This may just apply to you guys in California and the southwest, but do you start to withhold water from your figs once they start to swell?

I've got about 1/10th of my Peter's Honey figs swelling now (16 months in ground) and was thinking denying the tree water would produce a more sweet, less watery fig.

Any opinions?

It's such a heat wave this year, I don't withhold water on anything.  We do withhold water on our wine grapes, and it does produce a sweeter, more flavorful grape for wine making.  We withhold till the vine droops, then flood till it perks up, then withhold, and so on till harvest.  Here is a link to the Molly Dooker Wine irrigation program.  We use it, mainly because Molly Dooker produces some mighty fine wine!

I bet it's the same for figs.

Both Figs and Grape Vines are really tough and hard to kill once established.  I wouldn't do that on newer vines or figs.  In ground is safer, I would think.
Suzi

I can't address you problems directly...my growing conditions are vastly different than yours.  Just a thought...can you heavily mulch the in-ground trees, even to the point of spreading cheap, plastic drop cloths over the mulch/ground to conserve moisture, rather than taking a chance on watering the trees and waterlogging thr figs as they ripen?  In this way, the trees will use available moisture at the roots, and not get excessively wet.

I grow in large containers, in NYC.  When that "time of month" comes...the containers get covered with plastic "caps" so that rain cannot soak into the growing medium as the figs get ripe.  It does make a difference in sugar, and flavor concentration.  Like the difference between a grape, and a raisin.  And I try to wait until the figs just start to shrivel slightly before I pick them.  Then they are thick with honey-figgy flavors.  Oy!...I could plotz!

If any of the above doesn't apply to your situation, just forget the posting.

Frank

Thanks Desert and Bronx for your input. I think since the tree is young it's probably best to not withhold, maybe wait a couple of years. Bronx your input is valid, I didn't think of controlling rain for container figs, it's much simpler than an in ground tree isn't it?