I saw this picture the other day and thought it looked really familiar. This company says their plants produce figs within 12 months, but have no pictures of their own so had to use Jon's. http://www.agbiotek.com/Fig.php


I doubt there is much that can be done, since they are in India. But I thought I should point it out because it is suspicious that there are no TC companies that show pictures of their plants fruiting. They are dishonest enough to steal a photo, why not lie about the plant too?

Could there be damage during the process that makes them sterile? There is really so little info on these plants and there are so many of them! As if the fig world was not complicated enough.

Oh my, I never heard tissue cultures are sterile. Can you please tell me more? I bought 2 LSU Purple tissue cultured plants and I believe the 2 Ischia Blue we all bought out were tissue cultures as well.

Brent,

Stealing pics is pretty low and I would never trust a company that did that.  Far as the tissue culture itself there is no mystery, it is a process a person could do at home if so inclined.  You are just getting a cutting to root...granted it is a very tiny cutting:)  I had the privilege of visiting a large tissue culture lab and the process is quite fascinating.  There are no worries of sterility.  There is also no freaking way a plant from TC fruits the first year lol.  

Thanks Will, I am wondering what to do with my plant. It needs to be moved in the spring and I am wondering what I could possibly do to get it to fruit in the next century. I have seen a few trees that are like mine, what is most likely Magnolia, although Agristarts shows the same plant for Black Mission. With the red buds.

This one has a similar leaf and suckering habit to the one I lost over the winter. The owner complains of no figs.


But then when I went back to look at a picture from Quackmaster that really reminds me of my plant, i noticed what looks a fruit scar.


So maybe it is just a matter of pruning to increase the stem's diameter. That seems to be a requirement for fruiting anyway. Agristarts shows a few nice sized plants with the same growth habit, but all the fig pics are from what appears to be normal trees, most likely the mothers. Here is their Magnolia.



And then their Brown Turkey that must be some kind of cruel joke, now I am thinking it could also be the excessive tendency towards vegative growth.

Here is mine, half frozen over the winter and then run over with a lawnmower, not showing color or defined leaf shape right now. I did move the rock there to see if the lawnmower still thinks it is bad, but otherwise it has just been left alone.

Is the lawn mower the best way to "prune" a brown turkey?

Brent,

Last summer I decided to greatly expand my fig collection and went from 2 varieties to now about 70 varieties.  A friend who was being helpful bought me an auction off Ebay of a 4 pack of tissue culture plants...think it was a LSU Purple, black mission, Ischia and magnolia.  They were tiny....... I actually already had acquired the first three anyway from more reliable sources and didn't want the 4th variety but what can you say to a gift.  Btw Agristarts is the lab I visited and I am sure they keep everything straight, it is run with military precision.  That Ebay seller though is about as unreliable as it gets.  

Perhaps because of the TC process the plant behaves more like a seedling would so has a juvenile period when it won't fruit?   Just a guess.  

Lawnmower was an accident, joking ; ).

pinch it.

Brent,
No comment on the picture theft, but I would like to comment on tissue cultured figs that I purchased last year.

I purchased all the listed Agristart varieties last year (on Ebay). They were all trained upright to a single main leader with lots of pinching and a bamboo stake. In my short growing season (4 months), I had visible figs swelling on the Celeste and Green Ischia. The other plants grew to almost 4 feet, but ran out of time. I had documented this in a post last year. IMO if I had a longer season, I am almost certain that the other plants would have produce at least embryonic figs.

<edit> How to untangle roots easily and gently

If your worried about picture theft just open your windows paint program, then the picture and either edit the photo by typing a copyright i.e. Property of Paul D or typing right across the picture the same thing but in transparent type It will show up in the middle of the picture but not affect the overall image. This method cannot be edited out like the previous method. 

Paul- I am only worried about picture theft as it relates to deception, it could also be laziness but isn't that dangerous too? I think it is fine people edit their photos to prevent theft, but I am not a photographer so don't feel the need to protect any of my pictures per say, until they get stolen. Has not happened to me yet BTW, I must need to improve my photos ; )

Thanks Pete, I hunted the posts down. I think the biggest difference is that you really cared for yours while I did not even untangle the tiny little root ball. I just tossed them in a cup when I got them in 2011 then into a 1 gallon sunk into the ground later in the season. Planted the one pictured last spring and forget whether I up potted the others or just left them in the one gallons, they were part of an informal hardiness test and failed, probably because of stress from neglect.

I am impressed you could untangle those root balls, mine were very solid.