We had 3/4 inch of rain yesterday and look what I found this morning:

 
I did not think it was close enough to being ripe for it to split, but as you can see it busted wide open. It is my first ever LSU Gold and first fig of the season so I ate it anyway. Actually it was not terrible. A little sticky from residual latex, but it did have some fig flavor, and I have certainly eaten worse things. In a funny way it gives me hope that an actually ripe LSU Gold may taste really good.

That's a heck of an explosion.  At least it wasn't a complete loss!

You do need lots of dry weather for those to ripen,but to me its worth it ........

The past few months have been VERY wet, but I think we are moving into a more normal summer weather pattern, except the temps are still pleasant, low to mid-90s is all. Many years it is over 100F by now and high humidity.

Another LSU Gold split today. We have had an exceptionally rainy cool summer so far, so maybe this will not prove normal. But if unless this variety shows something better from the rest of its figs, I will be pulling it in the fall. I have little patience for a fig that splits before it is ripe enough to eat.

BtW, I tried the split fruit today. It was not terrible, but hardly worth the trouble. It needed several more days of sun and them maybe it would have had passable taste. Like I said, I sure hope the LSU Gold starts showing more promise than it has so far this year.

I have had my lsu gold going on four years, and I've never had one split like that, must be the cool weather, cause it don't get no hotter and humid down here. The will split on me, but just one single crack down the middle, and then they usually don't spoil if you get em that afternoon. They are really sweet and rich when ripening in dry weather, but you have to watch them close, one day late and they spoil...

Here is the ripest one so far, and it still was only OK, I'd give it a 5 or 6 at best:

 
The skin was thick and the pulp was kind of sweet, but very little fig taste. O well, it is only the first year for the tree to fruit.

I've got a few that might ripen.  They showed up kind of late so we'll see.  I hope they taste decent.  Sorry yours wasn't as expected Gene.

What Cajun said is exactly right. They need very dry conditions to be at their very best. I will say that once you've tasted one of these at it's best,I doubt you'll still want to pull the tree up. It has not been a very good year for them here, but the others such as LSU Purple and Tiger have also had spoilage problems because of wet conditions,so don't be too disappointed with the LSU Gold. Sometimes that's just the way things go.

Hold on Gene, my tree is 3 and the figs are amazing!!!!

Its good to hear that good things await on the LSU Gold. I am more than willing to give it 2 or three more years. But I have been surprised at how insipid the taste is compared to the first figs off my Hardy Chicago (last year). Those things were great last year!

I know this sounds odd but according to everyone on this forum I should be experiencing split figs. I water every day and we get lots of rain. I even keep varieties prone to splitting (or so I've been told).
Can I ask you all what type of soil are you keeping your figs in?

My figs are all planted in ground. The soil is clay, but I greatly amended it with manure and mulch. There is lot of organic material in large planting holes, but the surrounding area is red clay. But the LSU Gold is the only one that is splitting. The Italian Black is great as are the couple of Hardy Chicago figs that have ripened so far. Only the LSU Gold is splitting and insipid in taste, the others are fine.