LSU Golden Celeste. Received in March 2011 from Just Fruits & Exotics. Another LSU with the word "Gold" in it and another fig that performs better in hot and dry (like LSU Gold). It has Alma like qualities in terms of size, extremely productive, but the watered down taste is problematic and it has two years of not producing good figs in the heat, rain, and humidity of 8B. It is likely going to get a new hot and dry home or go to fig heavan. The problem is that But it is in a ~10 gallon pot and big so shipping the tree is not going to happen. Not sure what to do with this one. Any ideas?

PS. A self check shows that I slowly moving towards the Dark Side but never fully unless Socorro Black, Camuna Small Black, Alma, Stallion, Foxcroft, and Strawberry Verte are considered dark figs.

I wish we lived closer to each other because I would take it off your hands in a heart beat!

Yay JD...the dark side is best.
I would use it for root stock for some dark cuttings :)

Root stock...a good reason to practice grafting and to experiment with something difficult to grow here like Black Madeira or CdD Blanc. Hmmm...Thanks Tami.

Exactly what I was thinking. I have a brown turkey with about 6 good branches I'm going to try this on in the spring.

JD,
Thanks for posting pictures and commentary.
I have an LSU Champagne which looks nothing like your pictures, though the names are sometimes used interchangeably. The Champagne (Petals from the Past) is elongated with a bright yellow skin (sometimes with brown sugar spots) and amber pulp. I had a few last year, but will not have any this year due to winter dieback. It was one of the best light figs sampled last year. Mild fig flavor, very sweet,  rich complex taste. Hopefully these two cultivars will not get confused.

Champagne and Golden Celeste are not similar varieties.

Not to start an arguement, but the hand out from LSU fig day gives Champange and Golden Celeste as the same fig.

JD if you sell the tree you can always send it "bare root" to make shipping more affordable otherwise it would cost a small fortune being in a ten gallon pot.

I'd chop it into cuttings this fall.

Viv,

Thanks for chiming in. I hear you. I have not seen many photos of LSU Golden Celeste. My logic leads me to distrust the source but it just isn't that serious; it's about the figs. I like the tact of my wife and daughter: Daddy/Honey, No more of those (LSU Golden Celeste) and more of these please.

If Frank (FMD) has Alma, then my Golden Celeste is not his Alma. Not yet. Maybe it is the difference between potted and grounded into concrete plus age. It is difficult to say.

The bottom line is that time is up and it is culling time. A decision will be made: Golden Celeste is either going to serve as a surrogate for CdD Blanc or Black Madeira or cut up into pieces because it is too big to ship. If I did, it would require to wardrobe boxes taped together to pack it.

I have a Marabout C Smrynay that is about to get the same business because it needs the fig wasp. It grows prolifically but the figs always abort and have flowered centers.

omotm, I understand that, but I believe there is an unrelated Golden Celeste, as seen by the Fig4Fun variety page, compared to the LSU Golden Celeste and Champagne page.  One is much like a ball, the LSU has a neck.

Cover the pot with plastic so the rain can't get in and then see how you like it. If you want to go all the way cover the whole tree in a clear plastic painter's tarp and clip it to the pot in 2 or 3 places so there's still air circulation but the thing doesn't get drenched.

Good sugestion Bob. Mitigate the water.

JD,
I'm not interested in this tree but if someone else is  -- just yank it out of the pot and rinse all the dirt off then chop the darn thing off about 6 inches from the soil line and wrap the roots up in damp ripped up newspaper in a plastic bag and shove it into a small box so it'll ship for $8. By next year it'll be 6 feet tall and you'd never be able to guess it was treated so harshly. It sounds severe but it works just fine. Then you can take all those cuttings and give them away to some one to practice on or make a tiny bonfire and howl at the moon - well, for a few minutes anyway.

JD, my LSU Golden Celeste does not look like what you have posted. My tree came from Jon and it is as per No.6 post description.

Mike and Paul, Thanks for the 411.

Two special things happened today: 1) The birds finally decided to eat the figs. They looked like Christmas ornaments and day after day the birds would not touch them. And 2) My daughter said "They are good...to me." Uh oh. I went out and picked all that were ready. I attached a few photos of the tree that now has a powerful advocate.