How far apart did you planted your trees? They look great by the way!
@ Ruben
My in-ground trees are spaced 9â diagonal. If they grow taller, Iâll just prune. I do not want very tall trees that I can pick figs. We also have winter die-backs from time to time.
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No you described exactly what I think too. Your description of the difference in flavor, texture etc is right on. Not just for figs. Taste like a berry is meaningless!! Even saying taste like a strawberry. What kind of strawberry? As the range of flavors of strawberries challenges the range of figs. Few know that either.
Same with the wide range of flavors in many tree fruits. Really why I grow these fruit. You cant buy these flavors you can only grow them.
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Agreed! I had to scrap most of my first figs because I received both fig bud mite-infested and a number of Fig Mosaic Disease-infected cuttings, and almost every new fig I had ended up visibly infectedâmany of them seriously. (For those who donât know, fig bud mites are the only known vector for the causative virus(es)âa very efficient vectorâand, even without contagious plants being present, they can pose problems by stressing and stunting fig plants.)
I was fortunate enough to find Brentâs posts about his bad fig bud mite experience on F4F and Ourfigs. I followed his sage advice, killed the mites (principally with spiromesifen in the form of Forbid 4f, but also with repeated high doses of spinosad and sulfur), got some new plants, started a process of propagating from non-symptomatic growth on stuff I couldnât readily/cheaply replace, and now a few years later, everything looks clean. A lot of folks say FMD/FMV is no big deal, but there are too many reports of hits to productivity and other problems in seriously infected plants to fool around with it. Also, itâs ugly.
So save yourselfâas well as your customers, giftees and trading partnersâa lot of frustration and expense: quarantine and treat all incomingâand, if youâre very thorough, outgoing!âfig materials with miticides that are effective against eriophyid mites. Thanks! 
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FMV can also make a fair comparison between varieties impossible. For instance, a Salem Dark I planted which was badly affected by FMV actually survived the first couple winters better than healthier Etna types, because it was stunted and vigorous growth is less winter hardy, and for a couple of years it produced smaller figs with much more intense flavor, because it had a refined branch structure while the others did not. Of course, it produced far fewer figs, and the original trunk eventually deteriorated and died from lack of vigor. It did produce healthy suckers though, and ever since then the fruit has been basically the same as the other Etnas in that row.
I am glad I didnât jump the gun, get rid of the other trees and replant with Salem Dark. It would have been a huge waste of time and energy, not to mention leave me ignorant to the finer points of fig quality. I get many more figs that are just as tasty and larger from healthy trees that I protected for several winters to get a refined branch structure.
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I raised this issue and someone was very offended.
This is something I was going to ask. Does the mite go with fig cuttings? Does it survive in our Northern climate? My original collection is all local plants. No FMV symptoms as long as I can remember. Over the past season, I received some cuttings and some show various degrees of FMV. So I isolated them, away from my main in-ground planting. The new leaves come out to be green and clean.
So my question is, do I still need to treat all the rooted cuttings with FMV symptoms? Or like some said, âthe plants will grow out of FMV on their ownâ? If I need to treat them, what is the best spray to treat them? How often? I do not want FMV or mite to infect any of my existing local collection.
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Yes, when fig trees are dormant, fig bud mites actually move to the inside of the buds, so can be carried just fine on cuttings.
They cannot survive our winters as far as I know, there isnât much info available but I did read at some point they could only survive outdoors on the west coast and the deep south. They can survive on trees that are protected, or sheltered in our climate though.
You should quarantine and treat all incoming fig material. Relying on the symptoms is taking a chance. The year after my big infestation I watched new plants like a hawk, there were no FMV symptoms, and I could not find any mites with the microscope all spring. I did not see any sign of fig bud mite symptoms until summer, and they were different than the year before, browning but no chlorotic spots. All it takes is one mite to start an infestation, but a plant needs to have high levels of mites before it shows any symptoms.
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Brent is much more versed in this than I am, but Iâd personally treat those quarantined plants with an effective translaminar miticide like spiromesifen or abamectin. A couple of early-season shots of sulfurâbegnning right at budbreakâ wouldnât hurt either.
Fig mites overwinter in bud scales, so yes, you can get them in cuttingsâI did. If buds survive, mites likely can, too. Most NE immigrant figs have probably experienced winter topkill at some point, so if they ever had mites to begin with, theyâre probably unlikely to now. Unknowns that have been through collectorsâ hands are another matter altogether.
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If this is all related to mite, then we still get a solution. Hope it is not some kind of virus within the plant and will go with the plant materials.
If mites can hide inside the buds, we can still wait until temp drops to 25F or so. Or cut off the apical bud all together.
I only have several plants show some kind of FMV. I plan to treat them before I do anything.
Figs can grow out of FMV, I have a bunch of plants that were started from healthy growths of infected plants that have never shown symptoms themselves after 6 years. That is a step further than what most people are talking about, it takes time and effort though.
Removing apical buds has been tested, it only reduces the number of mites overwintering. Removing all buds could work, but that would kill a cutting.
Temperature thresholds have not been tested, that I am aware of, either hot or cold. In other crops that get more attention, like grapes, hot water treatment of cuttings can be effective at killing eriophyid mites, but I donât know if the same protocol would work for figs. It would take a certain temperature (hot or cold), for a certain amount of time to kill them, but nobody can say for sure what that is.
All plants that have had contact should be treated. I donât think spiromesifen or abamectin are available in small quantities on eBay anymore, unfortunately.
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Serious question from someone new to figs-
Instead of spraying new cuttings, couldnât you just throw them in the freezer for a period of time, hoping the cold would not kill the cutting itself?
Yes I would be one. It never has been an issue for me. I donât care if infected or not. Most seem infected, but mine produce to the point that is close to overproducing. Once larger I hardly ever see it expressed, and when it does it quickly disappears. I have been growing about 7 years, so not a ton of experience with it, but enough to see it does little to hurt most plants.
Mites can be a problem, and many other bugs too. I have had some problems so I treat all figs in the fall and spring. I have had problems with I think are thrips, but a simple water spray can remove them.
I have never seen mites, I do have a microscope camera and have never seen them.
The cold will kill the cutting though.
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Cuttings have to stay above freezing temp. Probably at about 35F range.
My question is that. Does FMV directly link to fig mite insect? Or FMV strain stays in the fig plant tissue materials without the presence of fig mite? Fig mites may eventually die in our cold climate. But the FMV strain may not die.
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I helped someone once that couldnât see them with their microscope. I have also helped someone who only got cuttings from me, and you, and they had the mite, and they didnât come from me, soâŚ
I took a picture of some of my seedlings today, no spots.
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Yes, the microscopic fig bud mite (Aceria ficus) spreads the virus(es) that cause fig mosaic. It acquires the pathogen by feeding on an infected plant, then it infects another plant when it subsequently feeds on it. Takes just one virus-carrying mite to infect a fig.
My question is that, when the mites die, does the virus stay within the fig plant materials? Then the infected fig materials spread the virus further with the cuttings alone, without mites?
Or say the other way. If I leave the fig trees unprotected and they die to ground, killing all the buds. Would the virus still stays within that fig tree? Or the virus goes with the mite?
Well then they were not there, simple as that. They would be elephant size, you couldnât miss them.
Nobody should ever say they have mites, and not confirm it. Thatâs BS. Bad practice and irresponsible.
I treat my figs as if infected, no eggs can overwinter either with an oil and lime-sulfur spray. My cuttings are sterilized, sorry what you said is not possible. Can they survive bleach too?
What is wrong with your seedling then Drew?
Nothing is wrong with it.