Ok my Black Yugoslavian Fig wont go Dormant for some reason. Its now been hit with -15 celcius quite a few times and still nothing happening. Saturday I put it outside for 2hrs to teach it a lesson " I know its cruel " and yet still the same.

If its young, I find the same issue.  4 of my plants (all of them young) still have leaves.  I say you cant fight it, so let it do its thing.  "teach it a lesson", that's good.
Good luck
Nas

Hi Nas, its around 6 months old.

Young ones can be stubborn they simply want to grow.
What i did this year with some of my young plants still growing and mature plants at dormancy i bought them all into the garage at same time and there is very little light which is important as plants sense light and cold. Well they sensed no light and soon they felt our winter it took a good while till there leaves finally started to shrivel in garage and fall to the ground and there fast asleep . My madeira took its sweet time as i have it up high on the freezer next to house door in garage but its fast asleep as well just took a little bit longer than the rest , matter of fact besides being naked there is 1 lone big green fig on it from the past season and its starting to shrivel as i left it on.

Nelson,  You may have killed your plant but do not know it yet.  I hope not.   It can take two weeks in my cold room for my plants to close down and lose their leaves.  My cold room is dark and does not even get to freezing, but it's cold enough to send plants dormant.  Be patient, and don't move too fast with the cold temperatures.
I will be sending my Yugo black dormant in a few more weeks.  We should compare notes next time we try to wake them up.

Nelson,

if its 6 months old, that explains it.  I agree with John, there is no rush. 

Nelson, be careful please "teaching it a lesson"  let it do its natural thing.  Some fig plants around the world don't go dormant so just let it do its thing. If it  doesn't go dormant at all, thats okay, just ween it out in the sun slowly this spring and let it be. It will go to sleep well this fall.  Figs could die quickly if subjected to sudden shifts so let it be. Not telling you what to do, I have left many figs awake over the winter without going dormant and they produced and were fine the following season. Especially young ones who refuse, as Martin said, they just want to grow! Ciao and good luck.

Hehehe, oops . Ok I guess I have to work on being a little more patient lol thank you all for all the wise words. This does make sence now the two hardest to go dormant plants were the two yongest plants, Oh boy I sure hope I didn't kill it this is the only Black Yugo I have Dusan would kick my A$$ if he knew lol.

The Good news I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to geico lol.

Nelson,
here is one i put in garage as it just wanted to grow, i should have mentioned that i subjected my plants to 2 frosts around 25 all of them and of course like i said in above post the little ones can be stubborn but instead of leaving them out there they go in garage which is cold but not as cold after those 2 frost but no light anymore. I do this each year with all my plants i let 2 good frost hit them weather they have leaves on or not does not matter they get put away i have been doing this last 7 or 8 seasons now.
This one plant my youngest like yours 6 months old about.
Oh about the insurance i love that duck and that lizard thing .
Affleck !!!

Nelson, this is  too good a variant to go without - big black. If your Yugo Blk(Sumadija Dusan) kaput, let me know. I will air layer one for you or send you cuttings. I called it SD because it came from the town of Sumadija & Dusan to denote its from him.

Dusan told me its a yummie one and John confirmed its credentials. I did not allow my tree to have figs last year but focus on growth. However, this season its fig onnnn.

I noticed a substantial difference in the behavior of the young trees I put in the ground.  The trees that were in their second or third year when planted took off like rockets.  The trees that were rooted only the previous season took a while to build a root system and did not really start growing until the end of summer.

When I pruned them to make them fit in their winter barrels I cut off much green wood whereas the older trees had to be pruned but had hardly any green wood at the ends of branches.  The older trees apparently had slowed down with the season and had hardened off before I came along to prune them.
Ox

New plants often do not go dormant. There is no real benefit to forcing dormancy, as they usually need to get bigger before they will bear fruit, anyway. Better to enjoy the extra growth.

Thanks Martin lovely tree you got there is that one of your baby jolly's?

Paully, Dusan loves this fig and claims its a big tasty fig. Only picture i have of dusans fig.



The weird thing about this plant is that it started off strong but shortly after the FMV was really noticable and growth stoped I then gave it some 10-10-10 fertilizer and it grew another 3 inches and started to branch off but still only about 7-8" tall at the most.

Hi Nelson
yes not sure how it will fare in garage for winter .
How old is that plant that slowed down because of fmv?

Martin I got the cuttings in late July 09 and it rooted within 2 weeks so right now about 5 months since rooted. All the leaves are different all show signs of FMV and only when it got the fertilizer did it grow a little but also all the new leaves that grew after I gave it fertilizer were weird looking. The nodes on the plant are about 1/4" apart at the very most.

Yup, it roots easily. My tree have no FMV signs. Dusan send me a nice bare root tree. Biggest bare root tree I have received. I placed it in a 20 gal pot & sat it in a hole, right to the rim in spring. It grew well and with many figs that I pinched. I pinched the top growth as per Herman's guide to get good branching.

If it grows little, I will repot  with fresh soil. Give it good aeration in your soil mix. Use compost. I learn from Jon as the plants I received from him were healthy & pots drains fast plus light. I asked how come so healthy compared to my newly rooted ones. He said use compost. Thus I mixed compost, perlite, bark mulch & top soil. Wah-la. Of course supplemented with dilute fertilization using miracle grow 24-8-16. I would only fertilize after waiting at least an hour of watering like once every 2 weeks.

I have Dusan's pic's & will send you. You can post pic's if you  want. I have not attempted to post pic's.

Thanks Paully, wonder why mine has FMV so bad.

Last Pics I took of mine before fertilizing it and you can definately see fmv.

Nelson,
my VdB has FmV this season every other time i watered i gave a dose of miracle grow fertilizer, i did scratched dolomitic lime into the soil several times during the year , also i was giving superthrive nutrients it responded well and soon as i saw little fig embryo's i stopped all fertilizer.
It still has fmv but its not as noticable and the leaves are looking much better all the time.
I want to note i am doing same with a ischia black and im getting very little response from it and will do the same again this year to ischia black.
The vdb will not get any special treatment this year other than the usual.

Was it a fluke it may have been as some plants that have fmv and get normal regime of fertilizer sometimes grow normal after a season although they still have fmv they show hardly any signs i will never know about my VdB but it was worth the try for me.
Here is a pair of santa cruz dark that i recieved as scion from UcDavis that was heavily infected as you can see if you look careful at the single picture top right leaf with sun shining from beneath it, they still have a lot of signs of fmv But it responded well when i fertilized the heck out of it and started to look a little better as it grew, time will tell this year how the pair do.

Edit: Nelson i just saw your pics after i posted and i must say i can easily see the fmv BUT i have had several plants look as bad if not worse and im betting your will pick up this season with some fertilizer and as much sun and heat you can give it.

 

Thanks Martin I hope it does pick up too, but some members say the fmv is less noticeable as the plant gets older so lets hope thats the case.

Pics of Dusans Black Yugoslavian thanks to Paul.

John would love to compare notes this summer.