What is the difference between Rust’s Osborn Prolific and the one common in England?
@Schlecht
Several cultivars have been sold or distributed under the name “Osborne Prolific” or some variation. A portion of them are Archipel, which has a breba and main crop. Another portion are “Osborne Prolific” – which rarely have a breba crop, and if so it is only a few figs. The remainder are something else entirely, for example Brunswick.
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I see, so the one with the pronounced caramel-like taste is this Rust one. I wonder what the English one is like?
I read on the fig database that Osborn Prolific seems to have non-mediterranean fig genetics, I assume that is referring to the Archipel fig.
Figs are too complicated for me to understand. I’ve heard of people ordering the same fig from three different sources and they all turn out to be distinct plants 
Does not help with the sixteen separate synonyms for each variety 
Ficus carica subsp. carica never existed as wild plant. It is a product of human cultivation. The wild parents include F. carica subsp. rupestris, F. johannis subsp. johannis, and F. palmata. The uncultivated populations of the first two occurred in Anatolia and the third in the Arabian peninsula.
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The two varieties of figs that i grow the most of for fresh market sales are Olympian and Neveralla. Both of these put on massive amounts of breba for me.
I have noticed that the Neveralla is commonly also refered to as Osborn Prolific. I have seen no evidence to link the two and i imagine it is probably just another case of the ignorant playing follow the leader.
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Jcf, isn’t Olympian also the same as the Brown Turkey fig grown in England and in Europe? Which is a different fig to the Brown Turkey grown commonly in California?
I have an English brown Turkey and it is a great fig!
There is no means of determining whether two cultivars from different sources are identical. At best, we can only determine if they are different.
In the case of the original Olympian vs. English Brown Turkey, there are notable differences.
Hello Richard, this is good to know because the rumor has been that they are the same. Can you expound on the notable differences? Also, since you are doing genetic research on figs and this is probably of a lot of interest to many of us, do you have a website or some place that describes the work you are doing and/or associated papers?
@Helmer
A few years after Olympian was discovered, tissue samples were sent to Malli Aradhya at NCGR Davis. He determined that its genomic fingerprint was significantly different from all the specimens at the Wolfskill repository in Davis CA. English Brown Turkey was among them.
It is important to note that dissimilarities in genomic fingerprints are cause for further examination, while similarities are meaningless.
A few years later, AgriStarts introduced tissue cultivars of an ‘Olympian’ fig cultivar. It was sourced from someone on the east coast. To my knowledge, tissue samples of this clone were never examined by M. Aradhya. He recently retired.
The situation with the name ‘Olympian’ is similar to many fig names in circulation. There is no relief for the problem in the foreseeable future.
Here is a list of some of my publications. Two more regarding figs are in progress.
https://frostconcepts.org
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Thank you! Please update when your next papers are published!
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Well all i can say is that the Olympian i have now is a definite winner for me whereas the Brown Turkey i grew a few years ago, while being an excellent eating fig, just didnt fit in my growing conditions.