Here are a few pictures of Col De Dame White. Up until this year this variety was the best #1 "tasting" (not number one in performance) fig I have ever eaten. The flavor is excellent and this strain (from UCD) is very rain tolerant and bug resistant. Its down side is that it is a LATE season fig and often suffers from FMV. Many people cannot grow this fig because it ripens late into the season. Grow it if your climate allows and you have room because it is a very good tasting fig.

However, this year Black Beauty 10 has hands down taken over the #1 rating for best tasting fig I have ever eaten. The taste is even better than that of Col De Dame. BB10 has some very good growing and  fruiting characteristics going in its favor. It is rain tolerant, bug resistant, has "no FMV", and best of all......it is an early ripening fig. It truly is my dream come true fig and the answer to the one high performance fig I have been searching for years. The flavor of BB10 is absolutely superb with a very rich and complex taste.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Alan,

No, I have never eaten a Kathleen Black fig. I've heard that it is a very good tasting fig and it was one fig that I wanted to have in my collection. However, I tried to root KB cuttings on two different occasions but was not successful. On one batch (one cutting) the nodes were damaged (cold?) and few were viable. Condensation killed the one bud that was viable.....today I know how to avoid this situation. And on the other occasion (two cuttings) the nodes were very far apart (IMO....due to too much fertilizer) and the cuttings had not yet lignified.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Dan, no pictures posted.

Pictures disappear whenever an edit is made to the original post and it is not done using the "advanced" edit function button. They should now be back........ as I just went back into the "advanced" edit mode.


Dan
Semper Fi-cus

white figs are so ugly.. i can see why birds go for dark ones. :)

pete

Hi Dan.
Is the Col DE Dame White the same as the Col DE dame blanc,
And is the bb10 available
 Vito

Vito,

Blanc means white in French.....so yes, they are the same cultivar. There are also  Black (noir) and a Grey (gris) Cold De Dame figs. Their flavor is reported to be very similar. I have the noir in my collection but not the gris.

At the end of the year I am planning to sell a few BB10 cuttings on eBay. I have never sold cuttings before.......should be interesting.


Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Dan
Thank you.
I will be watching Ebay.
Vito

Kathleen Black and Beers Black are 2 awesome tasting figs! 

I've tasted Beer's Black but have yet to taste a Kathleen's Black. Beer's Black is an excellent tasting fig. IMO, the "taste profile" of Beer Black is very similar to that of VdB. (And yes Beer's Balck and VdB are definitely two different figs.) However, the taste profile and overall taste sensation of Col De Dame is much different and rather unique. Part of it has to do with the pulp texture.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

For information only.........especially to you newbies.

Each year I am always very eager to eat more Col De Dame figs. I patiently wait for these late season figs to arrive. So, last year I left all of the figs that formed  on my 4 to 5  ft. tree. I wanted to eat them sooooooo bad............because this is one really good tasting fig folks.

However, they did not ripen and the tree was winter killed to the ground. It is coming back nicely from the roots.....about 2 ft. tall now. It still shows evidence of FMV. But because I LEFT TOO MANY FIGS on this young tree, I almost lost it to a complete kill.  And I have set back the productive years of this tree by at least a year or two.

TAKE HEED and warning.........do not leave too many figs on a young fig tree too late into the season......even if you live in a zone 9 climate like I do.  I set back quite a few of my fig trees this past winter due to what I have just warned. It is just not worth losing a year or two of actual tree growth in order to get a few figs from a tree that is too young....

Nip off those figlets no matter how strong your desire to taste that new cultivar!!!  I've  learned this the hard way...........


Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Dan,

Like you I learned the hard way, I planted a Sal's Corleone and in it's first year in the ground it ripened 30+ figs and the Wife and I enjoyed them to the fullest extent!

The tree is still alive but has not grown very much and that is not the worse part, This year not ONE fig on it.

.........at least your tree is still alive. But it has lost a year or two of growth and production. It really is hard to nip those figlets off when we all want to taste those new cultivars ASAP.

Dan
Semper F-cus

Dan, Cecil, Martin, Herman, Rafed, Sal, and everyone else...

Please help. The last few posts are tantalizingly close to providing excellent information for this of us who are fig growers in a juvenile stage...that means ME!

Here is the scenario: I have a 24 month old well branched 3ft potted fig tree living in 8b. It put out 50 figlets that I pinched back to 20. It has already ripened four that the birds enjoyed.

From what I have been told, I should pinch off any new figlets that form after a certain point. For the not-the-south east coast, Herman actually gave the date of August 1. After which you pinch all new cohorts but there is a concurrent thought.

I am hoping for some guiding principles relative to tree size or age to figlets allowed to ripen for potted trees in particular. I know about 50% removal is a rule of thumb also suggested by Herman. However, if my 2 year old 3 ft fig tree ripens 24 figs before first frost (and it should), is it at risk for die back? If so, then I would consider thinning down to 12 figs.

One last example, I have another 4 ft potted tree (a whip) that has six figlets. I am comfortable allowing those to ripen without any thinning of fruits.

This is a good concern to have but a concern nonetheless. Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.

JD

JD,

I am still in the learning stages too about PREVENTION of winter damage. Living in a zone 9 climate, I did not believe that I would ever lose much wood and trees to the winter that has just passed. I now know what CAUSED most of that damage to my in ground trees. The pattern was clear. too many figs left on the tree just before they went dormant.........just not enough time for them to replace the diminished energy reserves that a tree MUST HAVE in order to make it through the winter. As H2 reported, it is more problematic when that tree has FMV. I fully understand the preference for FMV free trees where possible. I promised H2 a FMV free Beal fig tree for trial in his cold climate. It will likely out perform the FMV infected strain from California that is in his yard.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Thanks Cecil!

I am considering taking about 5-7 more figs off of the loaded tree.

Dan,

What do you do now? Or what do you plan to do if you have a tree loaded with fruits? Knowing what you know now, at what time before dormancy (# weeks) would you have knocked off those figs before dormancy?

At the moment, my focus is almost exclusively to finding new heirloom figs and visiting some trees that I study in the area. I have not yet formulated a winter plan.

Keep in mind that I am a researcher in the truest sense of the word. I do not mind experimenting with my trees....even putting some of them at risk in order to learn.  I have back ups to most cultivars that are in my collection. It is all a good learning experience to me....even the downside.  I am just sharing what I've seen in my own yard and what has already been reported by others. I just did not think that any of this applied to zone 9........wrong wrong wrong.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus 

I'm bumping this thread in hopes of getting a little more information about the dangers of leaving fruit on young trees too late in the year. Most of my trees are still producing new fruit buds. Should I start removing everything smaller than marble-sized, or what? There has been a lot of excellent growth this year and I'd hate to cause more winter die-back by leaving fruit too late--but I don't really have a good feel for where the safety/danger "threshold" is located. Any clarification would be appreciated.

weather here is about 70 till sometime in nov. night temp will drop to 50-40 by then.

i'm keeping my figs on till end of sept. after that, i'm knocking off anything that stucks out like a worm, and unrippen fruit. although.. i had green wood on my trees last winter and they didn't get damanged in my garage.

only mistake i made during the winter was leaving the trees outside when one night the temp dropped below 32. it caused all the leaves to turn black and drop and bud to get damaged.

pete

Dan,
What is the UC Davis DFIC# for Col de Dame White?

DFIC 74


Dan
Semper Fi-csu

Ken,

Joe, as long as I keep the irrigation turned on they will stay green up to the first frost--but if temps dip much below freezing, they get hammered. So, I usually force dormancy by cutting the water to my in-ground figs sometime in late September. The potted ones keep getting watered--I haul them into the garage whenever there's a freeze warning, and then back out again, but they still end up dropping their leaves later in the winter.