Acta Hortic. 1173. ISHS 2017. DOI 10.17660/ActaHortic.2017.1173.49 Proc. V Int. Symp. on Fig Eds.: T. Caruso et al. 285 Developing the California fresh fig industry C.H. Crisosto 1,a , L. Ferguson 1 , J.E. Preece 2 , T.J. Michailides 3 , M.T. Haug 1 , M. López Corrales 4 and G.M. Crisosto 1 1 Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, USA; 2 National Clonal Germplasm Repository, USDA‐ARS, University of California, Davis, USA; 3 University of California, Davis, Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Parlier, USA; 4 Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas de Extremadura, Guadajira, Spain. Abstract The fig (Ficus carica), one of the first cultivated trees in the world, is grown in most of the of the world’s moderate climates. However, fresh figs are highly sensitive to physical damage, and susceptible to postharvest infections which cause high losses during marketing. Preharvest orchard and postharvest conditions are important for improving fruit quality and postharvest life. Reducing postharvest losses and developing global fresh fig marketing is a challenge for plant breeders, physiologists and postharvest scientists. Our program focuses on increasing consumer consumption by identifying cultivars with high quality and suitable postharvest attributes, developing postharvest handling technologies, and improving marketing. Our postharvest evaluations of consumer acceptance and the firmness and decay susceptibility of promising fresh figs in the National Clonal Germplasm Repository (NCGR) suggested a breeding program for developing firm fleshed cultivars with high consumer acceptance. Keywords: postharvest evaluations, consumer acceptance, losses, firmness, postharvest technologies, breeding programs INTRODUCTION Figs are nutritious, rich in fiber, potassium, calcium, and iron (Chessa, 1997), with levels higher than other fruits, such as bananas, grapes, oranges, strawberry, and apples (Chessa, 1997; Michailides, 2003). Figs are sodium‐free, fat‐free, and like other fruits, cholesterol‐free. Figs are also an important source of vitamins, amino acids, phenolics, and antioxidants (Solomon et al., 2006). The fig is a syconium, a fleshy structure which encloses hundreds of fruits (Çelikel and Karaçalı, 1998; Piga et al., 1998; Stover et al., 2007). The (Chessa, 1997; Piga et al., 1998) syconium opening, the ostiole, has overlapping scales. Cultivars with a large ostiole (Doster et al., 2002) are susceptible to ostiole splitting (Michailides, 2003) and are more susceptible to decay. The high susceptibility of figs to decay, in combination with their fast ripening, which accelerates fruit softening (Çelikel and Karaçalı, 1998) makes fresh fig shelf life extremely short, lasting only 1‐2 days (Morton, 2000). As a result, the majority of fresh fig consumption takes place near the centers of production (Piga et al., 1998). Fig maturity at harvest affects fig soluble solids concentration (SSC), titratable acidity (TA), firmness, loss of firmness during storage, ethylene production, respiration rate, shelf life, ostiole diameter, shriveling, flavor and consumer acceptance (Crisosto et al., 2010). An ‘in store’ consumer evaluation of four California fresh fig cultivars at two maturity stages determined that the degree of liking (acceptance) was affected primarily by cultivar and maturity at harvest. With all four cultivars, figs harvested at tree ripe maturity had a significantly higher acceptance rating than figs harvested at commercial maturity. The average acceptance for the four cultivars averaged 86% for the tree ripened versus 55% acceptance for commercially ripened figs (Crisosto et al., 2010). This low acceptance level of commercially ripened figs combined with their high postharvest losses makes successful a E-mail: chcrisosto@ucdavis.edu