Hello all,

I just wanted to say hi and thank everyone for the great information on this site -- I’ve already learned so much about fig cultivation from everyone here!  I was also hoping someone could tell me what might be wrong with my fig trees (please see attached images).  I noticed the other day a distinct black pattern on one of the leaves.  It seems to have spread to other leaves and a second tree.  I can’t rub it off with a wet finger.  There are what look like a few stray “rust” marks and looking closely at the pictures, a couple of pale yellow spots, although these weren’t noticeable in the afternoon sun. A couple of the tips looked brown, but maybe that’s normal (?).  The trees seem to be thriving, with a fair amount of fruit (which I thinned a bit).

I bought my first three fig trees at a local farmers’ market.  I have a “black” and a “green” fig tree from a Portuguese man who says they are originally from Lisbon.  My next project might be to get some cuttings from friends of friends in the local Portuguese community.  I live on the south coast of Massachusetts.  The trees are living at my mom’s house, since I don’t have sun in my backyard. Unfortunately, this will probably leave my fig collection severely stunted, for now…

Ben

Welcome to forum,

Thanks for the suggestion.  No, I haven't sprayed, or even fertilized yet.  I repotted them after purchasing a month ago using MG Organic potting soil.

Ben,

Navid

I didn't add extra bark to the soil -- it's straight from the bag.  The pot is light grey plastic, but with no attached saucer -- you're supposed to buy a saucer separately, but instead of doing that we just have it directly on the patio.  I'm not sure how long it takes for water to drain out the bottom.  My mom has been doing the watering, so I'll have to ask her.  The soil does seem to dry out if not watered every day, at least it was dry for the inch or so I could stick my finger in.

We've been erring on the side of over-watering the new plants, so I think you may have found the problem. 

Ben

A saucer is not needed; if there is one under the pot, remove it.

 Only water the plant when the pots feel light weighted. Just lift one side of the pot once it’s dry and do the same once you water the plant. You get the idea of when you need to water your pot. I would also cut two pieces of 2 by 4 (10 inches long) and place your pot on top of that. It allows for water to drain better and roots can receive some oxygen through the holes, instead of placing it directly on the ground.

Vascular veins in a leaf contains Xylem and Phloem, they transfer water and nutrients to the leaf cells. When over watered the cells in Xylem will burst and die. That is why leaves turn dark/black around the middle/edges of the leaves. Once the plant is over watered and cells have transferred all the water to the leaf you will notice that the center vein and around it will turn light green, after a day or two it will turn black or darken in color. That indicates the death of those water-carrying cells.

Also over watering any plant kept in a container (not just figs), will cause the roots to rot.

Pine bark mulch is mixed in the soil that you are preparing (with limestone and slow release fertilizer) to aid with better drainage. Since you have already up-potted your tree last month, I would not suggest taking the plant out of the pot and mixing in pine bark mulch. Just remember next time when you purchase a fig tree or any other tree that is going to be kept in a pot, add some pine bark mulch or coarse perlite to your medium.

As far as MG potting soil, either Organic or non-organic, I would hesitate to use them in future. Once the MG potting soil gets wet it becomes very dense, simply it containers too much peat moss and retain the water for a prolong time. It also contains Gnats and their larvae.

That’s why many forum members (including me) we all use other brands such as, Fertilome UPM, Farfad mix or other very light weighted mixes. They cost more but its worth it. If you can get Fertilome UPM or any professional brand of potting soil get them and use them in future. You can also use them for rooting cuttings.

And since your soil (MG) does absorb and retain water for longer periods, watered it or when the 1 inches of the soil (from top) dry out or the pots feels light weighted.

Those blackened leaves will eventually dry up and drop. Your plant will replace them again with new leaves.

Navid.

Navid,

Thank you for elaborating -- that’s all very useful information.

Talking to my mom seems to confirm your theory -- water runs out the bottom maybe a couple of minutes after watering. She waters every other day -- and occasionally every three days -- she says the surface of the soil is dry at that point, although she can’t really work her finger in. I’ll pass along your tip about feeling the weight of the pot before watering. (I was worried about letting it get that dry, because I’ve heard that inconsistent watering can cause the fruit to drop or split.) When she does water, should she always be giving it enough to come out the bottom?

I had considered using a lighter mix for repotting, but I had read that could cause problems, since the root ball would still contain soil of a different composition. Do you suggest that I use a lighter mix when repotting next year, or just when I get new potted plants?

No problem. 

You should be consistent with your watering. Avoid the over watering by making sure 1/2 -1 inch of the soil is dry between each watering. I myself, go by the weigh only for my cuttings or young trees. All the other trees are connected to drip irrigation.

Deep watering it would be perfect if the soil was less dense (less water containing). But since it’s not the case, deep water it twice a week, not everyday. And when you do that water it enough so 15-20% of given water drains out.

Deep watering does remove the accumulated salts from the roots.

Using two different soil mixtures each having a different density than the other will cause major problems. The important point is to make the new soil as similar to the existing soil.

If you are going to up-pot it in a larger container, yes, use a lighter soil and plant it in the pot with 1-1/5 inches of soil is higher than the rim of the pot. Since the soil will settle later. Do use a lighter mix from now on for any purchased plants or upon potting up. Again, make sure the new mix is similar to the weight and composition of the existing mix.

Don’t worry, we all learn as we go.

Navid.

Here's the current state of the fig leaves I photographed above.  Is this just the slow death of the leaves due to over-watering, or do I have something else going on here?  The brown edge of the leaves is brittle and dry, some with tiny blue-ish spots.  New growth looks good, so it sounds like Navid is right – I’m just double checking :).  Now that I’m watering less, the soil seems to drain faster and much more thoroughly (most of what goes in seems to come out).  It’s amazing how much the hydrodynamics have changed.

A couple of more questions:

Should I pull off leaves that have reached this state?

The figs are still pretty small (like large cherries), but they’ve begun to darken. About how long does it take for them to ripen from this point – days, or weeks?

I am seeing this same phenomena on my Socorro Black right now.  I'm thinking nothing of it.  As long as it's only some of the leaves and not more than half, I'm cool.  I pulled a few of them off today.

Ben,

It's not over watering. Don't worry about them. If all the leaves were like that well, there would be a reason to be worry. Today I picked 5-6 leaves just like the one in your pic off my Blk Italian tree. You can pull them off if you want to.

They will ripe depending on few factors, two most important ones are, type of the tree that you have (some ripe early, some ripe later in season) and the climate that your trees are in. In my climate (z6) most will start to ripe by end of Aug. early Sep.

Good luck

Thank you everyone. Unfortunately, most of the larger leaves on this plant are turning yellow – looks like it might be touch-and-go for this guy. I’ll try to get my three trees in a spot with some afternoon shade. I haven’t fertilized them beyond what’s in the MG Organic potting mix I repotted them in at the beginning of June. Since the sickest tree has to regrow healthy leaves now, does it make sense to start fertilizing at this point?

My experience with MG Organic was to use it as mulch after buying it in desperation. It is bark based, entirely composted bark it seemed, and made my eyes water from all the urea fertilizer, very dense stuff. I bet you would be doing your figs a favor by adding a dose of dolomitic limestone, some weak fertilizer is probably also a good idea because most would have been used or washed out of the pot by now. It is easy enough to leach fertilizer from a pot so do not worry about that yet, the rain will do that for you in the fall.

I would just add the lime and ride it out for the season, then do a total repot and root prune in the spring, you will be able to remove nearly all of the MG organic so you can use a lighter mix, like Navid said. If you have room for it on the lawn or in the garden bury the pot a couple inches and the roots will grow out the drainage holes and help the tree get water and nutrients for the rest of the season, then dig up and bring inside.

Thanks for the recommendations.  It's good to know that I can root prune to remove some of the existing soil.  Do I need to prune the branches to compensate, even on a young tree?  (I'd hate to do that!)  In any case, it seems to be draining well now, so I'm guessing it's only showing stress from the previous episode.

Yes, there is a lot of bark in the MG -- that's partly why I bought it.  I thought that bark was good for drainage, but I guess it's pine bark that I'm looking for, not just any composted bark.

You probably will not have to prune the top if you remove only very long circling roots. But, if you do not have many good finely branched feeder roots left at the end then it would be a good idea to prune the top so the tree can grow those and not have to stress out pumping water up so high.

Just wanted to give an update here... as you can see from post #10, my trees weren't doing so well.  Leaves began falling off and it looked like my trees would soon die.  What I did was use some Espoma dolomitic pelletized lime and almost imidiately, the situation stabilized.  That was right before the end of the season, so hopefully things will go well this year! 

Edit:  And thanks hoosierbanana for the good advice on adding lime!