Last August I bought a small Brooklyn White from Bass, 1-gal. With a small main stem, maybe 6 inches tall. This year, the main stem has had stunted growth, with malformed leaves. But a side shoot has exploded, and grown to triple the size of the main stem. The main stem has 2 little figlets, with spots on them indicating disease, similar to the leaves (see pics below). The side shoot has healthy growth and about 9 figlets looking good (the left side of the pictures). Its tempting to blame fig mosaic virus, but this is an east coast fig, born and raised in the northeast. Fig growth habits are often inexplicable. Does anyone have any thoughts what this could be, and what I should do with the diseased main stem?

Maybe over fertilized and under watered?

I've had some main buds stop growing, more mature leaves with green spots/blotches and new leaves with a brown ting when I've done that.

If it was overwatered I don't think the side shoot would have grown so nicely.

Our Battaglia's main trunk stopped growing but the side branches keep growing. This happened when I was watering thru the sip and fertilizing from the top during hot weather.
I'm now water top down more often and the growth is getting better.

FMV

Thank you Leon. Do you think I should leave the mainstem alone or should I trim it or remove entirely?

Isolate the tree from your other fig trees until you find the cause.  If it turns out to be a bad case of FMV you could accidentally cross-contaminate your other, presumably "clean", healthy, trees by using unsterilized pruners, hands, or worse....insects may carry and inoculate your good trees with this bad virus after visiting the questionable tree. 

If its a chemical, cultural, or a nutritional reaction - (maybe all three) - once the imbalance is corrected your sickly tree will revert-to-type and once again be happy as a pig in heaven.

If your growing mix is a quick-draining formula it would be impossible to over-water this tree.  If you suspect that you over-fertilized, stop all the fertilizers and flush out the growing mix with water.  A new crop of leaves might grow back without the deformities and spotting.  However, it's late in the season....so keep your fingers crossed.  Allowing figs to ripen on this tree cannot help it, either.

Good luck.


Frank

Thanks Frank. I think the figs will do fine on the healthy stem. I may pull them off the sickly main stem. I wasn't under the impression that fmv could be spread to other trees by virtue of proximity. My understanding is only the mites can spread it, and they don't survive northeast winters, especially last one. I also was not aware that a fruit could also be infected with a virus, but a close look here shows that fruits also can be as infected as leaves are.

Rafael,

I second FMV.  Your tree is behaving much like Verdal Longue did for me in Texas and several of the trees I am growing in Denver.  All but one of the the VL limbs are stunted and thin with very short nodal spacing and deformed leaves.  There is one limb that grows "normally".  The leaves on the healthy limb look healthy, as well.  I'm not sure what triggered it, as my routine has been the same all year, but several of the trees I have in Denver with previously healthy looking leaves have shown FMV splotchiness in the past week.

There have been a few similar posts on the forum, lately.  I have been trying to think of what could be a common factor for the posts.  I had a leaf hopper infestation about two weeks ago.  It could be I'm beginning to see the damage they caused, even though their numbers are minimal now.  I noticed many years ago the healthier trees were less likely to be attacked by pests (except for grasshoppers)

Thank you James. Are your fmv infected trees from sources where fmv flourishes, ie California or warmer states? I would think fmv would not exist in Denver unless the trees came pre-infected from their source.

I have a few from everywhere.  I would tend to believe the plant materials have crisscrossed the country many times.  The Verdal Longue was sent to me from NJ, and some of the others I brought with me from Texas (but they originated in different parts of the country).

Here are some pics of how the virus manifested itself in VL growing in the ground near Austin.  These were taken in the middle of July, 2010 so it was near or above 100F at the time.

 

Here is the nodal spacing on a healthy branch.

 

And on a branch exhibiting FMV.

Rafael...

FMV is most likely to be spread by mites and possibly other sucking insects, and ???? accidental contamination, that's why I suggested that you isolate your tree until you know what's causing the symptoms.  The virus is not spread unless a healthy tree is inoculated by insects, sap exchange on dirty tools, hands, etc.

The theory is that the mites, that carry FMV, cannot survive through our cold winters.  However if you "import" a tree that's showing symptoms, it will forever have the virus.  When trees get stressed, or, become weakened, for what ever reason, the symptoms usually return.

Earlier this year, I had two, "Black Mission" trees -(with FMV)- that showed the same exact symptoms, and I quickly "isolated" them from the rest of my "clean" trees. The guys on the garbage truck gave me a helping hand with the isolation.


Frank