Towards the end of summer, when there are lots of figs that may not ripen in time, he removes the leaves and tips in the concentrated areas, forcing the energy into the fruit resulting in faster ripening.  Any truth to this?  Have you tried this?

It works.  Also putting cognac in the eye of the fruit helps ripen faster. 

I suspect it depends on how badly you want 'ripe' fruits. They may soften up and seem 'ripe', but without leaves making carbs/sugars from the sun, the flavor most likely would be sub-standard.

Also depends on what point you consider "late in the season".  The pinching (and oiling or cognacing) works.  Go search on "pinching" for more expert advice from forum members.  ("Pinching" refers to pinching tips).  Also, read Ray Givans' booklet.  I think Jon also includes info about pinching in his reference section.

Mike   

Thanks folks.  Hope to hear more about this topic.

Pinch, yes.  Get rid of the leaves, no.

Leaves provide the sugars, and flavors through photosynthesis, so can't imagine that removing leaves helps. It may induce the "ripening" process, but have to believe that it produces an inferior fruit.

It may also weaken your tree as it has to use up reserves built in the season on the figs rather than getting energy from the leaves, so poorer quality fruit and a weaker tree seem like the possible outcomes from this in my opinion.

Thanks guys.  Your input is greatly appreciated!

Frank...I never tried to manually strip the leaves for increased ripening, but I had an experience at the end of this last growing season that lends some weight to the theory....in early September of 2012 I had a 6 year old tree that had yielded almost 300 figs, but still had 50 to 60 unripe figs on it.  I was thinking of striping the leaves to accelerate ripening, but before I had a chance to do so we had an unexpected early frost (Sept. 14th)...it hit every tree in my back yard orchard(16 in all) really hard...the leaves shrivelled up, and most of them were blown off the trees the next day by gusty winds...the good news is that in the next 2 to 3 days about 40 of the unripe figs increased in size and turned in color from green to light yellow...the skins thinned out, and the stems drooped down into that "ripe fruit" position.
The figs were not quite as sweet as the ones that we picked in August, but they were definately tasty.
So we picked those 40 figs, and that weekend we made more home made fig jam.  Yum Yum.   :)  :)

Very interesting, Vince.  These first-hand experiences are what we need to hear.

Frank,

I found that pinching does help considerably so definitely do that as the season heads towards fruiting so the tree is not using energy for vegetive growth. Herman and Martin advised me to pinch every 5-6 leaves through the growing season to shape and direct branching of my tree and that has worked out great.

Later in the season as figs of my main crop ripen September 15th I pinch the tips of every branch and more figs ripened for me as soon as I did that. All leaves remain as they are the force that ripens the fruit.

I also remove figs I think won't make it to full ripeness. On the fig tree we have in ground (unknown) the last of the best fruit is to be had at the end of october. One can gauge which figs (usually on the ends) that won't ripen and drop fruit from there. For me if it isn't quarter size by 10/7 it's coming off as there are not many warm days ahead.

Hope this helps and good luck.

Outstanding, Vince.  Thanks so much for posting that.  Such valuable info.

Pinching, does indeed help in getting fruit to ripen faster. Plus, it starts the bush/tree to start hardening off earlier.

By late summer, the pinched Marseilles Black VS plants have already converted it's green branches to branches that have started to harden off with wood more like maple virses branches that look like celery stalks.

Pinching is a must with the English Brown Turkeys we have been growing and testing. If you don't pich them and remove all the green fruit before frost, they will look like celery with hundreds of green fruit, going into the fall. Fruit that will never ripen. But, will make the bush more likely to sustain winter damage.

This is one of the reasons why some of us are so excited about LaRadek's English Brown Turkey. The owner in the Czech Rep., does not pinch or remove the green fruit going into the fall. Yet this English Brown Turkey is able to produce a breba after lows of minus 18 degrees Fahrenheit.

For us fig growers in the north, pinching is one of the things that really help us to have figs to ripen before first frost, in the north.

Bob Connecticut Zone 5b/6a