I have been waiting for this Excel fig to ripen for awhile and bagged it several days ago. I knew yesterday it should be ready today or tomorrow so worried all night that a racoon would get it. Woke up this morning at 4:30 to get hubby off to work and as I was making coffee the sky opened up and poured! No rain for a month until the fig is ready to pick :(

As soon as it got light I raced out to find the racoon did not get it but the rain certainly did. It was lackluster tasting but sweet.

I have some Celeste ripening and bagged, let's hope they are better.

So sorry Tami. Sounds like you needed the rain and there will be more figs.

was it a breba? is it typical of Excel to split around the eye? like mike said, there will be more figs in near future :)

The classic tree shape interior i would presume a breba fig.

This is what has me puzzled, it was on new wood. Of that I guarantee you! However, it is the only one and as I was looking at the tree yesterday I see the beginnings of a main crop just starting little buds at the leaf joints.

I am baffled. Do the breba and main crop look different? Jon said yesterday in another thread his excel threw 1 breba this year for the first time but it was not edible. Does the Excel have a breba crop normally?

Yes, we absolutely need the rain badly but couldn't it have waited just 1 hour? Of course not.

It was not split yesterday until the rain hit this morning.

Breba form below the leaf axil, main crop forms above leaf axil.
Seen and have pics of breba right at point where old wood meets new wood.
Sometimes current season growth harden fast and can look like previous seasons wood.

This was above the leaf axil so it's main crop but it was alone and now there are buds at the other leaf axils. Whatever happened, I'll take it! I was joking with my husband last night and told him maybe Jon gave it a little hormone shot before he sent it to make sure his tree was the first fig.

In all honesty, I've gotten some okay trees but this Excel from Jon and the Black Mission from Eden are head and shoulders above the others. I'm talking trees over 2 1/2 feet just to clarify.

Then i was wrong.
Here from march 2012 breba above old leaf axil .

No, this was above the leaf axil, I actually picked the leaf off a little over a week ago because it had nastiness on it and I wanted the nastiness away from my fig.

i asked if it was breba since the inside of fig suggested it's breba.. typically, breba crop doesn't have a much taste as the main crop. usually breba is from last yr's wood and main from this yr's new growth. i did notice some late breba on my Paradiso Gene this yr. the weather is causing my trees to guess what season it is.

Sorry to hear about lack luster flavor of the Excel fig. They definitely don't like a lot of moisture when they are in the later stages of ripening. However, on the bright side of things you don't really want your first fig to be the best of the season either. I'm certain better figs are bound to come your way. Happy figging:-)

Next time don't wait for daylight  :).  As soon as a drop of moisture falls get out there and get that fig.  You'll need to invest in a rain alarm and a flashlight  :)   Perhaps a raincoat.

All figs grow above a leaf or leaf scar.  If this fig grew above a leaf that formed this year it's main crop. 

I'm not goin' out there in the dark with all the snakes! We have copperheads. moccassins and coral snakes. No thank you Bob...haha

Those are only the ones we've killed here. There are also rattle snakes but thank God haven't had one in the yard.

I too have recently picked my first ripe fig ever from one of my trees and it really makes all this effort worthwhile.  I can't imagine that there's another fruit tree that tastes as good as figs and will give you fruit so quickly with minimal effort.  I can't wait to have enough fruit to give to neighbors and coworkers to open their eyes to figs as well.