When it rains too much at the fruiting end of the season, I notice that figs often split and or their flavour is diluted.

Does the same happen routinely when using self watering containers? Or does the tree better control its consumption of the water? Is it dependent on the variety? Or am I over thinking this?

Self watering pot usually have an overflow drain hole or 2 on the side so to answer your question,.....no.  You can't over water unless it rains all day long and the overflow hole is blocked.  The excess water just pours out the side.  In high humidity, figs will split.  The main reason I use SWPs is to use less water and to save me time.

My 15g non-SWP were getting too much water when we had heavy rains.  And every time it happened, I had to go outside and turn the pot on its side for  the water to drain out.  But only around 5 or 6 pots had this problem out of 254 trees.  Over the last 4 years, I've lost 5 trees due to this happening because I forgot to check the pots.  Which is another reason  why I'm switching to SWPs.

During rain my in ground figs get watered down flavor. So even if it has over flow hole.... its still getting constant water feed from rain is my guess.

Hey Mic
be inground/pots/swp i belive each method has ups and downs.
growing figs successfully is almost a job  :)

Hi Dennis and Richard,

Yes, the overflow hole should handle overfilling and a cover should stop rain from getting in uninvited.

What I was worried about was the high availability of water to a tree in a SIP in general. In the SIP the tree will have a constant and limitless supply of water. Does that not result in lower fruit quality?

I guess what I am asking is do they respond differently to constant availability of water (eg in a SIP) than to a sudden increase in availability (eg when in a normal container and it rains as fruit is maturing)?

Ha Eli, too true!  It is an art and a science.

I guess the way I have thought about it is that in a SIP a plant tends to be exposed to a much more consistent level of water and the roots adapt to take in what the plant needs and no more.  With a conventional container it is less consistent and when you get a lot of rain the roots tend to take in more water than is optimal, especially during fruit ripening time.  Contrary to what you might think you have very few problems with fruit splitting (or at least I don't) with SIPs.

Exactly what Steve said.  

The tree only takes what it needs.

I'm no expert by any means, but the way I look at it is, as the soil drys the soil wics up the water from the bottom just like one of those watering globes, the dampness of the soil naturally regulates the pull of moisture, although it's not gravity fed like a globe, it acts as a sponge. As an example a sponge sitting in a large puddle will only pull as much water as the sponge can possibly retain but can't physically pull in extra, with a SWP having the fill area below the soil and roots and having drainage makes sure the "sponge" wont be sitting in excess water above the water reservoir.

Of course the cover I see as a necessity to prevent the overfill as the hole can drain as fast as it allows so constant water flow from rain for multiple days the hole will likely have trouble expelling the extra water