I have thick clay soil where I live.
My fig trees are growing tall, but their fruit just falls off.

Is Clay Soil bad for fig trees?
Any advice as to what I should do when planting my trees in ground?

There are thousands of Indian Laurels in my area that grow to be over 30 feet tall.

Clay soil is loaded with nutreants but has very poor dranage. if i am not mistaken water looged fig trees can get split fruit and fruit drop. i would add compost, sand, leaves, pine needles, straw, or just about any other organic substance that can break down. to allow better dranage.

Our soil here is also clay. But we are on a hill and have very good drainage so trees in the ground do well. As others have said, work lots of organic matter into the soil, plant on mounds or slopes if you can, and mulch well.

Brawley? Yow. That's pretty extreme. Good luck. ;)

I worked in the Brawley area a while back.

I have used Dolemite Limestone on the clay soil in an area of my garden and it helps to prevent clumping for better drainage. Dolemite Limestone does not drastically increase your soil PH, and adds minerals. This is Crushed or pulverized Dolomite Limestone not Garden Lime. Limestone is highly recommended for Fig Trees. Search this site and the web for recommended detailed information on application.

Lime is popular more in the east where soils are more frequently acidic.  Unless your pH is below 6, I'd suggest using gypsum instead of lime as it will help improve soil structure (particularly if any sodium is present).  If there is also a hard pan, it will be very difficult to do this and the easiest way to avoid saturated soils is to plant on a mound (avoid excess moisture from rain) and careful irrigation management.  This is something I've done on my farm and practiced for many years and it works out pretty well.  I don't know if excess moisture is actually what has caused your fruit to drop or not, but excess moisture can easily become a problem in soils with a high clay content.  I imagine moisture and/or temperature fluctuations could also be possible causes.

I doubt that your soil could have any more clay in it than the ground at WEO/UC Davis. Check with DJ, but we saw cracks in it that were 4 feet deep or more this summer. I microsprinkler puts water on faster than it will soak in. The trees seem to be fine.

The field where I am planting my fig trees is hard red clay. I till up my spot with my Troybilt tiller. Dig out the tilled red clay. Add a wheelbarrow load of topsoil mix. Plant the fig tree and add another wheelbarrow load of horse manure and wood shavings compost.

IMO, I think that the extra work and improvement of the soil condition contributes to a  healthier fig tree.

Anyone ever use this stuff "Water In"...it says it will force the water into the clay soil...My fear is that it might kill the my fig trees.

What Barry has done can be helpful, but it can also create something like a basin for water to stay trapped in if the tree is excessively watered either by irrigation or rainfall.  Just something to keep in mind as it won't solve poor drainage.

Hank, from my limited knowledge of such products, they are usually like a surfactant to help reduce help break the tension and allow water to be absorbed into soil that has a dry crust.  Unless it's a calcium product, I don't think it will have much affect beyond the surface.

One way to test your soil permeability is to dig a hole 18" deep and fill it up with water.  If it still has water 30-60 minutes later, drainage is an issue.  Even the heavy clay soils at Wolfskill have pretty decent drainage from what I've observed there in the rain season (November visits form pom tastings).

If I were having your problems, I would get my soil tested. Since you say your fig trees are growing "tall", that seems to discount any root or water problems. Until you get a soil test, you don't know if you have a micronutrient shortage, a pH problem or what. Here is a list of testing labs to consider:
https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/viewhtml.php?id=285

I agree with DWD2.  First step is to get a soil test.  In Georgia your local county extension office will do soil test for $7.  You list the crop you intend to grow and the results are tailored to the crop.  They will send a hard copy and can email as well.

+1 on the soil test.   That test will indicte what to ammend with, if anything, and can make the difference between trees that struggle and big healthy trees with lots of fruit.

We have a lot of sad looking fig trees around our town. Poor color and just kind of sickly looking.  Our soil test indicated  PH was a little low, so I ammended with lime, which runs against conventional wisdom in our area.   Our fig trees all looked great this year.  Without a PH test I wouldn't have had a clue.

Lake Havasu was actually hotter than Brawley, and fruit did not fall off my trees there.  It would sometimes almost bake on the trees,  but it didn't drop.

I would suggest mulch heavily and use a drip system to keep root zones cool and moist during the hot season.  With enough mulch you won't water nearly as much, and  you most definately want to keep those roots from drying out when temps are into the 110's.

But first of all I suggest you get your soil tested.

The current philosphy for planting trees (any trees, including fruit trees and fig trees), is NOT to amend your soil for a variety of reasons. It is better to plant them in native soil so they can acclimatize themselves, and if you are concerned about drainage issues with clay, simply plant them on an elevated mound.  You can go as far as digging a hole about 4 to 5 times the size of your rootball, add some gypsum, but don't amend past that, then plant your tree on a mound. You can mulch with organic materials (compost, mulch) to improve the organic materials content (keeping the compost and mulch well away from the tree trunk), and then make sure that the water well is lower than the middle of the planting area (trunk).  The water well should be at the drip line of the tree or slightly beyond, which is where most tree's feeder roots reside.  By digging a hole and trying to amend with clay soil, all you do is create a "bathtub".  We use this technique for citrus trees here in California, which are much more sensitive to wet roots than fig trees.  If you look at commerial orchards in areas where clay is prevalent, you'll see the orange trees all planted in a row on raised berms, with irrigation rows in between. 

http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/ygbriefs/h408claysoil.html
http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G6850
cmg.colostate.edu/gardennotes/633.pdf

Which is one reason why we moved.  Winter is nice.  Summer...not so much.  
We lasted two years.  

Fig Tree Planting

You can vary the size of the pot or other root restriction e.g a hole surrounded with buried paving slabs and broken brick on the bottom, the rule of thumb is the smaller the pot or confined area, the smaller the tree will be but pruning can also be used to restrict final size. We put ours in 25 gal containers and may take them up to 150-200 depending on their progress. 

No need to worry so much about soil quality, Fig trees will thrive in most conditions, especially chalky. For legal reasons we should point out that a nuclear winter, meteorite strike and agent orange do not come under "most conditions". "

I cut this article from a UK posting.
In my area it is poor, sandy, nematodes infested soil and trees do much better in pots with the addition of compost. When planted in ground, trees grow only one or two inches a year. I will experiment making a bigger hole, putting a lot of mulch and compost and maybe even some manure. But having a humid and wet summers, pots give the advantage that they can be covered by a plastic sheet and limit the amount of water for the root. This prevents certain varieties from splitting. Our summer showers only last about 20 minutes a day.
Sal
zone 10b

Maybe the trees are growing a bit too quick and therefore taking away the energy from the fruit its' self?
Can you provide some pictures? I'm thinking a little pruning would help.

Some figs do tend to drop their fruit at their early stage. This problem should go away after the 2nd or 3rd year or even longer.

I have seen pictures of fig trees growing in the most ridiculous places. I would like to rule out the soil if the trees are growing well. But then again I'm not a pro.

Just a wild guess.

My Desert King is on heavy marine clay about 3 feet above sea level. I planted it on a small compost mound near a south facing  wall. Due to heavy rains here in Vancouver and a high water table the tree has "wet feet" 8 months a year but remains fairly dry during the fruiting season. The tree has only had 15% dieback in one of the past 8 years and drops no fruit. DK seems to thrive here despite the heavy wet clay. Other varieties may drop fruit in these conditions though...

Good luck!

Those are some high summer temps... maybe grow some jujubes, looks ideal for them..

Very nice blog, Alan.  Great pics.   You make your fruit trees look like professional landscaping.   Puts my backyard to shame.

And I agree about the clay soil.  Fig trees do very well in it. 

I would guess it's the heat and not enough water that causes your figs to drop, not missing nutrients from the soil.  Red clay tends to be replete with minerals.  If it's 100 degrees out you want to water daily or even 2x/day.  As long as there's no standing water your figs should be ok.  Water deeply to encourage deep roots, but days over 100 are not the time to stress your trees to encourage root growth.   Not if you want fruit.  What you don't want to do is not water for a week then water a lot.  Your figs will split if you do that.  You might visit a nearby fig orchard to see how they do it.  Mulch helps but mulch plus earthworms is even better.  Do that now so the worms start mixing in that mulch for you.  If you wait till summer they'll cook.

I have been amending my soil every year around my planting sites that its all good. but all time it took doing and waiting was worth having an awsome soil in my location. I have a garden plot that gets a good treatment of organic matter tilled in along with old cow poo, after last harvest. again in spring. the the tree and berry beds have a similer teatment but more labor. it works well for me, but i have the time working from home that helps with that. and i have free suply of of various organic soil additives. thats my 2 cents worth anyways. got to find whar works for you in the end.

Dave