hot high-desert crop
Mission Fig
Ficus carica 'Black Mission'
A heat-loving fruit crop suited to hot deserts, with potential for cold-hardiness selection in hot/cold high-desert sites.
Data: preliminaryBiome fit
Hot high desert
Dry heat favors ripening when productive irrigation is available.
Confidence: high
Hot/cold high desert
Summer heat is adequate; winter wood injury is the limiting factor.
Confidence: high
Cold plateau
Mission is not reliably hardy enough for orchard production.
Confidence: high
Alpine / short season
Both winter cold and insufficient ripening heat are limiting.
Confidence: high
Planning profile
| Lifecycle | Perennial |
|---|---|
| Harvested part | fruit |
| Productive winter minimum | 15°F |
| Routine summer maximum | 110°F |
| Annual irrigation | 2.5–3.3 acre-feet/acre |
| Mature yield | 5800–6600 lb/acre |
| Representative density | 156 plants/acre |
Planning values describe productive plantings, not absolute survival limits. Local evapotranspiration, soil, cultivar, plant age, rainfall, and management can materially change them.
Seasonal mature-plant water
| Season | Daily-equivalent gallons per plant |
|---|---|
| Spring | 18–25 |
| Summer | 40–50 |
| Fall | 20–30 |
Daily-equivalent demand is useful for system sizing; actual irrigation may be accumulated into less-frequent, deeper applications.
Potential products
- fresh figs
- dried figs
- preserves
Drought and fire resilience
| Drought tolerance | High Figs are drought tolerant for survival |
|---|---|
| Fire resistance | Unknown No fire-resistance finding is recorded in the current research set. |
Why it belongs
Mission figs thrive under dry summer heat, but productive orchards use substantially more water than their reputation for drought survival suggests. They are a strong hot-desert crop and a useful breeding target where summer ripening conditions are excellent but winter cold damages ordinary Mission wood.
Trial priorities
- Establish yield-versus-water curves below maximum commercial irrigation.
- Cross Mission-quality fruit with cold-hardy common fig genetics.
- Test shrub or multi-stem management for recovery after winter injury.