A staff of exploration experts from the CSIR-Crops Analysis Institute visited Wiamoase, in the Sekyere-South District of the Ashanti location to determine the veracity of the alleged apple fruiting in the local community.
The crew provided the Agona District Director of the Ministry of Foods and Agriculture, Mr. Ernest Owusu Kwarteng and was led by Mr. Beloved Mensah Dzomeku, a Principal Research Scientist and lead horticulturist of the Institute.
The alleged “apple” tree is rising on latitude 07o 03’ 333’’ N and longitude 001o 31’150’’ W, at an altitude 432m above sea stage as a shade tree in a household.
On web site, the team manufactured the subsequent observations:
- Morphologically, the tree has several adventitious roots emerging from the stem and branches (see shots beneath).
- The transverse and longitudinal sections of the immature fruits display quite a few seeds in just the fruit (see picture beneath).
- The peel of the fruit consists of a thick whitish latex which sticks to objects and the hand and is complicated to thoroughly clean.
Moreover, the crew made use of PlantSnap, a large-tech, comprehensive and precise plant identification cellular app which is able to detect about 90 p.c of all recognised species of plants and trees to match the leaves of the meant plant and verified that in fact it was a fig tree (Ficus sp.) and not an apple tree as beforehand claimed.
The Institute believes that the claimed tree could be Ficus sycomorus or Sycamore figwhich is native to tropical Africa, South of the Sahel as very well as North of the Tropic of Capricorn. Its fruit is a big edible fig, 2–3 cm in diameter, ripening from buff-environmentally friendly to yellow or crimson. They are borne in thick clusters on extended branchlets or the leaf axil.
Ecology of Fig
Fig belongs to the spouse and children Moraceae (sometimes termed Mulberry family). There are in excess of 850 distinct styles of fig in the globe. Available literature indicates that the Fig infructescence is pollinated by symbiosis with fig wasp (Blastophaga psenes). A variety of reviews also point out that the fertilized female wasp enters the fig via the scion, which has a small gap in the crown (the ostiole).
She crawls on the inflorescence inside of the fig and pollinates some of the female bouquets. She lays her eggs within some of the flowers and dies. After weeks of enhancement in their galls, the male wasps emerge ahead of girls through holes they deliver by chewing the galls.
The male wasps then fertilize the females by depositing semen in the hole in the gall. The males later on return to the females and enlarge the holes to permit the females to arise. Then some males enlarge holes in the scion, which permits women to disperse right after collecting pollen from the made male flowers.
Girls have a limited time (<48 hours) to find another fig tree with receptive scions to spread the pollen, assist the tree in reproduction, and lay their own eggs to start a new cycle.
It was not surprising that having cut open the immature fruits, there was an insect in it.
In 2017, the total world production of fig was 1,152,799 tonnes with the leading producing countries being Turkey (305,689tons), Egypt (177,135tons), Morocco (137,934tons), Algeria (128, 684 tons) and Iran 70,730 tonnes (FAOSTAT, 2018)
