Well, going by the theory that it takes 90 days to ripen a fig from the double bump in a node. anything above that usually doesn’t have a chance of ripening.usually and is a waste of energy for the plant and disappointing to see green figs at the top after a freeze.
So the last couple days I have been topping and overgrown 90 foot row in a high tunnel ,
They are up against an outside wall, so I only have access to one side.so I have to reach through the bush to get to the other side.
I know the latex, and even the leaves can cause irritation on your skin, so I tried to reach to the back and start cutting my way out so that the latex wouldn’t drip on me. I ended up getting it all over my arms, which has happened before with minor irritation. of course I washed good afterwards, but today I woke up and my arms were raw very painful. A red rash on my inner forearm nowhere else even though I’m sure by the end of it I had latex everywhere.. so be careful out there. today I ordered a ARS 2 feet cut and hold pruner.
More painful than it looks, I think with long sleeve shirt ( rain coat ?) and the 2 foot cut and hold pruners, maybe rubber gloves, I could avoid this. First time in 25 yr of fig growing I have reacted like this, before it was just minor irritation. So be cautious!
That reaction sounds miserable. Fig sap is no joke and it seems like the first bad reaction comes out of nowhere after years of handling them fine. Long sleeves and gloves from now on sounds right.
Yeah I don’t top figs. Well unless I want to shape scaffold. I usually prune at the end of the year, but sometimes wait till spring to shape scaffolds. I never really had a problem with production so never considered pinching or topping.
I’m interested in how much of a difference topping/tipping figs actually makes. I had difficulty finding actual controlled, experimental evidence about it.
I’ve never seen anyone actually top one fig plant and not top another right next to it (and hopefully have a few replicates) and record the results. If anyone wants to do science and has a bunch of fig plants of the same variety - let’s talk.
I did see a few small scale experiments where people did one branch and did not do another (and found no difference). But I don’t think doing a single branch is the same as a whole plant.
Does it actually improve figs that ripen?
Thinning makes sense because you get more leaves per fruit. But if you top a fig, you are not getting more leaves per fruit. Unless I am misunderstanding, you just stop the apical growth. I suppose maybe this induces branching which is more leaves per fruit?
If you have no/few figlets formed and you tip will it switch the plant to growing/forming figlets?
Again, I was unable to find experimental evidence for this. The best I was able to find is that the Japanese growers all do it for step over figs. They really seem to have a system that works so perhaps it was tested at some point.
Lowes had Olympian figs for $15 a pot. Nice, developed ones. I bought 2 for experimentation. But not for this. You can pick up figs cheap possible in the end of the season for testing. Or you twig growers can sprout 4 or 5 of the same figs to use as test subjects. Testing is the WAY!
We sometimes were in a rush for figs in L.A. We would pick figs and the milk was still flowing on the top of the fig. We would cut the fig back, maybe 15% to get rid of the milk. That milk gets to your mouth! But we never had a skin reaction like that from the leaves.
Maybe cause we never pruned the fig tree. My mom had a Mexican gardener do it. I never paid attention to the fig tree…just gorged on figs when in season!
In my experience topping and tipping can push fruit but usually doesn’t make any difference. It works often enough that it’s still discussed. I had some trees this year where topping pushed some fruit. This was new rooted cuttings that got too tall to ship. Maybe 20 nodes. Cutting off the top half caused some figs to push on the remaining stem.
For a few years I have wondered this as well. A lady down the road from has never gotten a single fig to ripen from her tree that has been in-ground for (15?) years. I’ve seen figlets but it is the absolutely latest ripening main crop I’ve ever observed. A theory I had was that the tree would push energy into ripening some fruit if the other half were cut off during a tipping.
