Just this morning I posted a comment in another thread that Black Madeira takes a long time to ripen its figs.  Last December when my little tree went dormant it had a bunch of green figs on it that never ripened.

Well just now I was walking by my Black Madeira tree and much to my surprise I saw this:




It's probably still a long ways off from actually being ripe, but any sign of progress is a good thing in my book.  Can't wait to taste figs from this tree.

Very nice!

Thanks Dominick.

Outstanding! When it gets all the way there, let us know how it tasted (and don't give the birds a chance to sample it first)!

Ken,

I already put the netting on it.  The birds got about 3/4 of my grapes.  I have netting on every fig tree that has ripe fruit because they aren't getting 3/4 of my figs!

If Black Madeira needs a lot of heat hours, tomorrow should help here in the North East with temps predicted to be 99F.

Very nice, Joe! Mine should be right behind yours. I got my cuttings from Jon last Winter and it managed to form a few main crop fruit but they ended up splitting open at the eye when they started to ripen in late September. It had not even rained recently. Hope it doesn't become a pattern.

That's a beautiful sight! Just know you'll post more pics as it ripens or when you take it off. 

As always Joe, your plants look very healthy. I've noticed something and wondered if it has ever been brought up before. I'm looking at the wood of this Black Maderia and seems the distance between nodes are pretty close. Is the tree a slower grower then others? Now this is a guess, because I know nothing about this. My thinking is, each node is it's own growing stage and the lenght differs depending on the growth rate of the tree. Now before anyone jumps all over me about this, this is just a guess and I do not know for sure. This will be something I'll keep my eyes on with my own plants. If I'm right, do I win a prize? NO


luke

Thanks guys.

Luke, I got this tree as an air layered plant from Jon at Encanto Farms last year in the spring.  Jon sent me a real healthy plant.  Last year it grew quite a bit but didn't ripen any figs.  This year it only put out about 1 foot of new growth.  But that 1 foot of new growth is full of figs.  Ever since the figs developed the plant has stopped growing new leaves and is just putting its energy into the figs.  I hope all of them ripen!

Luke, not jumping on you, not sure if you're at least partially right in your comment, but I do know that internode length is affected very much by light intensity and duration. The more light, the shorter the length. One thing you definitely hit the naill on the head is that tree looks healthy!!!

Well to me that's a slow grower. What I mean is I've started cutting and some of them have grown 5' this year. You have to consider it had to use a lot of energy to make roots and leaves. Your saying this is an airlayer from last year and my thinking is a lot less energy is spent when airlayering. I'm not stating anything is wrong with the tree, just a slow grower. Also to be clear, the cuttings are of different types and not Black Madeira. This is just a observation. Looking at the trunk where the branch goes to the right, that section, I'm counting 6 nodes. Looks to be bout 1/4" long each. All this might mean nothing, but if we keep our eyes on the plants they are teaching us as they grow. That's all we have to do is pay attention to them. Did you read THAT. That's Deep, can you dig it.

luke


Thanks Barry, I know you got my back