Had a very brief meeting today with the lady in charge. They have eight fig trees.  I have not seen them yet or know a lot but wanted to start a thread to record future events. 

I showed her a few of my pictures and explained what I'm doing.  She has had trouble rooting cuttings so I think we were meant to meet. She seemed happy to meet me as well. 

Thanks to Jenny (BrightGreenNurse), telling me in the Honey Figs Defined thread, I now have a new fig buddy! 

What I gathered is, they want to know which cold hardy varieties they can recommend to local people who ask about growing figs. So far all they have is from LSU and no LSU Gold.  Hmmmm I just happen to have that lol. 

They have a greenhouse.  I will be happy to donate some for the sake of research and who knows where this will lead?  

I'm pretty pumped about the whole thing. :)

I have a feeling they are going to go from 8 to 800 very soon if you have any influence on them.

That's great, Charlie.  You're a good man.  Best of luck.

I need a job like hers!

Good news Charlie.

Congratulations!

Sounds like a win-win.

Best wishes for a satisfying adventure.

I'm so excited to see where this goes! I have a feeling the program will grow astronomically faster now :).

"One of the projects is the Learning Fields at Chaffee Crossing and that is the project I work on.  The Learning Fields is made up of  demonstration gardens. We have a basic vegetable garden for a family of 4, herbal spiral, medicinal herbs, strawberry patch, blackberry patch, native plant garden, children’s garden, heirloom tomato garden, a labyrinth, vertical garden for small spaces and a butterfly habitat. A bee hive has also been added. All of these are for teaching.

We have a greenhouse, lath house and hoop house.  We use the houses for growing out plants for the projects and we sell plants twice a year to support the Learning Fields.
 

The Learning Fields Fig project is: start all varieties of figs that we obtain from cuttings.  Plant 3 to 5 of each type of fig and  label with the name & description of the fig and date planted.  Records will be maintained of the winter temps to be able to tell people about the hardiness/or lack of hardiness in this area,  type/amount of fruit produced, diseases and water requirements. Once established the orchard will be a 5 years test.

The interest in fig trees has been increasing the last few years and a lot of backyard gardeners are planting fig trees that aren’t hardy here or will at least require winter protection. The test will provide information to the public on what figs can be grown in the river valley and hopefully encourage the planting of fig trees.  The first fig trees will be planted this spring. We will have irrigation on the orchard."

Hi Charlie,
Which USDA Zone for them garden ?
5 years for figtrees is short. Those trees won't even be fully adult (in a Zone7) and only growing out of their childhood.
10 years would be more reasonable for a true test .
Be the apostle of the fignuts, and teach them the 80 liters ( or 200 liters ) trashcan technique as it is an easy one; That is both for planting - for rodent protection, better water management and root restriction - and for the winter protection.
If they really want to test figtrees, the community can help you add more ideas of experiences for them to make :) ... I'm sure ...

We are zone 7A. Don't know how long they are giving for the term "once established", it could be some years or mean when the trees are planted. Will have to learn the details. 

Be sure, she is reading this and will take all things into consideration and utilize what they have access to in the best way possible.  She has had an account here for some months, never posted but learning what she has been able.  

Getting through the cutting stage seems to be the goal for now.  

From what I have been able to learn here, I doubt there are any figs that will be able to be planted in ground and not be protected for at least a few years until established without die back in winter.


  

A very generous forum member has offered to help the cause by tree donations.  This is awesome, unexpected but not surprising to me with the character of some f4f friends.  Thank you!  The info has been forwarded.

Was on my way there this morning, out the door and discovered water pouring from the top of our 12 year old water heater so it will be next Saturday at the earliest when I can actually go see the Learning Fields and fig project.  

Really hoping she will make an appearance here in this thread. :)

Since you get down to 0F I think all trees will have some dieback.  For my HC dieback starts under 15 F.

Was able to go this morning for a short time.  There will be a lot of updates to this thread over the coming weeks and months.

My first view of the Learning Fields enclosure area where the greenhouse and other various buildings are located.  

 

They have a short hoop house also behind the fence where the figs were kept until rats started gnawing on them as is apparent in the next pic.  So they were moved into the greenhouse.

 

So far as I know, they have LSU Tiger, Purple and Champagne, Italian Honey, Celeste.  I took two 1 gallon pots, one Atreano and one Magnolia which were up-potted from the single node project.  The ones I saw such as in the pic above are too wet.  We discussed moisture, drainage, present and future location of the fig orchard which is now only a turned up area of ground, I would estimate at probably 50' x 150' or so with plenty of area for expansion if needed.

I hope to make it a habit of Saturday mornings there and take more and more potted figs each week as we go through winter.  

That is a great project, Charlie.
I wish you and the school a good luck with it!

Awesome project, good luck Charlie!

Charlie
Let me know, I can do an air layer of my MBVS and Gino's Black this spring if you don't have a high enough rooting success from the cuttings I gave you to share with them. Where is this located?
I am guessing NOT Fayetteville?
I have several different varietal fig plants I want to get rid of, but are too big to ship.
Greg

I see now, Fort Chaffee

This is great to see Charlie, nice.

Great work Charlie. I have a small Olympian that I might be able to air layer this spring. They are said to be good to a zone 6. Just let me know and I'll give it a go this spring.

Anybody who would rather, I can give you her contact info.  Otherwise any donated materials may be sent to me and I will be glad to get them to her.

She also sends this... "I moved the figs down under the benches. Turning off the irrigation and will hand water as needed. Should have been doing it anyway but got lazy and started using irrigation on a timer. The mist bench will still be on and will keep the humidity up inthe greenhouse. I read the comment about needing 10 year study. We can publish findings at 5 years and continue the study for another 5 and publish at 10 years. Good input. This spring will be exciting and a lot of work but looking forward to it. Need all the input for planting we can get. Susan"