we use sun exposure on nodes to try and get fruit to set sooner but does fig exposure to sun speed up ripening? along those lines, other fruit increase quality by the amount of foliage around said fruit. maybe thats just apples and pears. do figs follow or could you mostly defoliate them around the figs for full exposure?
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No. Sun exposure on leaves enables the leaves to produce sugars. So you want to keep leaves in order to have more and sweeter fruit.
As far as I could tell reviewing grower data on ripening times, ripening is a function of what I call âwarm enough days.â For example, Florea needs ~95 days with a peak temperature of at least 60-65 F.
While exposure of the leaves to sun is important for fruiting, exposure of the fig is not. Given good sun and warm conditions, figs at the interior of a tree (shaded by exterior leaves) ripen just as fast as figs on the exterior.
Defoliating is a bad idea.
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not the same as complete defoliation but ive been defoliating all the leaves pointing towards the center of the trees to let more light in. i will stop once the trees that still need to set fruit, do.
Yeah, I have a different approach that attempts to achieve the sane result â I grow a central leader with 3-4 scaffolds, leaving an open center. The scaffolds grow out, then fruiting verticals grow up. Even with good growth, sunlight can penetrate.
Given the time, I would also do some âsummer pruningâ to remove excess small shoots. This is a form of defoliation, except Iâm taking the shoot with the leaves.
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my figs donât get all the nice upwards green new growth at all, in ground or not. they almost stay the size, adding only a little extra length to what is already there.
how are youse getting the big new growth?
Cutting/freezing them to the ground.
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finally saw some bumps and fig formation on one of the trees:
that would push this CH out to early/mid oct 
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Not that far out, I think.
You forced me to pull out some old data. In 2022, I recorded the date of fruit set and date of 1st ripening for each of my varieties. Coincidently, I recorded fruit set for an in-ground Chicago Hardy on June 28. For the Mt Etnas as a group, after fruit set it took 70-75 days for fruit to ripen. I think that takes you to the 2nd week of September.
Note that my estimate of 105-110 days to ripen includes the period before fruit set, roughly 35 days for the Mt Etnas â 35 + 70-75 = 105-110.
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Hereâs my CH, I planted it a little over a week ago (purchased from Gurneyâs) and itâs been around 80-90 degrees or most of the time since then.
Hereâs my Lola Martin, I planted it around a month ago, I believe it may be beginning to fruit. I canât find any good info on it online in terms of fruit set, hardiness, ripening, etc.
South Central Ohio, 6B/7A
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Definitely fruits in pix 2 & 3. Water these trees well, especially in hot weather.
I hope you have a plan to protect them over winter.
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My figs have changed a lot in the past 2 weeks.
Last year the first sign of fig formation was August 4th.
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Looks like Iâm similar (~one week ahead?) here in 4b on Improved Celeste; Chicago hardy still too small to fruit I think
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Here they are now,
CH-
The Lola Martin hasnât changed much other than now thereâs the beginnings of a fig for sure
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Yeah, those CH look good. I donât know Lola Martin so I have no view except that it seems behind.
p.s. I did some very rough mental math. I think youâll see ripe fruit starting 2nd week of Sept. Next year you might get an earlier start and so pick up 1-2 weeks.
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Your Improved Celeste looks like it has wild fig leaves, interesting, I wonder if theyâre more cold hardy generally?
Iâm not sure what you mean by âwild fig leaves.â Improved Celeste is not more cold hardy than the average fig variety. FWIW, Iâve grown it both in the ground (2014-2020) and in pots (2014-present), along with 40-50 other varieties.
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Your limited experiment is certainly admirable and useful compared to logical leaps that often lead to repeated practices in horticulture and just about eveything else people do- that is, ideas that sound logical but are not tested. Of course, even controlled studies can be of limited value given all the variables in horticulture, what is true one season may not be true the next, or what may be true of root limited potted plants and what is true of plants growing free in soil certainly may contradict (pots automatically prune roots and limit top growth in favor of fruiting). Two subjects in a single season is also very little data to work with- even though Iâm working on the assumption that you accurately measured the harvests from plants of contrasting treatments.
As I said, I admire and appreciate the intiative that I rarely take the time to invest, but the reason I pinch back figs is different. I leave trees outside where they die without protection. Iâm tired of building tall, insulated shelters and have decided that the best protection for me involes saving only the bottom 16 to 24" of the trees with a fence ring filled with either soil, woodchips, or leaves a couple of feet high . I tested all three, and next year I may run with only woodchips as they worked as well as soil (actually a sand and compost mix) in protecting the low branches I covered. Leaves were slightly less protective than the other two on a winter we reached about -9F.
Pinching is a way to slow upward growth once figs have started to form and only those first figs will ripen in my climate- there are more already formed from two trees than I will be able to use, and I also have a third tree that I have in a grow bag that gets some soil access but those roots are sacrificed when I pop the tree out of the soil in keep in a protective, unheated structure that rarely even freezes at the base of it.
Bang for the buck, it looks like leaving trees in the ground works best for me- the trees are much more vigorous that the other tree- but you want to make sure the lowest parts of the tree are getting light and that the trees donât get too tall. Left to their own divices the trees left in the ground would reach at least 8â by seasonâs end, when I want to have low shoots to carry the crop the following season that havenât been excessively shaded. All of that based on a logical leap.
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Agreed. That implies pinching in early August (or after) because any figs that form then will never ripen. Only the figs that form in June and July have time to ripen. I prefer to let the tree grow and then just prune off excess growth in late November, but I canât really argue against late summer pinching.
My observation of âlimited benefitâ pertains to pinching in early summer, which is intended to increase fruit set during June and July. In my observation, early summer pinching does not improve overall productivity.
Unless you are growing specifically for brebas, you donât need these low shoots. Main crop figs grow on the current seasonâs growth. So all you need is one bud (or 2-3 for insurance) on each branch. Fruiting verticals will sprout from this bud. I would typically grow a 2â central leader with four 6" scaffolds, each permitted a fork with two 3" tines (8 tines in total). Each autumn, Iâd prune growth back to 1-2 buds on each tine. In spring, 1 bud per tine is permitted to grow a fruiting vertical. All other growth is removed. So by early summer the tree has 8 vigorous vertical shoots setting fruit. And again at the end of the season these verticals would be cut back to 1-2 buds. The pruned tree is roughly 3-4â tall and 2-3â wide.
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I disagree, not with where figs form but with the idea that leaving ample young wood low in tree where it can easily be protected doesnât vastly accelerate next years growth of new wood. If you only grow figs in pots, you may not see what I see. If what you say was true you could probably get almost as large a crop when the tree freezes to its roots. The above ground wood accelerates the growth of new wood.
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I grew figs in the ground for 8 years. I only stopped due to deer pressure. I know what in-ground figs can and cannot do in Z7A.
You must be misunderstanding what Iâm saying. For starters, my point is that you donât need âwoodâ (as in branches); you need only buds. Look at the Japanese low cordon method. Annually they prune 8â fruiting verticals to 1-2 buds. But maybe you are also assuming that we can keep above-ground wood safe only by mulching it, so it needs to be low in the tree. I put an insulating cover over a 4â tree so my scaffolds with fruiting buds were ~3â off the ground. There was nothing âlow in the treeâ except trunk.
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