Thought you may like to see how 'stubby' these trees are and how short for production.  They recommend to leave only one trunk and cut it at about 20 inches for branching, then pinching branches at 3 pairs of leaves, on 3rd year leaving spurs on 6 to 6 branches..all others are cut out. Each new branch produces 12- 18 fruits...all w/in reach!

http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=102846#SlideFrame_1

Wow!  Almost looks like a vineyard!  That's a pretty cool site too!  Thanks for posting it Grasa!

Suzi

That is incredible, if I understand you correctly, they are leave 36 branches on each tree, I would have thought they could leave more so a higher yield but maybe I misunderstood it?  Either way it gives me a good look what I should do for my container trees.

Main trunk with 6 branches, and 6 branches on each. Total of 36 fruiting branches with 12 to 18 figs. That's a lot of figs. What do they do with those 6 branches on primary branches at the end of season? Cut them off?

Thanks , Pete. That explains.

Pete, I think the rules don't apply for us, as it is super hot there and they talk about fruits in 'this year branches', also, their pruning in dormancy is done is time space, as to each pruning produces fruits in certain time, so, the harvesting is done for a longer period of time, according to how the pruning happened.  I am reading all I can, to learn this fig thing asap.

In this site, there are some graph drawing of the pruning, half way down the page:
http://www.fruticultura.iciag.ufu.br/figo.html


I understood, as 3-4 main branches, that branch out again into 3 more, total of 9-12 fruiting branches: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=poda+figo+brasil&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbo=d&biw=956&bih=627&tbm=isch&tbnid=Mt-T4pJpNEwGGM:&imgrefurl=http://www.fruticultura.iciag.ufu.br/figo.html&docid=tewviobCyqXXAM&imgurl=http://www.fruticultura.iciag.ufu.br/figo.h10.jpg&w=280&h=183&ei=Zg2gUJyILcSQiQL-9ICgDA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=208&vpy=172&dur=54750&hovh=146&hovw=224&tx=207&ty=70&sig=116333209079831631202&page=1&tbnh=136&tbnw=193&start=0&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:79

in this translated page, more pictures of shoots after the pruning...

http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftrilhadomato.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F04%2Ffigo.html&langpair=pt%7Cen&en=pt&en=UTF8

Grasa,

My biggest fear when it comes to fig is, I hard prune the tree and no new branch comes out. That would be a nightmare.

Scrow to the end of the page- nice diagram  for pruning.

http://www.todafruta.com.br/portal/icNoticiaAberta.asp?idNoticia=16254

it would be a nightmare. Ideally there would be 2 trees, so you test prune one and wait to see what happens before doing the other.

Also, I learned that with mission figs, no pruning is best.  Wonder how many other kinds do not want to be pruned in our kind of weather.

My main concern would be having the branch die back from the new cut. I had several trees that I pruned aggressively and they died all the way to the ground instead of branching out. Is there a way to prevent this from happening?

Grasa,

Thanks for sharing this info.  In the first link, I think it is interesting there is so much room between the rows of trees or maybe it is early in the growing season.  I would have thought to maximize production, this pruning technique with closely spaced trees would give the most fruit.

Wow, James, that would be a real nightmare!   wonder what really happened.

Grasa, Thanks for posting the above links. Reminds me of the "Japanese Fig Espalier" method "Old Style". pictured at the attached link. Note attached edited diagram of the same Japanese fig espalier for containers. Very similar pruning dimensions.

James, I would seal the cut end, It could have dried out or become inoculated with something (mold or fungus), killing the branch.

http://www.hawaiifruit.net/aifarm/image/old_style.jpg

http://www.hawaiifruit.net/togofig/images/DSCN0005.jpg

Very interesting cultural techniques, and comments, opinions, observations.

I wonder just how much influence climate conditions have on these cultural/training techniques?  I would think training depends on length of growing season, sun exposure, heat....etc.  I would also think that within the United States, few areas have similar weather patterns.  Maybe places in California would come close to Brazil climate-wise.

Love to see all the inventive ways that have been developed to get the maximum yield from a given plant, vine, tree.

Thanks for sharing this information.  Interesting, indeed.....

Frank