I have a Desert King that was given to me.  Most of what I have read about this variety says that it grows great in the Pacific Northwest and cooler climates.  Is there any reason Desert King would not do good in Florida?  

I do realize that in the absence of the wasp, that this is a breba only variety for me.   But other than that, I have never heard of a fig that would do better in a cooler climate than a warmer climate.  

Same question for growing DK in southern California.

Paul I think you will be very happy with DK in southern CA.  It really extends your season and is an excellent tasting fig with great color too!

I live in the Southwest with extreme heat and also humidity in the mid/late summer. All my varieties perform well in sunny hot weather. We don't get a lot of rain though.

I grow Desert King in Arizona and it does very well.  The brebas are large and tasty.  It gives a crop of brebas that start ripening about a month before the main crop figs start to ripen on the other fig trees.  It should do well for you in Florida.  I say go for it.

It does well in the Piedmont of North Carolina.  It should do well for you too.

Paul, you can grow anything where you live!

How is the eye on this fig?  From the pics in the F4F database, some look open, some look closed.  If this variety is an early producer, it would be ripening figs right in the middle of our rainy/humid season (June - mid Sept).  Figs that have more of an open eye would have to require a longer growing season so that they would ripen after our rainy season. 

I would have thought frost would damage the breba-only crop, guess not?

Hi Recomer20,
At least not in Zone7 . You don't get the full breba crop, but you still get some breba figs, and sometimes some of the maincrop :) .

Anyone have any info on DK performance in a rainy and/or humid environment?

Thanks for the input, JDS. My little collection is getting a little lopsided into the light colored figs (and I have Battaglia on order) :) They are just so visually striking..and it seems many light figs take humidity better than darks. Maybe closed eye tendency??? Many of the French/Italian darks, from feedback from other growers, have an issue with splitting in rainy areas.  

m5allen, Desert King is a favorite among Pacific NW growers, so I suspect humidity/rain alone is not an issue. Scorching heat+humidity (like in the SE) might be a different story...?

I've grown dk here in vancouver bc for 14 years. Amazing crop 9/10 years and a good crop 1\10. Eye opens with moist soil and light rain, the. Splits with heavy rain if it happens in the last few days of ripening. Had about 40% breba/ tip frost damage one winter when night temps hit -15celcius and about 15% loss last year when we had a very late frost. The tree has ranged from 10-20 feet high on the south side of our house with lots of other trees around- so protected and cool. It ripens 100-300 figs within 2 weeks in early aug. when the hi temps rarely are over 22celcius and yet the fruit is excellent! This tree has also proven resistant to "wet feet" as we are on heavy clay soil which sits waterlogged through the winter.