Date of Award
1993
Document Type
Research Paper
Abstract
Opunita ficus-indica is an example of a Prickly Pear cactus. Indigenous to Mexico, it is cultivated world wide for its edible flesh and fruit. It’s water use efficiency is high. The plant establishes where there is deep soil and a little subirrigation, such as washes in valleys or at the mouths of small canyons. The fleshy stem pads are called cladodes. The basal cladode is the lowermost cladode, and daughter cladodes grow from it. Daughter cladodes grow in orientations that maximize PPFD. Favorably oriented cladodes produce more daughter cladodes than those that are orientated unfavorably. Since O. ficus- indica is such an unusually productive and prolific species of cactus, it is an ideal choice of a native,semi-arid plant to study. This project discovers the pattern of growth this species – not only the rate, but also the effect that areoles and cellular dynamics have upon the cladode as a whole. This information is used to examine whether O. ficus- indica is a good choice of a plant to cultivate for consumption, or other purposes. One piece of key information is whether there are a sufficient number of areoles on the margins of the cladodes so that the new daughter cladodes can grow once the first daughter cladodes grown are harvested. Also, it is essential to have a relatively quick growth rate in order for a harvest of cladodes to be plentiful and profitable.
Recommended Citation
Moore, L. (1993). A Study of the Growth of Daughter Cladodes in the Species of Cactus Opunita ficus-indica. Retrieved from https://poetcommons.whittier.edu/scholars/339