Can I harvest saguaro fruit?

Desert Botanical Garden teams up with Desert Foothills Land Trust nearly every year for harvest. The harvested saguaro fruit is frozen for educational purposes throughout the year. Saguaro-fruit harvesting is rooted in Tohono O’Odham Nation tradition. Landowners must give permission for people to harvest saguaro fruit.

Can you eat the fruit of a saguaro cactus?

Ripe fruit is an excellent source of food and moisture for many desert animals. Humans also eat the fruit of the saguaro. Tohono O’odham Indians have been harvesting the fruit for as long as they have lived in the desert.

What can you do with saguaro fruit?

The fruit can be eaten both raw and cooked, processed into syrup and jam, and the pulp dried into cakes. The seeds are eaten raw or dried and ground into flour. Juice is made into both alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks.

What is the fruit on a saguaro cactus?

Saguaro fruit used to be a main food for certain Native American tribes, such as Pima and Papago, who dried, fermented and preserved it for year-round consumption….Nutritional Value: Saguaro Cactus Fresh Fruit.

How do you process saguaro fruit?

D) Processing: Put the whole mass of pulp in a large kettle. Bring to a boil (no need to add water, as fruit becomes juicier with heating). Boil for 5-10 minutes to reduce “clumpiness” and to kill any eggs or beasties that might be present.

What does saguaro cactus fruit taste like?

What does the fruit taste like? When they are fresh they are mild and the fruit has a mildly sweet flavor and the seeds are crunchy with a good, nutty flavor. You eat the middle part, you don’t eat the peel. The more you eat the more you get to appreciate them.

How do you make saguaro fruit?

Scoop out the pulp from open fruits with a spoon, or pull the husk open and remove pulp with fingers or spoon (it will often come out as a core). If the fruit is closed, cut in half lengthwise with knife and scoop pulp out with spoon.

How do you dry saguaro fruit?

Drying: Spread the cooked pulp about 1/4 inch thick on a very lightly oiled or buttered glass baking pan. Cover with screen to keep insects out and put out in the sun until dry (usually 2-4 days depending on humidity).

What does saguaro fruit look like?

In the middle are fruits that have just started to split, probably earlier in the day, and are revealing bright red pulp dotted with shiny black seeds the size of small pinheads. The fruits look like scarlet flowers at this stage, and there is a glut of them flooding the saguaro forest with tens of millions of seeds.

What does the saguaro fruit look like?

How do you harvest saguaro seeds?

If you have a saguaro fruit, scoop the seeds and attached flesh out of the pod and drop them into water. The seeds will sink as they separate from the flesh.