Hi All,

Andy
Welcome our version of sanity, LOL.  Speaking for myself, I have found that breeding has little to do with growing figs as I come from very questionable breeding.  I also don't know anything about grafts, I really don't know why they allow me to remain a member.  Maybe they keep me to make the rest look sane.To a more serious question, although you are in a particular zone, does altitude affect anything?  What about mountain shading?  Do you have the same number of daylight hours as someone in Kansas?  I guess if you were on a peak it would not matter.

Anyway, welcome

Welcome, Andy!  (Danny, LOL!)

There's lot's of info on grafting but no info that I've seen on whether it can improve cold hardiness in figs.  Maybe that's a good research niche for you.  To breed you'd need the fig wasp.   While you can get them mail order (From CA, not Russia) your season may or may not be long enough to get the job done.  If you were to bring your fig plants out of dormancy early in a greenhouse that might get you the time you need to breed.

There are ways to breed without the wasp but breeding is not for the casual grower from what I read. Plan for 1/3 with no fruit, 1/3 capfig and 1/3 with worse fruit quality than either parent. Unless you have a lot of land for useless figs (less than 1 in 100 are keepers from my reading) lots of patience to sort out useless lines and lots of tolerence for failure then fig breeding probably isn't for you.

I'll add my welcome too!  Enjoy the forum!  Nice having you here!

Suzi

Welcome Andy

Welcome to the Forum Andy!

Welcome to the Forum....plenty to learn here.....try searching for posts by "Grasa" she is the resident grafting wizard, and is from Seattle, where they are always looking for cold hardy varieties.  Good Luck.

Welcome Andy !!

Hi Andy, I have 70 seedlings I started last spring, the seeds came from Tom a member here, he has said he  will send me some male tree cutting, I want to do inline breading for cold hardiness , the trees that are not up to standards will be used for root stock, I could at some time seed you some cutting off the seedlings if you want to work with them, Rex.

Welcome Andy

Thanks all for the warm welcome (regardless of your breeding)!

Danny, I agree that there is more too hardiness than minimum temp. I tried a Chicago Hardy outside here one year, and it was well protected, but it simply dried up during that warm dry winter. It will be interesting to see how other varieties do with our warm dry spells punctuated with cold and snow. I have seen some encouraging reports about Marseilles Black VS in NM, which is a similar climate except a bit warmer.

@Bob C. I'm planning on giving it a try using Florea as the root stock, but I only just got cuttings and won't have a Florea tree that I will want to behead for at least two years. Though maybe next year I'll try grafting and rooting at the same time, like I do with grapes if my cuttings grow well.

@barnhardt9999 Yep, for some (me) that sounds like fun ;) It is far less daunting than apples, at least once you have seed. I have been reading up on it too, have you found any good info on pollination without wasps? Everything I have found so far is pretty vague.  As for lots of undesirable trees, I plan on letting the climate here weed out most of the seedlings and simply evaluate the ones that survive. Maybe I'll never get any results, time will tell. I guess I'll need to hunt down a caprifig at some point if I want to get started.

@Rex That sounds very interesting. Were the seeds you started from an intentional cross with a cold hardy variety? From what I understand, they should be at least 1/2 male, and if they started from a cold hardy fig, the males might be useful to continue using for breeding. Regardless, I'll happily take you up on your offer when the seedlings are big enough. If you have a chance, I'd love to see a picture of the first season seedlings.

Andy

Welcome to the forum Andy. I hope those cuttings do well for you.

There may be a few varieties that hold some nice promise for cold hardiness even without further breeding. It seems that most of these aren't widely available yet but should start finding their way around in due time. 

I have one variety of Lebanese origin that has proven to be quite cold hardy here in zone 6b (temps as low as -5). I don't have any part of this one to offer at this time but should have some after another season or two.

There are some others that have names that hint at the possibility of being cold hardy or have been reported to be but not yet fully proven out. A couple of those names are Caucasus and Baskinta (2 variations). I have one small tree of each of these and hope to give them full opportunity to prove cold hardiness or not in the near future.

I've considered trying some breeding myself. I have a friend who is a horticulturist and he even expressed some interest as well. But as was mentioned, it takes some considerable effort, a lot of patients as well as a good place to grow out a large number of fig trees. And it's not until sometime long after that when the process of selection begins.

To me it still sounds like an awesome project. Just be prepared to be in it for the long haul ;-) .

WB Storey wrote a chapter on fig breeding in the book "Advances in Fruit Breeding" published in 1975. The breeding itself is actually pretty easy. Testing seedlings for desired qualities is a very big undertaking. For instance, O'Rourke at LSU spent a couple of decades breeding for nematode root-knot resistance. The difficulty is that even if a seedling has a desired quality, in this case cold resistance, it is likely to have lost many other desired qualities. Breeding is for the patient person with lots of time and land. You might be more productive in looking for figs that grow well in colder climates and take what evolution has already selected as cold tolerant.

Thanks Bill, all the cuttings look great. I can barely wait to get them going.
Is the Lebanese variety you mentioned the one form Cairo IL I was reading about on the forum? What an awesome story behind that tree. It will be interested to hear how the other varieties handel the cold.

DWD2, Thanks for the pointer to "Advances in Fruit Breeding". I'll always be on the lookout for possibly cold hardy/early varieties that could do well here too ;)

Andy

Hello Andy,

Welcome to the forum.

There is lots of information on "cold hardy" varieties on the forum if you do a search. "Herman2" and "robertharper" are forum member that have done a lot of trials over the years for in ground cold hardy figs, search for their Topics, posts and recommendations. English Brown Turkey and Celeste are some of the hardiest and may be good for in ground rootstock also. If you do a search for "Japanese fig espalier" you will find a pruning technique that can be used in colder zones for in ground figs, with minimal labor for winter protection. There is lots of good information available.

Good Luck

Thanks Pete, I had been trying to find good pictures of intensive pruning systems. Exactly what I was looking for. I continue to be blown away by the depth of information folks post here. 

Andy

Andy, An additional thought is to test some cultivars that are already reported to be more cold tolerant. Two cultivars I have stumbled across that might suit your needs are Castle Kennedy which has been grown in Scotland since at least the late 1700s in an area that gets pretty cold and Olympian which is reported to be an unusual cultivar that is cold tolerant.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/05/12/1183238/big-on-figs-a-retired-biologist.html
I have no direct experience with either cultivar. Castle Kennedy is available through the NCGR in Davis, CA. As for Olympian, if you find some cuttings please let me know. I'd love to get some cuttings of that one as it is not in my collection yet.

I am sure their are a number of people on this forum who have broader experience than me with lots of cultivars that will have other suggested cultivars to try.

Good luck with your trees!

Accoridng to Condit:

Dale, The accession information for Castle Kennedy (DFIC 153) at the NCGR states:

"Accession was collected. Scotland, United Kingdom.
Comment: Old variety from Scotland, but how it came to be in Scotland, possibly since the late 1700's, is unknown."

So it may be the same as what Condit describes or not. A couple of things I've seen from Todd Kennedy, who donated it to the NCGR in 1988, suggest it is distinct from Brunswick. Another part of Condit's section on Castle Kennedy from the 1955 Hilgardia publication states:

A color illustration of Ficus carica kennedyensis Hort. is given in L’Illustration

Horticole, vol. 13 (ser. 2, vol. 3), pl. 476. 1866. A writer in the Gardener’s Chronicle,

November 19, 1864, observed that Messrs. Lawson and Son were to distribute the Castle

Kennedy fig, which had been exhibited in Scotland and had obtained an award from

the Edinburgh Horticultural Society. An anonymous account in 1865 (Florist and

Pomologist, p.141) stated that this variety had then existed at Castle Kennedy for nearly

a century; but how it came there or what was its origin were matters on which there

was no reliable information. It was believed to be quite distinct from any other variety

in cultivation in England. Archibald Fowler, who grew this fig at Castle Kennedy,

along with Brunswick and Brown Turkey, also maintained that it was distinct from both

varieties. Several reports indicate that the trees are poor producers; but on the contrary,

Hogg stated, “The tree is an abundant bearer.” A writer of 1873, signed simply as “K.,”

reported that Castle Kennedy was worthless as a cropper.....it is a runaway, unfruitful

variety, not worth house room.” Brotherston noted that in England only one crop,

presumably the first, is produced in a year. This seems to confirm the report of Burger

and De Wet, that in South Africa the second crop requires caprification, a fact that

places the variety in the San Pedro group.

A letter dated June 20, 1954, from Sir John Dalrymple, Earl of Stair, states that two

trees of the Castle Kennedy fig are still being grown mainly for sentimental reasons at

Lochinch Castle, Stranraer, Wigtownshire, Scotland. R. W. Rye, the head gardener,

agrees with “K.” above that this fig “is not worth house room as it is very shy in setting

fruit.”

Dwd2, thanks for the info. That's 4 leads on potentially cold hardy figs I hadn't heard of yet from just this one post.
Your info on Castle Kennedy makes me all the more interested. Even if it is not a good cropper, a vigorous cold hardy fig fits perfectly in my grafting experiment. I'll have to request some next year.

As for Olympian, it sounds like burntridge will have it at some point. I'll shoot them an email after the holidays to see when it might be offered. I'll let you know what I find out.

Andy