No, they are very different in their level of branching and hence in their properties.
Agave occurs mainly in the southern and western United States and in central and tropical South America. It grows in very arid regions. Agave is a succulent plant of a large botanical genus of the same name, belonging to the family Agavaceae. The plant has a large rosette of thick fleshy leaves, each ending generally in a sharp point and with a spiny margin. Many types of Agave exist of which some are used for hemp production, others for their content in fructans. The fructans mainly accumulate in the head or ‘pina’ of the plant, which grows in the soil. It takes some 7 years before the ‘pina’ can be harvested in order to give a good yield and high fructan content. Harvesting must be done before the plant comes into flowering as otherwise the fructans are degraded by internal enzymatic processes. Agave and more specific the “Agave tequilana Weber azul” is very popular for being used to obtain the famous tequila drink. It is the same variety which is mainly used for fructan production.
Agave fructans are branched molecules and thus not strictly an ‘inulin’. They consist of a principal β(2-1) chain with some 15-20% branches (triple-bound fructose molecules) and 25% of side chains composed of β(2-6) bound fructose. This means that their molecular structure is not at all similar to the inulin found in chicory (Cichorium intybus) which has a linear structure of β(2-1) linked fructosyl units without significant branching.
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