My Royal Vineyard has now survived it's second year in my care but is a straight, 5ft tall stick.  I know that I need to prune off part of the top to force it to branch out, but I'm nervous because, if I go down ~6-8" so that I have enough for a cutting (as insurance), I'll have taken half of the leaf buds from the plant.  In the photo below, the yellow line is where I would cut and you can see just about all of the buds on the tree in this photo.  The 3ft below the photo only have old leaf scars, no buds.  Am I headed in the right direction here?  Any words of wisdom?

Cut 1/4" above the last bud you want to leave so you won't have a dead stick above the bud that harbors all sorts of nasties.

That looks like a very strong trunk for your tree and the pic is the top 2' of a 5' potted fig? Looking at the stem below your proposed cut it's to bad that you didn't remove the tip last spring to force branching at a lower level. When I have trimmed to force branching in the past I would have gone 2 buds higher than you are suggesting. That still leaves you a nice cutting to root and 2 well placed, apposing, buds for new limbs. From your pic it looks like you may get at least 2 other bud breakouts on the lower green wood. Either way don't be surprised if you get a bud breakout at the upper end of the grey wood too. 

One fun thing to consider too is to take the very top 2 buds, about 2"-3" and graft it to your in ground unknown. Just pick a sheltered matching limb on the in ground, prune it to match diameters. Lots of f4f and online info on simple grafting. Good luck!!!  

sdpops
Yuma, AZ zone 10

What your suggesting is fine, pruning gets easier in time when you realize figs are very resilient. In my experience it will send out 1-2 branches at the top and bottom will still be "naked".

You didn't say what size pot you will be keeping it in, or whether it is destined for ground.  Which would influence how you prune it.  I know some keep them vertically tall for space issues.

But since you have a nice trunk I would take it down to 8-12" above soil line so your branching starts low to develop a primary structure.  Somewhere on here are pictures showing this process.  It should branch from dormant buds lower down.

Good Luck


 

My moms Black Jack is also one long stick like yours. I get freaked out thinking I will kill it if I prune it. But I do want it to branch out also.

First we have to address a misconception.  Each node has a bud that can become a branch whether you can see it or not.  Since none of the lower nodes have put out branches they all still can.  Wood that is older than 3 years can take a long time to re-activate those nodes.  If all the above ground wood is only 2 years old you won't have any problem.

I would not prune now unless you're worried that the green top won't survive the winter.  If that's not the case then I'd wait.  If you prune now the uppermost bud will grow and you won't get the bottom growth you want.  If you wait until the buds swell then prune you'll get more branching.

If a node doesn't produce  a branch and you want it to you can either make a small, horizontal cut above the node so it's no longer inhibited or you can apply a bud stimulant paste, or both.

Thank you all for the advice.  At the moment, it's sitting in a 16" pot in an unheated but insulated outbuilding.  I'm not concerned about it surviving what little winter we have left around here.  Eventually, it will probably end up in the ground, if it cooperates.

rcantor, would you recommend waiting until I start seeing actual leaves to prune or just the buds swelling?

Good question for people to learn from.

Your getting great advice from Don and Rob.

Good luck!