Does anyone have any recent info on Skardu Black?  I got one cutting from UCD in 2009 and made two.  The plants are standing still for 2 years now.  I am ashamed to show a picture but each is still about 6 inches tall in 1 gal pots. FMV is present, but they look good except for each leaf shape being different.  I have read that this is a great fig.  What can I do to boost their growth gently and keep them alive so they can outgrow this stage?

I heard it was a very slow grower.  My recommendation (and some might disagree) is to check your soil.  It may be not fast draining enough.  And add some Superthrive to it weekly and see what happens.  that's my 2 cents.

I've had figs, only started with them this year really so anything I say take with a grain of salt please.  I have notice a bunch of my figs will do this and I just feed the crap out of them and they seem to go after about a few weeks albeit slowly. 

I have found that my fmv'd trees will respond very positively to regular liquid fertilizer. I water my 3 gallon pots about 3 times per week as we have been in low 90's temperatures already in South Florida.

I will feed with peters (or equivalent) 20-20-20 at 1 teaspoon per gallon ratio once a week and clear water the other two waterings. Plants have come alive, specificaly my UCD cuttings from 2009. Most are with fmv and would otherwise languish and barely move. It's amazing how a regular feeding schedule will boost these plants big time, with or without fmv....
Just my two cents on what I have observed...

Thanks Dennis, Chivas and Ben.  I will give fertilizer a try, using Peters and about 1/4 tsp per gallon.  All my watering is with well water.  Most of my trees have done well  with growth 6" to over a ft already for some trees and my sheltered trees in a courtyard have gone crazy with very little feed.  I did use a Job tree spikes on about 20 in ground trees that seemed to help.  I uncovered my Wuhan tree from the weeds today.  I got it from  GM in09 and it is still hanging in there in an unsheltered location, with very little supplemental water but a good mulch.

Sirlampsalot,


I grow all of my fig trees in the ground. IMO, it is a waste of time to use fertilizer spikes to fertilize fig trees that are planted in the ground.  Fig feeder roots of your young tree are just below the surface of the soil. Accordingly, it is hard for a fertilizer spike to dissolve and feed those fine roots without its high salt content (and acidity) from killing many of those fine roots.

When an in ground tree is very young ......use a soluble fertilizer as was suggested. However after a year, in ground fig trees respond much better to an all purpose SOLID fertilizer such as 8:8:8........and as the tree gets older use 10:10:10, or 13:13:!3. Do not be at all concerned about the nutrient ratio of this fertilizer. This is the type of fertilizer that is recommended by ALL UNIVERSITY AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENTS in the South. And this is what the "real" fig experts at LSU recommend to those who grow figs (and other fruit) commercially.

This is how I will fertilize some of my in ground fig trees today.......very easy to do. Lightly sprinkle some 8:8:8 all purpose fertilizer directly on the ground completely around the tree.  Then water that fertilizer in with a garden hose. Then continue to water your tree every couple of days as needed.....making sure that it always stay damp (not soggy wet) around that tree. If after two weeks you do not see new growth. Sprinkle some more 8:8:8 again around the tree.....wet it in with a garden hose. Wait two more weeks and keep the ground ALWAYS moist.....if still no new growth.......repeat until your fig tree responds. And most fig trees WILL RESPOND....especially to keeping the ground ALWAYS moist (not soggy wet). Fertilizer (natural or man made) nutrients cannot be utilized by the tree without some moisture to transfer it from the ground and into the feeder roots.  Stop giving it fertilizer when you see new growth (but do continue to keep the ground damp) and do not fertilize late in the season and gradually cut back on watering late in the season too.

When your tree gets mature.....it is cheaper to feed it with 13:13:13.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Thanks Dan. I can already see a difference in my potted trees from 1/4 recommended doses of Miracle Grow.  The in ground trees are going on their 3rd year and the Job tree spikes were given to me and were used in mid Feb.   I am going to use your suggestion to apply solid granular 8-8-8 on my younger 2yr and older in ground  trees.  Bought that book "Gardening in the humid South" Good stuff.

New pix from 2010 USDA/UC Davis visit.

WHY, why, why the 1:1:1  NPK ratio?

Jon, beautiful pics as usual:-).
George, I checked with UT University of Tennessee on growing figs and their recommemdations were for a balanced fertilizer of 10,10,10. An old US Dept of Agriculture Handbook No. 196 called Fig growing in the South., gives similar recommendations.  When I was a child, most of the local co-ops sold fifty pound bags of 6-12-12 granlular fertilizer and that is what most farmers used until custom blends came into vogue. Now there are some many formulas for fertilizer, I think even the formulators get confused.  A few years back I planted 4 young trees in a protected courtyard  that once was a coal yard and they have done very well with only coal for food and the occasional mockingbird poo and no commercial fertilizer.  In late winter and early spring, I put a couple shovelsful of aged horse& llama fertilizer on inground trees at my house.

I encourage all to contact their local agricultural representative too.  This is what I have found:


ALL UNIVERSITY AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENTS (not just some.....all of them) in the South recommend using 8:8:8 or 10:10:10 or 13:13 13 all purpose fertilizer for in ground trees. These are the University scientist that actually breed new plants, write books on horticulture, and provide on going support to local farmers & fruit growers.  And this is what the "real" fig experts at LSU recommend to those who grow figs "commercially". And this is what Pierre Baud uses on his orchards over in France. Are all of these people wrong?????  Baloney to those who want to "BELIEVE" that in ground fig trees do not thrive and produce well on this type of fertilizer.

I wouldn't DARE put a higher nitrogen fertilizer on my inground fig trees.  They, especially the one out back, would try to take over the whole city.

I saw what happens with higher nitrogen fertilizer the two years Mike tried to murder the two Celestes with lawn weed and feed.  First, the weed killer socked the two trees so hard all the leaves wilted back and I thought the trees were dead, for sure.  But then the feed part got to them several days later and the trees came back and shot up like they were going to go into orbit.  No figs started and the node spacing was huge.  The trees only got figs later in the season and not very many of them.

I told Mike that it was the weed and feed that did that to the trees and he refused to believe me, so he repeated the same regimen the next year, after the larger Celeste had been planted out back inground.

That tree had been in a pot the season before, when the weed and feed first hit it.  After that, it had literally burst out of its 5-gallon pot and planted itself into the ground and had gotten some amazing trunk growth toward the end of the season, so it was pretty hefty by the time it was transplanted out back.  (It wouldn't stop growing.  Even so, it never froze back anywhere over the winter.)

So Mike, again, put weed and feed on the lawn in front and back and guess what happened?  I told Mike that it was the weed and feed and he got so mad at me I wanted to kill him.  I was convinced he wanted to murder my trees so he didn't have to mow around them.

The following year, I cried at him and asked him to please not put that weed and feed anywhere near my fig trees, told him, again, that fig trees put roots all over the place and that's why the weed and feed affected them.  I told him to just not do it that year.  So he didn't put any weed and feed near the trees and they did beautifully, which was proof enough to him that that stuff needed to be kept away from the trees.  Then he felt badly about the trees.

The tree out back was all messed up for several years and I didn't think she was going to make it, but she did.

I know the lawn feed had much more nitrogen in it that a higher nitrogen fertilizer for plants would have and the trees had an exaggerated reaction to it, but for inground trees, I wouldn't want to put a fertilizer on them with even just 3-2-1.  I don't want to chance that when they put on such lush growth without it.

I would think that trace minerals would also be good for inground, or potted trees.

This is just my opinion after my experiences with my trees.

I've read that fig trees are nitrogen-sensitive and I think they just might be.  It might make a difference because fig trees are semi-succulents.

I saw what too much nitrogen did to my trees and it did indeed delay fig production and ripening.  I saw this for myself.

Potted figs may be a different story as to the fractions of P & K building up in the soil after the N is used up.

Sometimes what people think SHOULD be, on paper, and what IS, are two different things. 

Noss,

Some of us know how to produce large, sweet, flavorful figs abundantly........and some of us just have nice pretty fig plants with little to no fruit.  As you have discovered by accident, one must keep the nitrogen down low if you want more figs. The real fig experts have already given us that very simple advice. The "nutrient ratio" people try to confuse the situation and try to contradict YEARS and years of "proven" results with a !:1:1 all purpose fertilizer usage in entire commercial fig orchards for Pete's sake!! My my my.......

For the nutrient ratio people........I've got a bottle of Dan's special formula number 87 for sale. It will turn your white figs black with red pulp and close the eye of any open eyed fig. Cost $50 per 4 oz bottle....but ya only need one drop to do the job!! It will come to you in the nutrient ratio of your choice......

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Well, maybe the formula that works down here doesn't necessarily work in a cooler climate, as I posed above.  The 3-2-1 might be better for inground trees up North.

It appears that potted fig trees work on a different formula, but I got all kinds of growth in the pots last season with the 3-2-1 MG I fed the trees, so they seem to be nitrogen sensitive even in the pots down here.  Hard to tell anything in just one season, as you know.  But I wasn't unhappy about the growth for their first season.  I had to make up for almost killing the poor babies after repotting five of them 4 times and the sixth, 3 times.

So, I'm wondering if the straight fertilizer would still be good for the pots down here and just need flushing periodically.

The one feed store here recommends the 3-2-1 for figs.  I ran into that before I found the forums and the debate about it here, sooooo we'll see some day.  Dr. Mayer also recommended giving the trees a shot of nitrogen fertilizer in the early Spring, but that was just one time, then a regular fertilizer, but I lost those notes and don't know which regular fertilizer he said to get.

I'm so new to figs that I'm open to looking at different possibilities.  I don't think there is any one master key for the whole country.  I don't think, with nature, you can say there's only one way because nature isn't static.  It also tries to work with what is there for it.

I think we all need to be able to think in all directions and not lock ourselves into any one midset, or we're apt to miss something important.  I have no formal education in botany, or chemistry, so I listen to others who do have that education, but I also look at what's in front of me and have seen that things of nature don't always adhere to man's formulas.  :)

I still swear that I could stand in front of those two trees and actually see them growing.  :)  (Not)

Well, the MG and Osmocote that I bought are both of the 3:1:2 NPK ratio.

George,

What is your fertilizing regimen? Looks like you are applying both controlled release (Osmocote) and liquid (MG) fertilizing regimen? How often? Do you top dress the Osmocote or mix it throughout?

JD

Once in spring (fast) MG with water.

If you put "lime" on top and not "limestone".....you will be negating some of the effects of your MG and osmocote fertilizer. As discussed in another thread, lime and limestone are not the same product and they are not interchangeable.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus 

I have this variety for about 10 weeks now. I used Osmocote for fertilizer.

Skardu Black was a loser here too.
After babying it for about 6 years ,it fruitted but fruits were nothing special,Bland,and that is for a tree in ground.
There are some good reviews but they come mostly from very hot dry climate in the south west.

I'm having very good growth using fish/seaweed emulsion mixed to label directions. My wife insists I use organic, but the results seem very good.