Hello!

I've got quite a few shoots at the base of the main trunk on my 1 year old trees. My worry is that they are taking too much nutrients away from the main trunk, which is slowing/preventing vertical growth of the main trunk-- my main goal for a young tree.

I'd like to keep the shoots to produce more trees of that variety. Inevitably air-layering next year to reach a tree style rather than the style of a bush, but I'm assuming they're too young for that. Is there anything I can do right now to promote vertical growth? 

Here's some pictures:

 

Each shoot ranges from a couple inches to 2 feet in length.

 

Thats a lot of side shoots. I would try to air layer the long ones or if its not a fig you really love and want growth.... cut them. You can put the cutting right into a cup of water wait for white lenticels and cup them up. Change water every day of two at the longest. Only takes less then a week to get lenticels in most cases. Definitely hendering growth of your tree

Wow that looks like a record number of side shoots and suckers. 

Given it is only a 1 yr old tree I would tend to leave it alone this year and then shape it in the spring. 

In the meanwhile you can just pile up some soil to cover those suckers and probably end up with a bunch of air layers that you can take when tree is dormant in the fall.

Pino's absolutely correct and a great idea. No work air layers. !!! What is it ross

Hi Ross,
If all those sprouted at the same time, and some grew quickly into branches and the others stalled, I would quickly prune out the ones that stalled. Generally those little spur-type growths will never do more than grow a leaf or two and even die off after growing 6" or so. Waste of energy: chunk'em. Keep the more aggressive growers for airlayers, etc. 

Thanks for the tips everyone. I decided to air-layer 4 of the larger branches, and root a few in cups. Some with water.. some with moist sphagnum peat moss. I've got the cups in clear plastic bags, which is creating added humidity. Hopefully all goes well. I'll be sure to give an update when I see some positive results.