxbowfarm]

Looking for a good reputable source to purchase Eastern Prickly Pear, or similar hardy Optunia. I've been wanting this one for a while.

[reed]

Are you looking for seeds or starts? I don't have any but know where one is that has much larger leaves and larger red fruits than any other I ever seen. I was just thinking the other day about going and collecting some starts from it. It is growing in an old iron bath tub elevated above ground outside a junk store I visit sometimes. It has been there for years, I'd say it is pretty hardy.

[oxbowfarm]

I'd prefer starts honestly, but I wasn't sure what was available commercially. I've found the exotic mail order nursery industry to be really difficult to judge quality sellers from scammer/con artists. I can usually guage a veg seed seller as legit or not quite easily but not the nurseries.

[reed]

I'll probably be going by there before too long and grab some. I'll get some extras and post pictures for you to see and send you some if your interested. If I remember right those red fruits hang on into winter.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I grow a 'spineless' Opuntia humifusa as nopales for my farmer's market, and for feeding my family. They have been winter hardy in USDA zone 4/5 for a decade.





'Spineless' Opuntia humifusa


The other cactus I grow for food is of unknown species. It produces great tasting fruits. There are two seed grown plants.

[reed]

That second one looks pretty much exactly like the one I know of that grows by the junk store. I don't really know one from another, I just call them prickly pear. Never saw a spineless one. 

Joseph Lofthouse, how long does it take to get one that size from seed?

[philagardener]

oxbowfarm , I have a colony of Eastern Prickly Pear that blooms well and has been winter hardy in zone 7a. Glad to send some cuttings to you (they look pretty shriveled this time of year), but they are the normal, spined variety. Once you have tried to work with them, you will appreciate spineless!

[steev]

Luther Burbank had "spineless" opuntia, but they were a hustle; he'd cleaned them off before rubbing them on his face to show how spineless they were; Jack London had a patch of Burbank's planted on his Valley of the Moon ranch for potential cattle-feed, but they weren't spineless enough for the critters.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I planted a hundred or so of my 'spineless' prickly pear out in the desert. They all got eaten by critters. And yes, spineless is a lie. There are thousands of small spines per pad. They are just missing the huge spines.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Dec 14, 2017 19:41:01 GMT -5 reed said:

Joseph Lofthouse, how long does it take to get one that size from seed?

How long it actually took, and how long it might be expected to take, are two entirely different things... When I first started growing cactus seedlings, I didn't give them enough water, so these took 8 years to bear their first fruit. These days, I plant them in sandy soil, (70% sand, 30% compost) and water them every day (during the summer) while watering the rest of the greenhouse. They thrive. I bet they'd flower in their 2nd, or 3rd year.

[reed]

I went and collected some from the bath tub today, I'll post some pictures later. Had never eaten a fruit from one before, wow! Much better than I expected. Also surprised by the seeds, for some reason I expected lots of tiny seeds, instead there are lots but much larger than I expected. Fruits look like they would be pretty easy to process for jelly. I was hesitant to try the fruits cause they had little tufts that looked like the little spines on the leaves but they were just soft fuzz and easy to rub off.

I don't mind the big spines at all, they are easy to deal with but on this one and on the wild ones around here I think the big ones act as triggers that fire the little ones at you when touched.

I don't think I'll plant them around the house, I don't want the dog getting into them but I know of an eroded area over on the state's land that I bet they would be happy on. It's maybe an hour walk or less so a yearly fruit collection would be no problem and it isn't near a road so no one else would know they are there.

[steev]

Tuna (cactus fruit) that has tiny spines is easy to clean off by sticking them with a fork and rotating over a burner.

[reed]

Here are the starts and fruits from the bath tub. 


The pads and fruits are much larger than the wild ones that grow around here. I'v never tasted the wild ones, wonder if they are also good. I imagine if someone wanted to start the seeds if they should be fermented first, kind like you would do tomatoes?

I meant to turn one of the fruits to show the top end, it is flat on these instead of indented like the ones in Joseph's picture. 

I did and experiment and wiggled one of the large spines to see if they triggered the little ones like I thought and they did not. Either that or all that were ready for that had already been triggered. 

oxbowfarm , if you would like a couple of these pads and or some seeds let me know in a pm.  

[oxbowfarm]

Note of gratitude to reed and toomanyirons for generously supplying me with Opuntia pads. Just goes to show that they are just about the easiest plants to propagate imaginable. Even wrinkled pads from the depths of winter dormancy will root and grow with perfect ease. This one is the farthest along with cute little buds.

[reed]

They are some pretty hardcore plants. I have one laying out on the picnic table that I had forgot about and it looks exactly the same as when I brought them home.

Apparently not all of the species is like that. I bought some little miniature ones one time that looked otherwise exactly the same and they all went to mush in the first frost.