Hi everyone!
Been lurking in the forum for some time now. I was hooked into the fig thing since i was searching for good exotic fruiting trees with less wait time, that my family and friends can enjoy for a long time. I've first come to know mulberries, they're fine and now taking over some parts of our house. Then i got hold of some fig seeds(brown turkey). But i'm now disappointed with the genetics of fruit trees and my low chances of getting a common fig out of the seedlings which survived.
I am now trying to root some cuttings from thailand and awaiting some more (in transit) from another forum member.

Anyway, coming to my question for some members from the tropics: I like to know, will the fig variety's characteristics change when they set root on tropical soil? Like the fruit color or leaf shape... I'm seeing some posts of people saying it's desert king, but the fruit is too red on the outside, unlike some of the photos of the desert king here in the forum... i can't see the other features like leaf shape or the inside of the fruit though... Or is it just a case of mislabelling?

Welcome fluffywaffle! More tropical growers. :) I don't know if there are much differences in fruit color or leaf shape. The only difference I see is they fruit quicker, grow faster and produce more. Things to look out for in the tropics are wet feet, heavy rain during ripening and fruit flies.

Have fun!

cool, figgysid! thanks and nice to know that figs don't "mutate" in other climates... not sure how to deal with the wet feet thing in the future when i put my figs on the ground... maybe heavy mulching?
probably a separate book/documentation on growing figs in the tropics can be compiled in the future... there is a growing number of people getting into figs here in my country, though we only have limited number of known varieties that come in... when i get my own lot, i might get more varieties to play with... not sure why our neighboring countries have so much figs, but here we were left out... Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia all have established figgeries, but not us. :(

I found a photo of my first fig tree I planted in ground. A 6 inch plant in a 1gal pot, to this size with 700 figs in 1 year. That is what got me excited about growing figs. Variety is brown turkey. Fertilizer was grass clipping mulch. 2nd picture was taken 8 months ago of what was labeled black mission fig, growning 5gal pots in 2 inch deep trays of water. Soil is 1.5 inch blue rock gravel chips, top dressed with 3/8th black cinder, fertilizer is 14-6-8 nuitricote. I did not want to use gravel but ran out of potting soil and there was a 10 ton pile just sitting there... And I just said YOLO.
Only later when I went to move them did I remember, that gravel is very, very heavy. Yes a special tropic grower section with no "snow talk". :)

wow! what a heavy fruiter for the first photo... your second photo gives me an idea about how to deal with moisture swings... 
also, i am curious about your fig's ability to grow in mostly gravel, did it help to deal with the constant rain, or purely coincidental? i might do mine on containers first (or  the brown turkey seedlings maybe good to try), since my first cuttings are abit expensive to lose (shipping, + crossing fingers when it gets to our customs/post office). hoping to at least get some sign of life some time this month from the cuttings, or else i'll take more unknown figs available in weekend markets and identify later...

how about the concepts of breba and main crop? some figs tastes better during breba or main crop right? does this concept apply as well in the tropics?  

Hello David & welcome!!

Hello David, welcome to the forum. Fig growing in Malaysia is still very new, hardly 5 years old. So far, there are a few fig varieties that do not produce fruit eventhough they are common fig. My Black Sicilian is into its third time fruiting. They dropped their fruits the last two. Hopefully the fruits will not drop this time around. Choose varities that do well in our climate and you won't be dissappointed. Varieties like brown turkey, btm6, improved blue giant, masui dauphine, black jack do grow well here in our climate

Hey guys, i'm back with some new progress... Sorry Thai Fig, looks like the cuttings from you did not survive my newb-ness...
Anyway, i got another batch of figs from Sabah Malaysia, btm6, blackjack and "australian", using the baggie method and lasagna method (with hygrometer)... So far, lasagna thingy got me some roots after only a week and baggie got me some callus... Sprinkled some cinnamon dust on the cuttings after reading about it being a good rooting hormone or its antifungal properties...

Now i am really trying hard not to disturb the rooting process... There are days when i want to tuck the storage box with me in the bed...

Anyway, next reply would be some photos of my cuttings and setup (need to resize the photos somehow)

Photos of the cuttings, storage box and baggie method... basically today, the remaining cutting in the ziploc is the unkown yellow fig cutting i got locally, which was said to have come from france (photo of the tree pending)
       

 The unknown yellow fig tree. accidentally got a cutting, while attempting my first graft (scion turns out to be fatter than this stem). pending tranplant to a bigger pot. the ground is not yet an option, lots of termites and nasties there... :D

 

got 2 of these unkown purple figs in separate pots.