Same thing happened with the Main crop on all our producing fig trees last year, especially on our high producing fig tree, there was a lot of rain and cloudiness which made the high producing fig tree’s crop worst than all the other fig trees.
So is the consensus to NOT thin figs? I have cobbed together a garden of 8 hardy potted figs over the last couple years and inherited 2 30-year old trees of unknown variety , (+2 Chicago Hardy in the ground, but die back for the last 3 seasons, come back strong, but never in time to ripen). My potted figs are heavily set this year, I have been wondering about thinning the smaller fruits? don’t get me wrong, I would love to harvest all what’s hanging on these trees…
I do not know anything about heavily set fruit in pots, I have never heard of that before. yet I do know you should never let any fruit tree have so much fruit that the branches break, nor should you prune too many fruit off any heavy set fruit tree. With fig trees I’d be worried about all the sap that drips when an unripe fig is removed. Like if you removed 30 figs that is 30 places sap is leaking, not just the mess all the bleeding of sap too.
Hi Fruitnut,
Sorry my bad. I thought the fig leaves wilt (downward) a little, they look very different from my fig plants. I thought you are controlling amount of water to promote fruiting or improve fruit quality.
Thanks
This is not happening where I remove small figs. Any benefit from thinning will probably come from thinning early.
There is no consensus, just unanswered questions and some possibilities. I would never have worried about thinning figs if I’d not had bland ones last year.
Most figs don’t need thinning. I’ve got one plant out of about 100 with too many figs.
Leaking sap won’t concern me at all. Like Alan says to do any good it has to be done early not after they start to ripen like my tree. But even if I thinned near harvest that won’t bother me. After the sap dries I doubt that it would affect the taste if it dripped on another fig. Have you tasted an adverse effect of sap?
The leaves are pulled down by the weight of all the figs. I have backed off on water some. But I don’t want any wilting. That’s counter productive.
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It isn’t the same thing but certain trees and certainly grapes tend to release a lot of sap if pruned late but according to the lit, it is not a problem.
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Grapes can drip for days figs for minutes. At least that’s what I’ve seen.
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I wouldn’t know- my fig tree isn’t weeping at all for loss of tiny figletts.
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Ok great to know, I have removed somewhat swollen figs and sap sure can leak out then.
The tree I pulled a fig off of and got sap was not close enough to another fig to have that happen. It’s more about the bleeding of sap it’s self. I also left out the allergic reaction that people can have to fig sap touching their skin. Yet like has been said smaller figs do not have a sap leak. Interesting.
Small figs when cut off do leak sap but only for a short period. Most any damage to figs will leak sap, even damage to the leaves. However the small amount of sap loss doesn’t damage the plant. I do have a reaction to getting the sap on my skin but it hasn’t been a serious reaction.