Last June I planted in ground in a very sunny spot a Brown Turkey and what I believe to be a Lattarula (I got two of these from Paradise Nursery as "Mystery Figs" before they closed shop. They matched the description of Lattarula when they fruited for me, though I recall Herman suggesting those trees were Italian Golden Honey or something to that effect in a thread last year. I digress. I'll try to anticipate as many questions as possible, so my explanation/question may get lengthy.

The trees were likely in their fourth leaf when I planted them in soil that is likely low fertility with good drainage. I top dressed them with a couple of inches of compost at planting and again at leaf drop just before I covered them. They handled winter after being covered with the burlap/tar paper/ leaf method with a little tip dieback and have absolutely flourished this year grown as bushes. The BT is probably 3'x3' and the Lattarula slightly smaller. The BT was late producing main crop figs, putting them out beginning a month ago and still doing so now. There are many. The Lattarula has no fruit as I type this. Interestingly, the sister plant, which I kept potted and root pruned hard in late winter also has no fruit though the remainder of my older potted trees, several of which I also root pruned hard, have fruited, though I think at a later date than in the past couple of years.

The area I live in, Reno, NV, is listed Z5/6, depending on your microclimate) had an unusually cool and wet three week stretch in June that must certainly have affected growth of the trees. Other than that, it's been hot as blazes and dry as a bone for most of the summer to this date - normal for Reno. I have not fertilized the in ground trees at all other than the compost addition described above and water them deeply every week or two. Both trees have produced every year I've had them. Though I usually have had brebas in addition to main crop figs, I had no brebas this season, which I attributed to their first winter outdoors. I also, following the Herman Method, pinched out growth of many - not all, but I did pinch all of the fastest growers - of the branches four to six weeks ago, though mostly on the BT, since it grew faster than the Lattarula.

Perhaps the vegetative growth is too rank and that has affected fig production. I will post a couple of pictures tomorrow or Wednesday if I remember to take them, so others can offer critiques/advice after visual inspection. I suppose it could all be due to the weird stretch of cool late spring weather, but that didn't seem to slow their growth much outside of possibly delaying actual fig production. What say you of greater experience?

Neil

Neil,

Herman has added a lot to the fig forum over the years, and has done a lot of trial and error research. His pinching method has been verified by others. If I understand correctly, he does it to hasten ripening by redirecting the plants energy and focus.

However, as I watch my trees grow, some varieties have figs beginning with the first new leaf node. Some put out their first fig beginning with about the 6th leaf, or maybe even a little later. You might experiment, to see if yours behaves more like the latter. Excessive vegetative growth may contribute to the fig formation beginning several leaves after the first. I do not know. I just know that some don't have figs at the first several leaf nodes, so it seems possible that pinching after 6 leaves would have effectively eliminated fruiting on that variety.

Plants in pots seem to fruit earlier than in-ground trees, so possibly planting a tree which fruited in a pot, might cause it to "revert" to in-ground mode for a season or two, before fruiting resumes. I know that when I have had two trees of the same age and size, one potted, on in-ground, the potted one often fruits sooner. 184-15 is one that comes to mind.

A cold spell in the middle of the growing/fruit-formation part of the season can wreak all sorts of havoc. My trees went through 4 or 5 season last year, as we had one week of 50s and a week of 90s alternating all through Spring. Some trees seemingly gave up any attempt to grow, and others didn't seem to notice.

I would like to second Jon's observation about pinching. It is a great method for forcing but you need to know the habit of the tree first. Pinching at the 6th leaf worked on my Sal's and Armenian for example. On my unknown Bella, it has prevented the formation of any main crop at all this year. Thinking back to last season, I recall that these trees formed fruit on nodes 7-12 similar to what Jon described. So pinching that variety at leaf 6 was a mistake.

Thanks Jon and Steve. I've never thought to check where my main crop figs show up on the current season's growth. I eyeballed both bushes this morning and saw plenty of embryo figs on the Lattarula that will almost certainly never ripen this season. Most were located a good distance up the new shoots, so it may be that this plant doesn't produce figs on the lower branch/stem junctions. Hopefully it's more of a acclimation issue and they begin fruiting according to the patterns they had as container trees.

If I can manage to properly attach a couple of pictures, here are the two bushes as they appeared this morning. The first should be the BT and the second Lattarula. They appear to be quite a bit more dense than most fig trees I've seen pictures of on this forum. Perhaps that is because I am growing them as bushes with five main trunks each. Growing figs in ground is new to me. Before these two I've grown only in containers for four years, so if others have experience in how many trunks seem optimal for a relatively short but very hot and dry growing season or how densly one should allow a plant's foliage to grow, I'm all eyes. I've avoided thinning them out in the middle as I would my many other fruit trees since pruning an actively growing fig seems to be a no no according to the more experienced growers. Let me know if I've misinterpreted that rule.

Edit: Thanks for the suggestion, Cecil. I originally tried to upload them without cropping them to allow them to fit the 1MB limit. It appears to have worked now. Here goes nothing......

You don't need photobucket on this forum

you need to go to "manage attachments" in the bottom of your thread
I might add to "resize your chosen picture to something like 640X480