Hang on tight!
In your location, many figs are possible. They are deciduous so planting this time of year is not recommended. Ischia should be very easy there – as a bell weather. It is grown in GA commercially for dried, powdered figs. If you have trouble with it then practice on it. In my experience I killed 9 out of 10 trees as a beginner and only kill one out of 20 varieties as an expert.
VdB is an excellent fig and a good match for your climate. Much better than Figo Preto.
Even in our current cold and rainy weather, I am blown away by how good VdB is. It might be very common but it’s taste is one of the very best.
They are deciduous so planting this time of year is not recommended.
Uh oh. Does this apply to the Hardy Chicago I just planted in 7a?
Yes. You can compensate by putting bales of straw around it. Other folks who live in your zone will probably followup with advice based on experience.
Fall is a great time to plant potted trees.
I usually plant bare root in winter, while dormant, and plant potted plants in spring.
TFN
VdB is one that I wanted, but have heard so much about getting wrong cultivar when ordering, and so many fig trees having FMV, it makes one skeptical.
TFN
It seems to run amok in plantings by organic growers who don’t supply iron and electrolyte micronutrients; e.g., zinc, copper, and to some extent molybdenum.
Some fertilizer suppliers will claim there is copper or zinc in their product but when you look in the guaranteed analysis it’s not listed. This means it is not present in a form plants can uptake anytime in the next century.
I’m not recommending you go out and buy these supplements because incredibly small amounts are needed. Just obtain a fertilizer product that has them listed – typically chelated at 0.05% of weight for Cu and Zn, 0.2% or so for Fe (iron). Not many manufacturers have Mo, the concentration should be very low around 0.0005% by weight.
FMV is very poorly understood, in fact, most of what you can find to read about it is oversimplified or just wrong. The fig bud mite has been overlooked by growers, since it is microscopic the symptoms are often misidentified as FMV. That creates quite a problem when trying to understand FMV though.
FMV symptoms are often confined to individual growths on a tree, while nutrient deficiencies usually affect the whole plant. My plants that don’t have symptoms as young trees almost never show them, while symptomatic plants planted right next to them will always have an infected crown that sends up some sickly growths, even though most of the tree will not how any symptoms.
FMV is not a systemic virus, it moves from cell to cell. Fast growth effectively reduces the virus load in new growths, various techniques can remove it completely.
Yeah I don’t worry about FMV. Some of my best growers have it. @TooFarNorth contact me in late February and I will send you cuttings of VdB and others. Study how to root figs in the meantime. I usually have about 30 trades going that time of year, so I will forget if you don’t contact me the last week of February or a little sooner is fine too. 5 bucks for my troubles/postage/ packing material/time is all i ask.
I can trade plants, but trade is the key I will only trade rooted plants or sell on EBay. Cuttings require no time or effort. I cut the day I send, fresh as possible.
Great info, guys. Now I can put my mind at ease about FMV. Drew51, I will get in touch with you in late Feb. I sure appreciate the offer. I’m kinda new at the fig growing thing, but have learned a lot from the fine folks on this forum. As for fertilizer, my usual goto for fruit trees is 10-10-10 super rainbow, with once yearly dose of milorganite. Also use mulch around my trees for weed suppression on to prevent drying out of soil.
TFN
Some tips on rooting. You can root in a bin shoe box size with long strained moss or coir, I wet the stuff, then squeeze as much water as possible out of it. You don’t it too wet or dry at all. or root direct in soil wrapped in parafilm. Inside or out (spring). Score the rooting end by scraping it with sharp knife to expose cambium, just a little in a couple spots. If storing for a bit wash in 10 to 1 dilution of bleach, and keep slightly moist not wet or dry, in fridge. Lot’s of Youtube videos about rooting. Fertilizer sounds fine, Mulch is good.
I started rooting direct as I can pay less attention to it. Success is about the same. Keep soil barely moist. Water to wet the surface only, try to let most of it stay dry.
Works great for me too.
Right, worry about the fig bud mite instead, lol. I just want to be clear that I ended up discarding a large amount of trees about 4 years ago because of the fig bud mite spreading and intensifying FMV, young trees were particularly bad. Dealing with collectors, you will get the mite sooner or later, and depending on your own situation and practices, it could be very bad… All virus talk aside, these mites infest the insides of fruit as well so there is some real food for thought (pun intended) about why new growers inherit this problem from people who are supposedly very knowledgeable about fruit quality.
Yeah I think I may have had the mite. I treated all my trees with a couple insecticides and once dormant will spray with lime-sulfur in oil for a dormant spray. This works well to kill eggs and anything small. It is both a fungicide and an insecticide especially for mites.
You need a miticide for mites.