I am in Palo Alto, CA, halfway between San Francisco and San Jose, not to far from San Francisco Bay, in a 'frost trap' area at about 10' (3m) above mean sea level. I do not have a lot of space, so I've elected to grow my trees for main crop figs only. I am still trying to understand what factors are involved in triggering the new growth that will produce this year's crop of figs. I can imagine that factors like average daily temperature, hours of daylight, and when I prune off last year's growth might all trigger the formation of new growth. Has anyone worked out what the important factors are?

I've attached a couple of photos of our 'Fig Forest,' the upper taken in late January just after I pruned off last year's bearing branches; the one below is from late September 2015 at full growth during harvest season. The plot is 12 ft x 14 ft between our drive way (right) and the neighbor's. The fence is 6' tall. The 'forest' was planted in 2009 using rooted cutting from the 2004 scion exchange of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers. If you look carefully at the Panache and Osborne you will see dark brown copper tags denoting grafts of other varieties. I learned how to graft figs in the spring of 2014 and was delighted to harvest interesting fruit from some of the grafts last summer. We do not get enough heat to reliably ripen Panache. The Osborne, while prolific as its name suggests, produces fruit that is not as tasty as that of the Lampeira and Jurupa.

 
 
I am interested in what I can do to maximize my cropping season. It seems that this might involve getting new growth started as early as frost allows, so that leaf nodes with the new figs can form as early as possible. I have also started 'pinching' or pruning once 8 - 10 leaf nodes have formed so that I'm not left with a tree full of fruit that will never ripen in the late fall.

I am open to advice and suggestions.

baumgrenze

First of all lets talk about you very good job in your space and quality of your trees. They are beautiful. Nice shaping. too. Good location. Looks like they get lots of sun
The only advice i can give you is to use a paste that causes the buds to brake dormancy. You put it on ea h bud. I have never used it. There is a thread on this subject. I will get back to you on the name of a product that gets good reviews. Dont remember the name of it.
Richie from louisiana

Soil temperature is probably the biggest factor, also day length but you can't really control that. You can warm the soil by moving the stones temporarily, it looks like there is black ground cover underneath and that will absorb heat well. 

"I am interested in what I can do to maximize my cropping season. It seems that this might involve getting new growth started as early as frost allows, so that leaf nodes with the new figs can form as early as possible."  

It's funny that you have an issue like this in California but that emphasizes how diverse a state it is.  I don't really have any good suggestions since they are in-ground trees other than to build a temporary green house over the trees in the early Spring to get them to come out of dormancy sooner.

Heat wakes up figs just like almost all other fruits. Mostly the air temperature. Soil temperature follows air temperature. The black ground cover will gain a few days to a couple weeks. Past that you'd need a hoop house over the trees. That could gain months.

excellent work baumgrenze. so u ve crammed 4 trees in the area i would normally give to only one... i m thinking to follow ur space management though.. like semibonzai...how old are the trees and how many varieties each? from ur experience, these two factors 1.keeping the tree small and 2.multigrafting several varieties onto same tree, have they affected the quality/size of crop?

I'm right across the bay from Baumgrenze.  I'm at about 80' above sea level, and I am in a cold sink, too.  I learned that the major factor is day length that starts and ends the dormancy.  A couple of my figs appeared to be starting to break dormancy about a week or so ago.  Then, we had our warmer than usual Super Bowl weekend.  I noticed today that all 3 of the Atreanos and the LSU Purple are breaking buds.  This might imply that heat is, at least, a secondary factor.

It's already been said, but your only chance is to put a plastic hoop house over your figs from early Fall (when the average daylight temperatures start to go under 78) all the way through Spring, when they return to above 78.  Even your Panache should bear for you then.

Many people will remove most of the leaves after your pinching is done and the fruit has set. This will allow the sun hit the fruit without the leaves creating too much shade. I'll be trying this for the first time myself this year.

Hi,
The main factor is the temperature. So a temporary hoop house is the way to go.
How is your growing season : start/end dates ?
Another factor is water. If they have heat and water ( light lukewarm -like 26°c- to help heat the roots...) the trees will start to grow.
The problem without a hoop house is the last damn killer frost ... So be careful and plan the wake up wisely.
One light frost won't/shouldn't make a big score ... But then, it is all about luck , and about the risks that you want to take.

It is my take on the pruning that you do, that it delays the ripening of the crop.
I would advise you to do that pruning only every other year. I'm almost sure that you'll get a better crop when you don't prune.
My personal plan is to prune on a 4 years cycle and have several trees (say 4 trees) so that I only prune one each year.
This should allow me to get a good crop from the untouched ones and a lighter crop from the pruned one. But, I'm in Zone7 and some years beginning of October is already late to try to ripen a fig properly.
Good luck !

baumgrenze,
Very nice looking fig orchard, great space utilization!.
I agree with earlier posts that a creating a greenhouse effect is one way to go.  To extend the season for your late ripening figs.  Unfortunately hoophouses can be quite unsightly and nice looking greenhouses are very expensive.

Another choice that would cost much less and would be better in the long term for you is to pull those figs out and plant varieties that grow well and ripen in your area.  There many fig varieties that would love your climate.

Jdfrance about alternating pruning branches, it may give the remaining branches more vigor

Thank you everyone for your comments and suggestions.

Except for its tendency to rust (which can be kept under control with Serenade fungicide (OMRI)) I would never remove Lampeira. I am nearly as fond of Jurupa. That leaves the Panache and the Osborne. I've reached the age where I don't think I would get enough enjoyment out of starting with a new tree. It is easier and quicker to graft in new varieties, I have 20-25 cultivars that should grow out more or less during the 2016 season. Some are named. I want to add some more from the orchard at Prusch Park in San Jose (CRFG Heritage Orchard) once growth starts again.
 

I've included this less than perfectly focused image of a Lampeira on Osborne graft made on 6/8/14 using a 'pinched' terminal bud from the Lampiera tree 6 feet away. Once it grew to 4 feet long I removed the growing tip to keep from endangering the healing graft union. It produced fruit last year. The very healthy union is less than 2 years old. In 2014 I made my last grafts on 8/29/14. Some Flanders grafts made with large terminal buds from a friend's tree, produced figs in 2015. This leads me to keep my eye out for seedling figs growing in the neighborhood. The buds are a bit smaller, but in a year or two I should know if the new variety is fruitful and tasty. If it isn't, I will replace it with something else. It beats waiting for years.

Years ago we toured the Frank Lloyd Wright Hanna House on the Stanford campus. My eye noticed an old fig tree espaliered on a brick wall no more than 4 feet high. That was the first inspiration to prune our trees. More recently I saw Ken Love's photos of figs in Japan, and I staked branches on our trees to the ground to keep them low. I no longer want to climb a ladder to pick fruit and to prune. I also read that in some Italian areas the trees are cut to the ground each year to create a thicket of new growth. That seemed a bit too extreme. We get enough fruit each day during the season for breakfast and dinner dessert and have spare fruit to share and to dry for use in the winter.

I use the bark graft that Joe Real taught the local CRFG chapter. You can find the principles here:

http://citrus.forumup.org/about1762-citrus.html

TucsonKen describes it on F4F:

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5830743

I would add a few wrinkles. I mix a bit of Actinovate fungicide (OMRI) and Rootone into some water and put some in a small jar and some in a 2 oz travel spray bottle. I store the prepared scion in this solution while I ready the accepting branch. I use a home-made hook knife/chisel to flatten the accepting branch to stabilize the forming graft. Before I wrap the graft with Parafilm I spray it with the Actinovate/Rootone solution. I almost lost some grafts to mold in 2014. A fungicide spray and rewrapping rescued them. In the future I intend to bind on an external splint (I save the steel bristles from the street sweeper when I see them, but split bamboo would also work) since I've lost a few grafts to birds and climbing critters. It also helps to rig a sheet of shade cloth over the grafted area for about a month while the grafts get established. I started some Osborne cuttings late last fall. I hope they will grow big enough in a year or two for me to establish whether or not root-stock can change when fruit forms and ripens. In 2015 some of my Lampeira grafts yielded fruit about 4 weeks earlier than the parent donor tree that provided the scions.

Figs for fun pretty much says it all.....

baumgrenze

Fertilize them ASAP if you want them to break dormancy early. There's a video on youtube.com from Dave Wilson Nursery that shared this information.  It's something that some of the Central Valley CA farmers do to get a jump start and a higher price for their fruit.  They recommend January fertilization for California trees.

Thanks, padsfan!

Our original soil is bay-fill adobe clay.

From a quick look around, bone meal at 1-13-0, should promote fruit formation, no? Nitrogen, I gather, can promote leaves and no fruit. From other posts, some dolomite might also be in order.

thanks

baumgrenze

I use a slow release citrus-avocado mix in pellet form from Vigoro that you should be able to find at Home Depot which has high nitrogen and lots of micronutrients.  It works well for my trees and other plants like plumeria. Just don't use too much.  I also have clay soil.  

The good thing is that figs are not very picky.  Remember that figs produce fruit on new growth so you do want them to grow a couple feet a year minimum.  The problem is all the pruning the next winter!

It's worth it  :-)

I think another important factor in when trees break dormancy is the variety. Both my Unk. Pastilleres are opening leaves today and are on opposite sides of the house and yard. Several fig trees in pots in my sun room with an extended day have yet to break dormancy. A few little trees never went dormant at all.
I was thinking of making a post here titled "The winner is ......" with a picture of the UP opening leaves and asking people what their first leafing variety was this year. (Caprifigs don't count.) Then I saw that the East Coast would be getting another freezing snow and ice storm next week, so guess I'll forget it for now.  

This afternoon I noticed that two small seedling figs next door, both are 3+ years old, have put out leaves. I made grafts of these in 2014 just to see if they would fruit more quickly (if at all) on Osborne as a rootstock. I pruned both back to 1-2 adventitious buds. These are still tight.

Could it be the case that last years terminal buds break more readily than adventitious buds at the 'tree end' of last year's growth? That is pretty much all I have left on my 4 trees.

I regret my use of the adjective "adventitious" now that I've taken time to better understand the meaning of the term.

Here are some definitions from the wikipedia entry on plant morphology:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_plant_morphology#Stems

           Accessory buds – an embryonic shoot occurring above or to the side of an axillary bud;also known as supernumerary bud.

           Adventitious buds – a bud that arises at points on the plant other than at the stem apex or a leaf axil.

           Bud – an immature stem tip, typically an embryonic shoot, ether producing a stem, leaves or flowers.

           Dormant – a state of no growth or reduced growth

           Lateral buds —A bud located on the side of the stem, usually in a leaf axil.

• Accessory bud – an embryonic shoot occurring above or to the side of an axillary bud;also known as supernumerary bud.
• Adventitious bud – a bud that arises at points on the plant other than at the stem apex or a leaf axil.
• Axillary – an embryonic shoot which lies at the junction of the stem and petiole of a plant.
• Dormant – see Latent bud
• Epicormic – vegetative buds that lie dormant beneath the bark, shooting after crown disturbance^[11]
• Flower bud –
• Lateral –
• Latent bud – An axillary bud whose development is inhibited, sometimes for many years, due to the influence of apical and other buds. Also known as dormant bud
• Leaf bud – A bud that produces a leafy shoot.
• Mixed – buds that have both embryonic flowers and leaves.
• Naked –
• Pseudoterminal –
• Reproductive – buds with embryonic flowers.
• Scaly –
• Terminal – bud at the tip or end of the stem.
• Vegetative – buds containing embryonic leaves.

In skimming the thread it occured to me that no one mentions using Agribon or the white fleecy row cover fabric to cover figs.  It has the affect of holding heat while still letting plants breath and get rained on.  Each layer is supposed to add 2-5 degrees to the ground temperature. (depending on the weight)

SO why not make a white tent to cover small trees like these to give them a bit of a boost?  It might take a bit of sewing to make them the shape we need.  Or just 2 or three layers draped artfully over the trees.  (Another benifit is keeping birds and unwanted insects(like wasps that love my figs)  off the fruit.

It gives the landscape an ethereal feel with waving white 'sheet's undulating in the wind. 

I've done this with my potted figs when I take them out to protect from cool nights in the spring.  I wish I had pictures. . .

If you want to get it by the yard you can get it here.  Buts its the lightest weight.  http://www.superseeds.com/products/agro-fabric-row-cover-per-foot

Here's a good souce of it in quality & quantity http://www.johnnyseeds.com/search.aspx?searchterm=agribon&isusersea

To my knowledge, it's all about temperature and the right variety!

Schematically:

greenhouse WORKS, advances bud break by about a month, especially if the sun is out.
varietal differences: WORKS, about two weeks of difference between the first and the last
watering and adding nutrients: DOESN'T WORK
day length: DOESN'T WORK

To communicate as clearly as I can, I am attaching 2 photos to this reply. Both are of the same part of our Lampeira tree, just from different perspectives. On one I added some 'red lines' denoting points where I pruned away last year's growth a few weeks ago. I left a few very small twigs with terminal buds. As you can see, these buds are breaking as of the last few (very warm, nearly 80 degree) days. None of the buds between the pruning cuts and the cuts of previous years are breaking at all. They must need more stimulation to break and start growing a new branch, the very growth that will yield main-crop 2016 figs.

   

This tree is less complex in that I've not grafted any other varieties to it. I want all the figs it wants to set and ripen. The orange tag indicates that in the past this part of the tree yielded figs with pale yellow skin, different from the more typical green skin.

thanks

baumgrenze