Hi,
Not too much of a poster, but big time lurker. I live in northwest NJ and most of my potted varieties have pea sized breba figs. Anyone in the northeast have any luck with ripening of early crop? I have Sal's (el), osborne prolific, golden celeste, col de dame, and VdB. I had been breaking them off last season figuring they were taking energy from tree, but I'm always a little tempted to try and salvage a few (you know how it is... just can't wait to taste 'em). Last season I left a few on, they grew to about the size of a quarter, but never ripened.
Just want to say the info on this site has been a tremendous help over the years.

Thanks,
John

John....For whatever this is worth.....there are some very experienced growers who post on this forum that either live in NJ, and the surrounding areas.  Most say that growing a breba crop is not worth the risk of not having your main-crop ripen in time. Our season is too short for proper ripening of two crops.   I live in a similar climate zone, and I have always nipped off the breba as they form.  If you allow the breba to develop, they may never reach full size, may taste lousy, and will delay the main-crop figs.

For the first time this growing season, I was going to let a few breba develop, just to see if they'd be any good, but after reading some good advice, I scrapped those plans and will only grow main-crop.

Just food for thought.

Frank

Frank, thanks for the reply. Was kinda leaning that way (breaking them off) and I guess just looking to reaffirm that thought. Hope a few others might weigh in on their experiences. This early season warm weather has got my container figs a nice head start. Hopefully not to many more "fig shuffles" in and out of my garage.

John

I'm in NJ too. This is the first year any of my figs have breba. I'm debating what to do also. I really want to leave them on to see what happens. Plus I got so few figs last year. I wanted to make up for it. Would it hurt to leave a few on?

If brebas do not ripen in a warm part of the year, they will not have much flavor or sweetness. They work well in the PNW because they ripen in the hottest part of the summer. Here in paradise, they ripen when the weather is cooler.

There has been some discussion that if brebas are present on the tree, that it delays growth and ripening of the main crop, pushing it into cooler weather in shorter season climates. Some varieties, such as VdB only have a few, so do not know if a few brebas is worth the risk.

I allowed a few brebas to mature on a few of my trees last season and there was no noticeable ill affect on my main crop figs. Of course not all tasted very good, but ok figs are better than no figs in my opinion. The other issue I think is how mature are your trees? If they are young, only a couple years old, you are probably not going to get decent brebas and you may slow down a tree that could use all of it's energy to grow larger and produce a few main crop figs. Try with your VDB as I recall, those breba were pretty good.   

Well, I broke off ALL the brebas from my container figs (as much as it pained me) this morning and looking foward to a great (I'll settle for good) main crop. Last year's fig production was really good considering most of my trees are in their 3rd year. I keep hearing that they'll really take off by the 5th year. I have 2 trees in ground (osborne prolific & golden celeste) that didn't produce too much. I had planted them in the spring. Golden celeste is 3 years old and osborne prolific is 4 years old. Does anyone think the poor production has to do with adjusting to being in the ground?

Again, thanks for the replies.
John