Please help me understand. I got an Excel from Jon this spring and it put on quite a bit of new growth. It has one fig on it that's in the home stretch for getting ripe, the eye is opening and I bagged it today, I also have a young Celeste ripening one of it's figs that I bagged. Here is the confusion, both of these figs are on new this year growth. I would think because of the time of the year they would be brebas but being on new wood, doesn't that make them main crop? 

If it's on new wood it's main crop.  That would mean a leaf was below the fig this year even if it fell off..

Excel, here, also put on a couple brebas this season, that were not edible. Have never seen that before.

Tami,
If the ripening fig are on new growth, it just means that the plant started growing (leafing out) earlier.
I over wintered a few plants indoors and they currently have a few figs in the "dormant stage". They leafed out in late March indoors while most of my older plants did not start to break buds until early May. If you follow the timeline backward (90 days), you can calculate when or if these plants came out of dormancy.

The time line is, 30-45 days from emergence to stagnant stage, 60-70 days from stagnant stage to ripe fig, 90 days approximately. If you add 30 days to the 90 days, you can calculate the approximate time when the plant came out of dormancy, or following it forward, you can project when you will be harvesting figs.

<edit> Yes, it's probably main crop.

Pete, What you're saying is, it's the main crop but early because of leafing out early? That is a good possibility as they both leafed out in March.

That sucks...one stinking fig on my Excel! I guess I'm lucky to get that since it's new here.

Large, lower figs on last years wood, below the leaves on this years growth are Breba. The smaller fruit growing at the base of the leaf stems are main crop.

See FAQ

Yup, mine is on new wood and had a leaf under it.

Jon, this is getting more bizarre by the minute...I know for a fact that the single fig is on new growth, I pulled the leaf under it off myself when it got pretty nasty. I didn't want the nasty leaf that close to the fig. I just went out and had a look at the bagged NEXT DOOR TO READY fig and guess what? There is a proper main crop starting to come out at the leaf joints. Perhaps this little speedy Gonzales couldn't wait for the rest of them?


By the way....Jon wins, this is my first ripe fig EVER! Poetic that I got the tree from you.

Tami,
Did it look something like this?.

No, it looked like the tiny ones above the breba. It was nestled with a leaf under it. I know it sounds crazy but I swear it had a leaf under it on the branch, I pulled it off myself when it started getting nasty. I didn't want it touching the fig.

Tami,
Those larger figs in the picture are not Breba, they are Main Crop. Notice the leaf and leaf stems.
I removed the 4 breba that formed this year, the one breba I ate from this tree last year was like eating cardboard.

Is that an Excel the pic says VdB? That bigger one in the middle of the pic looked like the leaf was almost on top of it, my bad. I am just completely confused why the tree would give one main crop then, after it ripens buds are starting at the leaf joints and is looking like it's getting ready to start more figs. It figures something really wierd would happen right out of the gate.

Has this happened to you and is it common?

The picture in post #9 is of VDB. The larger figs were formed as part of an earlier growth spurt. The smaller figs are part of a later growth spurt, but they are all on this seasons growth. Figs grow in spurts or cycles (growth then rest and repeat). Figs usually develop (ripen) from the bottom of the branch up to the top (older figs first). In my observations, its normal.




<edit> You're welcome. Glad I could help. After speaking with so many current fig tree owners, people that have figs as part of their ethnic heritage, most had no idea what "breba" figs are, or how the fig trees actually grow. But many recount anecdotes of the trees being pruned or cut back and producing a huge volume of figs the following year.

That sir, is the answer to squelch my confusion! I had thought they put on all the main figs at one time. I had no idea there was any spurt involved, duh! It makes perfect sense now that you say it though. The fig was formed on the new growth that happened right after Jon sent it a couple months ago and the new ones are on later growth.
The figs didn't get fed while I was in Washington and I fed them as soon as I got home and the growth started taking off.
Thank you. I feel kind of stupid now but at least I'm learning.

Weather is a factor. If a tree puts on the first couple of main crop figs, and the weather cools off, the growth cycle can be interrupted, and when the weather warms up, the tree will put out more figs, but they will have a different maturity time because they emerged or formed later. Your main crop figs do not all ripen at the same time, because the were formed at different times. Interrupt that formation, and the gap is longer than normal.

With our weird hot-cold cycles the last two summers, some trees acted like they have 2 or three crops, as they stopped and restarted with each weirdly cool week. B Mad 002 or Figo Pesca di Oro ended up ripening the last crop at Christmas.

Great thread for us newbies!
Thanks all.

I thought about this at length last night because it really bothered me why I couldn't seem to grasp the concept of main crop being put on continually.

As I thought, I began to realize that ALL my tree fruit experience has been with trees that start their crop at the same time. Apples, plums, cherries, pears ets. Couple this with the conversations about main crop will ripen on such and such a date normally.

No matter how many pictures I saw of someone gathering a few figs every day, I never made the connection. It makes sense, trees flower and fruit from it. The concept of the fruit actually being the flower ie the petals not falling off first seems easy enought to grasp and I thought I had but apparently I didn't get that they could keep forming as the wood grows. I thought to do that, it had to be everbearing.

Thank you all for not giving up and to you Pete and Jon for continuing to explain until I understood.

it's rather simple. enjoy all the figs and stop thinking about breba or main crop :) after awhile you can suspect a fig as breba or main crop by the way inside looks. but main thing is, if it's from this yrs wood (new growth), it's main crop.

i know my trees are really confused and they will put on breba in the middle of summer sometimes. not sure why.