A hail storm 2 weeks ago chopped up about 50% of the canopy of my Celeste that is about 14 ft in diameter and 12 ft high. Along with the hail we also got about 4 inches of rain over 2 days. The hail was not big, dime size, but the volume and duration was long so there was quite a bit of damage. While I lost perhaps 10% of the fruit most stayed on the tree. May be the rubbery nature of fruit helped. They did get dinged which on the ripe fruit appears as a hard black spots.

Fruit started ripening a week after the storm. The fruits are quite a bit bigger than normal and delicious. Not the bloated up ones you get after a heavy rain.
So, I am not sure if it is the rain or the combination of rain, defoliation, fruit drop that helped make most all fruit large.

The attached pictures are from this mornings harvest. I have to harvest twice a day since they ripen so quickly. Temps have been near 100F.

I save a few choice ones for eating and the rest go into making preserves.

Excellent; they still look very good to me....

Hi nana,

Is the color of your figs really that light a tan normally, or is that the camera?  If it's the color of the figs, those are like the tree downtown here that stay a light tannish color.

Does your tree tend to drop its figs in the heat, or if it's hot and dry?  Where do you live?

Despite the battering they got, they surely do look delicious.

noss

Hi Noss,

I took that picture inside without flash and may not show the correct color. I am attaching one I took after this mornings harvest outside. I think this represents the color better.

My fig does drop fruit. I thought it may be related to irrigation but I doubt that now. After a good rain it still still continues dropping. The fruit drop does not bother me at all since it makes up for it in production.  I have enough to eat, can and share with the mockers. I did net most of the tree this year leaving a nice big hole for the birds to get in.( not by design but due to the 17 X 50 net not covering the whole tree. If I was to guess it drops around 10 - 20% of the immature fruit.

I live in north Texas, north of Dallas.

Yes, the figs survived the hail much better than my pears and jujubes. Pears got dinged pretty badly and the jujubes dropped most of their fruit due to the tiny weak stem that attaches the fruit to the tree.

Lucky you to have had little damage from that hail storm. When hail get larger in size it can break the branchs off of a tree.

What type of pears do you grow? Due to low chill hours in my yard, I am limited on the varieties that I can grow. My favorite is the Southern Barlett which does real well in my zone 9 climate.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Hi Dan,

Yes, I am lucky. This tree has gone through quarter size hail in the past a couple of times. It takes the bark off the tree and shreds the tender parts.

I have one that looks like a comice pear. Bought it from Lowes as a Orient pear! I also have an Asian pear variety called Hosui. Asian pear fruit is less dense and as a result the hail really destroyed these. This spring I grafted 4 more varieties of Asian pear on to this tree. All took! I plan on doing the same for the Comice next year.

I am  in zone 7b.

If I had a do over, I definitely would have some Asian pears in my orchard. Right now I am heavily invested in fig trees. Those Asian pears have a nice flavor and a crisp apple like biting texture to them. I really like them. They go for a dollar a piece at the local market. I will be eating pears for the next couple of months. Then some muscadine grapes. Persimmons will follow those. Then all sorts of citrus....

Does your fig tree produce a second crop of figs for you? Or is your tree done producing by the end of August??

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

I have a bumper crop mid to late June. Then in continues fruiting in smaller numbers till cold weather stops it.

I think you can graft Asian pear onto European pear(may have to research this). They seem to graft very easily. I brought the scion wood from an orchard via the mail. Kept them in the fridge for 2 months till my pear started flowering and then wedge grafted them. It was pretty easy. If you want to try I can send you some graft wood in early spring.

I will contact you in the Spring. thank you.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Hi nana,

The second picture you posted is beautifully done and the figs look more like my figs.  Boy do they ever look delicious.

I believe that my two celestes are showing me that they should be out in the middle of a large field where they can grow to their hearts' content and not have me try to keep them smaller as I've been trying to do.

I say trying because they are not having any of that stuff and are going crazier than ever.  I cut them way down in early spring and they took off and since then, I've had to cut the tips off of them a couple of times and yet they have shot up even more.  This season's growth is already a couple of feet above what they ended up with at the end of last season and it's only just early July and they've been cut back a couple of times after the initial pruning.  The growth they've put out, looks like little trees already and is at least 6'.

If they could grow unfettered, I think it would be better for them.  I don't have the room for that.

noss