A local nursery told me they are getting some 3gal containers of "Italian Black" figs. Not much about this one on the net. Anyone know much about this variety?

Not sure what you found, but here's a blog post.

Apparently an old Louisiana variety: http://cajunfigs.blogspot.com/2012/09/italian-black-figs.html

Maybe just BT? Leaf looks like my BT...

Thanks Kelby, but that is the one I did find.

if it's same as Italian Black being sold by durio nursery in LA, it a good one. Italian Black and Native Black from durio are two of their best.   so i heard. tried to get them couple of yrs ago but they were out. haven't looked into them since.

The nursery staff did say the trees were coming from LA, so I would guess they are the ones from Durio. They plants should be in next week and will be 24.99 for a 3 gal tree. Not a great price, but not too bad in my book.

I'm not sure if this helps or hurts, but I have read that "Italian Black" is not the same fig as "Black Italian."  --Not that you asked about "Black Italian" (apparently another Louisiana heirloom fig of Italian heritage), but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Jim

I had one, at least that is what the nursery I bought from called it. It was a beautiful, vigorous tree that had nice looking leaves. Unfortunately, that is all it ever had. Never saw a fig on it, so I sold it on craigslist to a lady who liked it for the foliage. Might have to try one from Durio next time.

I got my problem about posting pictures fixed so I want to show my first Italian Black:

 

The birds got the other ones, and one I picked too soon to try to keep it from the nasty devils. Anyway, this was was pretty ripe. It could have waited another day, but I was still happy with it. It had a very figgy flavor, not overly sweet. No berry tones or anything like that. The eye was tightly closed so they should not sour here in the humid south.

All in all I would say it was a 5 or 6, not bad for a first year fig on a young tree, one that could have hung another day or two. But I must say, the first fruit off my Hardy Chicago last year were better. I hope to leave the rest (about 20 still ripening) wait until they are dead ripe and see how that tastes.

Gene the pictures are very nice.  I hope to taste this one this year too.

thanks for sharing

Very nice, thanks for sharing.

Best,
Tam

Looks good, I am sure it will get better. I like the closed eye.

I still can't post my pictures. Always says my pics are larger than 1GB. Any help for me?

Joe, do you have Photo Gallery?

my Italian Black ripened another fig today, it was a big one. I almost had it for lunch, but I saved it for my wife when she got home from work. She loved it! Then I reminded her of the ancient reputation of figs' effect on the opposite sex. She smiled and said it would take more than one fig ;-)

We had a couple more figs on the Italian Black last night. I put organza bags on them to protect from the birds and so I left them on the tree until they were dead ripe. The eyes were tight, which was probably very helpful considering all the rain we are having this year. The skins are average thickness with a few cracks. The interior was amber, almost red and the texture was jammy and very figgy. It was sweet, but the texture and figgy-ness were what stood out, not the sweetness. I did not notice any berry overtones and only a very slight seed crunch. I would give them a 7 or 8.

I am very pleased with this Italian Black and expect great things from it if it winters over well here in zone 7b.

Also, it is just one more reminder of the greatness of the darkside ;-)

Sounds like it resembles LSU Purple in flavor. Do you have a LSU Purp to compair too?

No I do not have the LSU Purple. But I thought it had a more open eye? The Italian Black is very tightly closed, which is a VERY good thing considering the torrential downpour out there again today. I'm afraid my LSU Gold figs that are about ripe will explode today!

The strain of LSU Purple I have has had tight eyes on every one so far. No splitting from rain or souring what so ever. My biggest problem I have with this plant is its the only one with figs on it right now and the rats are tearing them up! I thought it was birds so put organza bags on them. The next morning I had 5 bags on the round all chewed up. Getting some rat poison and rat traps today. Its on like Donkey Kong!!!

If you would like, I can start an air layer for you on my plant. Just say the word!

Thanks for the kind offer Rob, but I am about to run out of space. I have 5 more figs started that I will put in the ground next spring, plus two semi-hardy that I will keep in 5 gal buckets. That is about all I have room for... until I find a way to buy that 1/2 acre next to me ;-)

Just a side note, if I can grow a whole forrest of figs, can a person live on figs alone?

Lol, no problem. I'm having the same issues as well with space. I will need to get rid of some in the coming year.

You might die of dehydration after awhile as too much of a good thing isn't good for the guts. They run right through you! My 3 year old can attest to that!

Very nice looking fig! 
No disrespect intended but this is a chance to discuss some issues with fig names.
There must be easily 100 Italian black fig varieties.  i.e. at one time there was 700 fig varieties in Italy.  Through the years many have disappeared and the last estimate I heard was about 350 fig varieties.  
Maybe this delicious heirloom from Louisiana could be called Becnel's Italian Black after the family that had the original plant or Louisiana old Italian black or Unk. Italian Black if positive that the fig actually came from Italy?

I am just saying.   At one time People really didn't seem that concerned over the name.  They just wanted nice figs that grow well in their area.  Now with the many fig collectors and our culture of science it would be nice to have a naming convention that people adhere to.

I wrote the originated nursery and it appears this is Becnel's Italian Black. But like you mentioned, I am not a collector in the sense of the names meaning that much to me. I simply want several varieties so I will have:

• a longer season
• some taste variety (although this is not hugely important because the only ones I will keep will be "figgy"
• variety in culture preferences so "off years" don't ruin everything
• a little fun with propagation

GeneDaniels,
Could you please post a few pictures of leaves and the tree if possible?
It will add to the available info of the Italian Black cultivar. Thanks.


Pino,
Jon V. has actually started a simple naming convention in the Varieties database... the fig name is followed by the initials of the source. In this case it could be Italian Black BN (Becnel Nurseries). Most of my cultivars are tagged similarly, EL (Edible Landscaping), PP (Petals from The Past), AE (Almost Eden) etc.

Pete, as soon as another fig ripens I will take a pic of fruit and leaf together.

GeneDaniels,
Ditto for me except it is colder up here so I can use even more cold hardy varieties.  In the end I hope to have maybe a dozen in-ground cold hardy that only require minimal protection for winter and maybe another 20 or so favourites grown in containers that I can do the fig shuffle with.  Still I want to keep my fig tree names as accurate as I can.

Pete,
Thanks for that info.  That naming convention is simple enough to follow.   How do you handle when the source is an individual. (Sal's, Dominick's, Peter's ....?  Also any guidelines on when to use the original foreign language name or should names be translated to English?