Hello,

The reason to get rid of the figs on the tree from the first year is to help the plant establish and not get stressed from bearing fruit the first year, is it similar to any other fruit tree.

Hi Aeilee,

Define "first year".

Does "first year" mean the same year the cutting is rooted, or the "first year" of growth after rooting the cutting?

The same year the cutting is rooted. I have read that some varieties bear fruit that early, but you must take the figs off.

There was a thread about this recently, within the last 6 months, but I cannot find it for the life of me.

In that thread, there was a discussion about JH Adriatic producing the first year (via Herman?).  However, I do not know if the person reporting this was saying "first year the cutting was rooted" or "first year after rooting".

The thing is, most everyone knowledgable with fruiting vines, trees and bushes will tell you, you absolutely must remove all fruits from a sapling tree to prevent stunting its growth or outright killing it.  Figs are, in my opinion and the opinion of others, no different in this regard.

I will remind you again (with a smile) - "patience is a virtue".  You should probably wait until the first year after rooting before expecting fruit. 

I can tell you from years and years of experience that the two hardest things that any grower has to do is 1) "thin out" their plants and vegetables to make room for the others to grow up big and strong, 2) remove branches or fruits from their plants and vegetables to allow them to grow up strong and produce the best quality product possible.

Every year when I sow seed in my vegetable garden, I deal with the pain of "thinning out" excess plants (basically killing 1/2 of my germinated seedlings) so that the other vegetables aren't too crowded to grow up.  In my mind, I know it's the right thing to do, because I've seen how badly it hurts all of them to be crowded.  In my heart, I feel like I should be doing something more to save them so I have twice as much of a crop!  (I don't have the space to do that, though!)

Just the same, every year, I need to prune my fruit trees and bushes and pluck off flowers to make sure the tree or bush is big and strong enough to support the fruit which will grow on it, and make sure the branches are large enough to carry the right amount of nutrients to make the fruit the best possible piece of fruit it can be.

It's just part of the process!

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5015386

Took a bit but I found it!

After the picture was taken this little figgy was history.

Dom, you rock.  That's exactly what I had in my mind and I couldn't source it for anything.  Thanks!

i DID NOT say they ripened......I said they fruited!

You got it Jason!

I couldn't source it through keywords but I did remember it as well. I went page by page back

Cecil- I think that is an important distinction. I could have had half my cuttings fruit but I pinched them off. I felt that production would inhibit growth of small tree. But even if I left one or two on, with an immature root ball, how well would the fruit taste even if ripe?

Here was the posters question "Can everyone post varieties of cuttings that fruited in the same year?"

That's why I feel you don't get a hint of a fig's potential until it's 3- 5 yr mark.  I would rather sacrifice a yr or two to get that 3rd year going. Plus, the energy put into a fig could be energy exhausted out of the tree that could be better used to grow it stronger.

Having a 'requirement ' for figs to fruit same year they root is a very tough

I would just settle for a fig tree that made it to its 5th birthday.

Would I have to remove any figlets off mu Kadota also, if some grew this year?
My tree is not a cutting, it is about four years old, but did lose 2/3d's of it growth due to freezing. See pictures below.
 
Jerry

Being new to cuttings and growing figs I have decided on a strategy for getting a strong fig tree established in pots.

For a  new cutting:

Pinch all breba and main 1st yr

Pinch all but a few breba and around 1/2 main in 2nd

Pinch about 1/2 breba and about 1/3 main in 3rd

Pinch about  1/4 and leave all but a couple main in 4th yr

By 5th yr leave all and keep an eye on for possible stress

For you I would treat like a 2nd yr-leave some breba and about 1/2 main-since it died back you still have the root mass of a tree 2/3rd's bigger so the goal is to reestablish the canopy and branches to support fruit- I would suspect regrowth to be quicker than an actual 2nd yr cutting tree

Some will probably disagree but I am on the side of caution.

@Dominick...I am copy/pasting your strategy to my "fig files". 

@aeilee...I wish my teenager had as much interest in a hobby. Though I am suspecting we are going to see great things from you, such passion and interest.

Last yr I lost a few fruit and the growth was stunted. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why.  I was told it was re-potted before I bought it. My mistake for not checking.

When I went to re-pot in the fall, holy cow, it was so root bound. Most likely the cause of stunted fruit and tree growth.

Some say they like to have roots tight. Some say they like room. I think it's in between. I am testing with a few varieties to see. I have an LSU Gold in an over sized pot just to test to see if it grows well or not. I have a few in smaller pots that will most likely need to be re-potted during season. My current trees are 1 to 3 yrs old so they are mall enough to do this.

That is why I created this system for myself on my newly rooted cuttings. You can get fruit the 1st and 2nd yrs, but if you exhaust the energy from your tree in producing fruit, the tree has no energy reserve to put on new growth and it dies from exhaustion.

I look at it like this. If you trek through the desert with food and water you can survive. But if you eat it all at once you don't have enough for the long haul. So as the body needs nutrients and water to survive, so does a tree. So you don't do anything crazy. You walk, seek shade, try to conserve energy.  But if you start running and jogging, not pacing yourself, you run out of energy reserve. Eat all your food and drink all your water, you can't make it to the finish line. You die of exhaustion.

I know that's stupid, but that is how I look at it. Why do all that work to get a few sub-par fruits the 1st and 2nd yr only to see it get stunted and maybe eventually die?

I planted ten black mission trees from cuttings (and one as a two year old tree) fourteen months ago.  Several of them fruited the first year.   I got maybe 30 good figs from 4 of my most vigirous trees.   Most of the others did not fruit, but they sure are putting them out this year.  Interestingly enough, the two year old tree did not fruit at all last year.

So far this year the trees all appear healthy, including the one I cut off at ground level in December and is now growing back. 

I think if the tree is in the ground and otherwise healthy...why not let it fruit?

My Black Mission is barely rooted and already has 3 figs on it.  Talk about overachievers .... ;) 

Good analogy Dom, I think it is even more important for those of us with shorter growing seasons to take it easy. Every bit of sugar that would go into those figs instead makes more leaves and wood, then travels back down to the root system to be stored for spring. My guess is that trees will go dormant faster as well.