Hi, I live in coastal Southern California. I planted about 50 fig trees about 15 years ago. Unfortunately, for some unexplained reason many of my fig trees have been slowly dying from the top down. Spring comes and they just don't put out very much leaves. The tops of branches die off. Over a year or two most of the branch dies almost down to the stump. With no leaves the trunk and branches that are still alive get sun burned. This accelerates the decline.

This is all very strange because for the first 10 years or so, I didn't see very much of this problem. The trees just took care of themselves. Even when I didn't water them enough they seemed to do fine. But now something is wrong. I have lost at least 15 trees and the majority of my trees look sick. I fear that by next year, the majority of my orchard will be effectively dead.

I have tried reviving some of these trees with hand watering, fertilizer, etc. But they don't push out more leaves. They just keep going down hill. The trees seem to show no interest in putting out enough leaves. They show no vigor.

Does anyone have any ideas what the possible causes of this could be?

There are so many factors to consider.  You need to enlist some local expert help to see if they can find the problem. 
Are there fig farmers or Univ. extension programs nearby that can come and investigate?

In the meanwhile see if you can take some suckers with roots or cuttings and get some new trees going for possible re-plant.

See if you have RKN.

Pino, there are no experts in my city. I am the only person here that has a collection like this. I am the "expert" for this area.

Speedmaster, Could RKN kill mature trees? How do I find out if I have an RKN problem? I have a clay like soil. I read that RKN favors sandy soil.

With the drought situation out there you might be getting saltwater intrusion into your local aquifer.  It doesn't take much for the aquifer to drop below sea level in drought scenarios.

Are you watering with municipal or well water?  If it is a shallow well it could be intrusion.

Good luck.

See if the surface roots have knots. It can stress a tree and in drought can affect water intake.

dkitexas,

I get most of my water from rain fall over the winter. The rest of the year, I use city water with drip irrigation. The city water is very hard and has high TDS, but I don't think the water is killing the trees, because the other tropical trees in my orchard are just fine. Although, my apple trees are also not pushing out leaves as much as they should. Other stone fruits are doing OK.

Strangely the fig trees are the ones being targeted, even though they were the most forgiving in the past.

I would definitely look at the roots for the problem. Unless there is another stressor, RKN generally will not take down a mature fig tree... especially in a single year. Unless you spread dirt/much recently, I wouldn't expect it to spread so uniformly or quickly. To check for RKN, dig up the roots a foot or two from the trunk and check for galls on the roots. I've seen many members from California complain of underground rodents gnawing on tree roots.

Perhaps a local agricultural extension could provide other possibilities.

I just read about RKN. EASY FIX THEY SAID WAS SUGAR WATER. CANT HURT TO GIVE IT A TRY ON ONE OF THEM TO SEE IF IT HELPS IF YOU FIND SIGNS OF RKN

Gophers?

I will do a better job of checking for RKN. I have not yet seen evidence of it when I was digging out dead trees. But I will take another look by digging more around trees that are more recently sick.

At first I thought it might me gophers. I have lost several of my small trees to gophers since the drought started. It seems that the Gophers don't have enough to eat because the weeds in the field are dying off in early spring. This only leaves my fig trees as a source of food.

However, I see no direct evidence of gophers around some of the large trees that are sick. I wouldn't think that the gophers would make the large trees sick in one season.

It takes more than one year to completely die. It effectively takes about 2-3 years before the tree is so sick that it looks like it has little chance of coming back.

Figsation,
It looks like you have your work cut out to finding the source of your tree problems.  I would still contact extension programs in similar climate/terrain area.  The staff love  solving problems and helping farmers.

I am in Canada in tender fruit country (peaches, cherries ..) so have little in common with S.Cal. take my comments with a grain of salt;  

given that the fig trees are 15 years old and allowing for some tree decline since Fig trees optimum production is in the 10 year range is there a possibility of herbicide accumulation damage?
In my area farmers are finding that some tree decline is attributed to the long term spraying of weed killers (glysophate, gramoxone) that hit the trunk and are taken in by the tree and over time kill the tree.

Pino, I have never used herbicides or pesticides on my property. I have only put wood chips around the trees the last few years and some organic fertilizer every few years.

Could it be termites? Two of my mulberry trees died due to termites early this year. Since they are from the same family, perhaps you should check out fot termites.

long ago i had a different property . my fruit trees were damaged buy over spray that drifted over from a farmers field   .I talked to him and asked if he could spray in the future when the wind was blowing away from my orchard .. no problem after that.

Where did the wood chip come from? Maybe they are somehow toxic or harboring some sort of borer?

Sorry to hear this, I can't imagine losing a number of established trees.

The woodchips came from tree trimming from tree companies. Some of it from my property. I have specified that the trimmings should have nothing that was treated with pesticides or chemicals.  

I will say again the strange thing here is that the fig trees are the sickest trees on my property. Other trees like Mangos, Longans, stone fruits etc. that have been treated the same way are doing OK. The sick fig trees are in some cases planted right next to them.

It's so strange to me that the figs are showing the most problems. I have always found my figs to be the most care free trees.

Could you post few photos of trees? Possobly some close up photos of main trunks.

Here are some higher resolution photos of various trees.

All of these trees were OK 2-3 years ago. The decline this year is alarming. It seems to be accelerating.

Some of the branches on the trees near tops are completely dead.

The small tree is interesting. It was completely fine 2 years ago. I noticed that it didn't leaf out as well last year. Now it can hardly complete pushing out the leaves and its not pushing out enough leaves. This is happening even though all of the branches are alive. At this rate if it follows the pattern, it will be effectively dead next year.

I doubled up the trunk picture on tree one. Here is the missing picture.

Hello Figsation,

When you get a chance Google up  - Decline or Dieback of Trees - Known as Twig Die Back. Based on your own observation you can probably identify which might be the issue in your particular case. Hope this helps!

Another fig tree. How could these trees go so bad in 2-3 years. Last year this tree just looked a little sick.

I know this doesn't help one bit, but I have noticed that there is a fig across the street from where I work with the exact symptoms shown in your pictures...I hope this mystery disease doesn't start spreading around here. Sorry about your delima, I hope you can get things figured out....

Wow,really sad to see this.Is it possible you are irrigating too close to the tree?
The reason I ask is because when I put my figs in I also installed landscape fabric
under 6-8 inches of mulch.18 months later I found that all the biology was taking place
above the fabric and I removed the fabric.No fun.At that time I found my feeder roots
12 feet from the tree.If you've had these in and have relied upon rain with supplemental
water the last 2 years have been brutal.Maybe the feeder roots are out at 20-30 ft?