Here’s some info on what @Stan is referring to. Fig Growing Guide - One Green World
Also this caprifig is kinda like yours and apparently displays multiple fruit phenotypes like yours. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/1901053/half-caprifig
thank you.
I took a few close up pictures of the fruit. The one ACTUALLY GOT EATEN!!
Starving bird or rat.
You will note the eaten one is all dry and powdery.
Tastes like carton with an overtone of saw dust.
I have questions about the small sweet fig (the source of scions). Will do that in a different topic
Good Heavens. I am reading this now (re figs its life cycle etc)
Tx so much for this intro into a fascinating topic.
Never heard of
Capri figs: male figs that contain pollen and host overwintering fig wasps that will pollinate Smyrna and San Pedro type figs.
So OK this is a Capri fig. Before you cured my pathological ignorance (to some extent only much more doctoring needed) I noticed what looked like small worms in the figs but did not bother to report on it.
I now realise it must have been the fig wasps and by taking off all the figs I may have unwittingly destroyed a whole season’s worth of wasps.
The primary question for me now is why somebody would plant a Capri in this yard some 50 years ago?
Johannesburg experiences at least a few days/week/s of frosty cold weather every year. How do the Capri wasps survive?
Smyrna and San Pedro type figs in the vicinity?
Fig afficionados in my house 50 yrs ago?
Pure happenstance?
1 Like
Oh Grief - more ignorance cured (from the article you referred me):
Sun, sun, sun
OK no problem with that.
Along rock walls is considered an ideal spot for figs, possibly because the roots are allowed to warm up faster but also because figs produce much more fruit when their roots are constricted
This is becoming eery - here in Africa (not in the Jhb area but further North and East (Savanna and Bushveld) the ficus family of trees grow in rock crevices in extreme heat conditions (like Arizona in summer except here winter is hardly cooler) and also on riverine shores high above the water level (which here is a seasonal stream). LOTS of SMALL fruit. ENORMOUS trees. NOTHING like you guys put in a greenhouse or cultivate. Flocks of birds eat at them almost all year around. My favourite the Green Pigeon - a fruit eating dove (Treron calva)
Having constricted roots in conjunction with appropriate water levels and not applying nitrogen rich fertilizers causes the figs to create short internodes, that space between buds on a branch. At each internode a fig will potentially form so the more nodes you have per length of branch the more figs you will have. This is why excessive fertilizers and watering is discouraged on figs!
Well I never. Now I realise that a fig is like a long-term provident fund. NO SHORT CUTS. And the figs in our Bushveld are VERY slow growers, become enormous and have millions of little fruit. So my rush to greenhouse success is not necessarily a long term success. I will take some cuttings and let them SLOWLY mature into trees against my North facing outside wall (North in my hemisphere equates to South in yours). Walls are necessary here because of theft and break-ins at a Biblical scale.
But the scale and sheer majesty of the wild figs here are unlike anything you find in a commercially grown patch. See pics attached.
As you can see you have sown a little seed here . . .
see pic of the magnificent Green Pigeon and Sycamore fig. I am only permitted one pic per post.
1 Like
oK two were permitted this time here is another to show the scale of this tree.
Most likely, it was a seedling.
If you have fig wasp, you can grow Smyrna and San Pedro types. Also, some people believe that even common type figs, while not requiring pollination, have better and richer flavor when pollinated. If you are going to top-work your caprifig tree, it makes sense to keep one branch intact to ensure pollination.
Sycamore fig (Ficus sycomorus) is a different species than the common fig (Ficus carica), although they’re closely related.
1 Like
Thank you for all the ideas. I think it is an excellent idea to top-work with Smyrna and San Pedro types. And retain enough Capri for pollination. I can kick myself not having done this a decade ago.
1 Like
Clive, welcome to the forum! My recommendation was going to be taking cuttings from the “good” fig and rooting them. Then you can replace the “bad” fig with these new ones when they are big enough. I don’t have experience grafting figs (a bunch of other species though) but rooting figs is pretty easy.
If you know now that you’re in fig wasp territory and your “bad” tree helps them, you could always whack it back smaller and keep it around for the pollinator aspect, just as a bush instead of a tree.
Here, we cut them down to small trunks to overwinter and some folks get 3 meters of growth or more in one growing season.
1 Like
I have found fig grafting very hard myself, I have had success with about everything else (many thousands of grafts and dozens of species) but my fig grafts never have worked and I have no idea why. So don’t feel too bad if they are not working.
3 Likes
You wont believe how this perked up my new year. I suppose I am displaying a selfish streak - feeling much better to hear OTHERS also struggle when in fact it is irrelevant.
Well I am going to take all the advice here and will report back in time.
The problem is that the existing “bad” fig plays an ornamental role. It casts a beautiful shade over part of the pool deck and frames it with fig leaves all summer. Would have been lovely if one could have a swim AND a fig! Thus the attempt at grafting - I have ample space for figs elsewhere but this one cannot be moved or replaced without destroying my figged-around-pool. And the deck is elevated and the fig HUGE. Even fast growing figs will take years to replace the existing one.
1 Like
Sorry - happy new year to all the fig fundies.
I am in a time zone ahead of most of you guys so at least first among many when it comes to New Year celebrations.
2 Likes
I’ve only tried grafting figs once, and I had only one succeed out of 7 grafts I did in that session. By contrast, I have had basically 100% success with rooting figs (only one that failed out of ~40 attempted), so I won’t be trying to graft them anymore either.
1 Like
We need to trade activities. I find figs easy to graft if timing is right. Grafting dormant scions onto established trees as growth begins in early spring is nearly bullet proof. T budding in summer is about as easy if bark is slipping well.
On the other hand I’ve set about 10,000 cuttings in the last 7 yrs and it’s not easy. I’d much rather graft.
I think most people who’ve done a lot of both would agree with me.
How did you root to achieve near 100%?
3 Likes
I have a better success rate with fig grafting than rooting. With rooting I have somewhere around 60-70% success rate, and with grafting about 90%. I don’t use a rooting hormone, I guess it could increase the rooting success rate.
1 Like
Those are very close to my numbers. I’ve tried scoring the cuttings and using rooting hormone. And it didn’t seem to make any difference. My success was about 2/3 when I started and 2/3 after 10,000. I kept thinking I could improve but when done in large numbers that was about it.
Fig grafts can flood out if the plant is in full growth with the roots pumping a lot of water. T buds succeed in those conditions because the leaves aren’t removed until the graft takes. People say to score below the graft to relieve the flooding. But when I score it bleeds a few drops and quits. Keeping the leaves removes 1000x as much water. Early spring works because the roots aren’t yet very active so aren’t pushing much water.
2 Likes
I just wrapped the cut ends with buddy tape and stuck them in potting mix (about half of them) or right in the ground outside, both of the batches March-April. We had a very rainy, cold spring, and they didn’t sprout for a few months, but all that rain kept them from drying out I guess. My only failure was one that I stuck in the soil upside down, actually.
Here’s what the potted ones looked like:
I separated them in late summer/early fall. Here’s an example of the outdoor ones:
1 Like
Ditto. I’ve found rooting to be not that reliable. Grafting OTOH is almost fail proof.
2 Likes