A stragegy for northern growers who have breba producing fig plants in pots and need to maintain a manageable size plant would be to prune half of the plant back each year, and allow the other half to grow unprinted and provide the following season’s breba crop.
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Yes, all of a sudden, ripe figs everywhere. So far 6 varieties have ripened.
I’m going to dry most of them, figure out what I really like best etc. What dries well, which ones I really like. What works best here etc. What stage of ripeness I like too. Having fun!
I need to give them a few years really to reach full potential. So nothing is being cut anytime soon.
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figs have not have to be unripe figs that overwinter in the tree, some brebas are immature in the tree all winter but most develop in May.
what if right is where breba and fig is formed.
the breba is formed on old wood (over 1 year) and fig growing on new wood developed in the spring of that year
There are 2 groups of fig trees and within these two groups there are 2 subgroups:
Group A, in this group are all fig trees do not need pollinator
Group B in this group are all fig trees need a pollinator
in the group A are 2 subgroups:
- A1 in this group are all NO need pollinator fig trees and produce 2 crops (brebas and figs), an example is black mission
- A2 of this group are all fig trees that do NOT need pollinated and produce only one crop of figs, for example coll black lady
in the group B are 2 subgroups:
- B1 in this group they come all the fig trees if need be pollinated by the wasp and produce 2 crops of figs and plums when they are pollinated.
when there is pollinated fig tree will only produce a single crop of plums, ie in this group brebas not need to be pollinated but if figs.
this group call you type “san pedro” and an example would be king desert (by the way, I’m almost certain that desert king really is the variety of israel nazareth) - B2 in this group enter the varieties called Smyrna, these fig trees produce a single crop of figs that need to be pollinated, otherwise immature figs fall and we will not have any fruit
a curious fact of the fig trees really say that fig trees do not produce fruit, but frores inverted or internal calls syconia(sicono)
Another curious fact is that the fig tree was long called “the tree of the devil”, because it is believed that Judas hanged himself on a fig tree after betraying Jesus Christ
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I am relatively new to this forum but not to fruit growing. Our Desert King figs produce both breba and main crops. The brebas are MUCH better figs! The main crop are okay but not as big and juicy. We do not have wasps. I am always looking for insight on the best way to prune the DK to encourage brebas, because winter heading back removes a lot of crop, but we want our 6 year old trees to get good branch structure. Any suggestions?
By the way, this year on the central California coast we are having an extremely large breba crop on several varieties.
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Near which town?
My Desert King tree is completely covered by brebas this year; my other fig trees also have a decent amount of brebas on them. However, I prefer the main crop of Desert King figs to brebas; while main crop figs are smaller, the taste is much richer for me. Maybe I do have wasps, I’m not sure about that.
This year I am having a somewhat larger breba crop on a mission type fig and a couple others. On the other hand, my Osborne Prolific had dozens of brebas but aborted all of them. these photos were taken a few weeks ago.
Unknown cultivar - possibly Black Mission averaging two breba figs on each branch.
Unknown cultivar - possibly brown turkey. rooted from a cutting a couple years ago and planted out this winter.
The little thing is loaded with brebas but the mother tree a mile from here looks sparse.
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I have quite a few trees with some breba. My plants are just starting to leaf out. All survived in the garage, even little ones.
Valle Negra
Unknown Teramo
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Watsonville
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If you get main crop on DK you have the wasp. Without the wasp all main crop falls off.
Have you tried Teramo yet, Drew? It’s very early from what I’ve read from Bill.
The wasp exists in Visalia, Modesto, and Winters CA so I’d guess it’s in your area too.
Yes, it’s excellent. A keeper, also is rust resistant.
Interesting as the pulp was amber, and as the year went on, later figs had red pulp.
It’s a young tree, so it could have just been maturing a touch, or I picked the first figs too early. I like this one a lot.
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Are they still breba if they were growing last year? A lot of mine didn’t mature and still hung on. I picked a bunch off then decided to leave them because they didn’t pick easy. Most of my trees still have ten or so on some five.
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Breba means Spring.
Those that hung on from late last summer are main crop.
Here are a few photos of my brebas. The first one is Desert King. You can see why I need pruning advice. The others are Lattarula and Negronne.
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R. Sanford Martin: How to prune fruit trees.
Your going to have lots of figs.
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