Nice job, you'll have a fig forest in no time at all! :)

You mean like this?  A month ago I bought a dozen air layered fig cuttings.

 

Pic 1 is an example of the best result I've gotten rooting a stem cutting.

Pic 2 is the nursery where recently acquired air layers adapt to the shock of life on their own.

Pic 3 shows my larger air layers and bare rooted plants adapting to their new environment.

Pic 4 shows the table where the recently repotted plants are hardened off with a partially shaded environment.

Pic 5 is my wife's newly acquired plants and her garden of figs. Ignore the mulberry plant that photobombed the pic :)

The last pic shows the rest of her collection with my small garden in the rear.


This is what happens when your wife gets bitten by the same fig bug as you :p

Making room for more figs.

Watch out...there's no turning back! lol

Wish you'd warned me 4 weeks ago, rofl.

The fun continues with the delivery of our first truckload of cement rings for planters.

Best of luck with them! Do the planters have holes in the bottom or is the bottom open or is it sealed?

Thamks. The bottoms are open.

As this is my first time to grow figs, I'm not sure what to expect in the way of growth rates, but this Brown Turkey air layer was potted only 5 weeks ago, and has put on amazing growth as you can see from the before and after pics here.

Is this typical for the faster growing varieties? It already has buds above each leaf which I assume will be future figs?

That's faster than what most of us in temperate climates see.  Good job.

They grow too fast there, I would grow them in a pot with roots only coming out from the sides only so that the trees can be root
pruned to have some measure of control over their growth. Watch out for bugs that would somehow lay eggs in the fig and worm
like babies comes out from the ripe figs. Happened to my friend and tree borers too. It was a mess & challenge to rid them.

[QUOTE=HarveyC]That's faster than what most of us in temperate climates see.  Good job.[/QUOTE]
Thanks, Harvey. Beginner's luck? A particularly strong scion? A fast growing examplar that I should clone? A good rootstock candidate for future grafting onto slower growing varieties? Just an example of what to expect from a SIP and 90° temps? I don't know, but I will have fun trying to find out.

[QUOTE=paully22]They grow too fast there, I would grow them in a pot with roots only coming out from the sides only so that the trees can be root
pruned to have some measure of control over their growth. Watch out for bugs that would somehow lay eggs in the fig and worm
like babies comes out from the ripe figs. Happened to my friend and tree borers too. It was a mess & challenge to rid them.[/QUOTE]
In addition to SIPs I am growing a couple of figs in larger "root control" (air pruning) pots to see if there is any benefit over a sub-irrigated planter.

I expect as the plant gets bigger the small 2.5 gallon root space will limit overall growth.

I am aware that at these temperatures problems can race out of control quickly, I am very quick to trim off any leaves that show problems before the problem spreads. I definitely will watch for boring insects, I lost a whole crop of zucchini to them before.

But I'm not sure why you think fast growth itself is problematic?

Wow. It good...

Fast growth makes tree large. Harvest and pest control etc more challenging. A fig tree in ground
when pruned will produce branches where nodes will generally stretch further apart given no change in
root base that would continue feeding and pushing new growth. Besides, your zone virtually allows the tree
to feed year round. Even in my zone me and some fig hobbyist runs into such issues. Hence we now
grow figs in pots and let the roots feed into the ground. Every so often we would root prune to check vigour
or you can call it balancing the root base & canopy.

[QUOTE=paully22]Fast growth makes tree large. Harvest and pest control etc more challenging. A fig tree in ground
when pruned will produce branches where nodes will generally stretch further apart given no change in
root base that would continue feeding and pushing new growth. Besides, your zone virtually allows the tree
to feed year round. Even in my zone me and some fig hobbyist runs into such issues. Hence we know
grow figs in pots and let the roots feed into the ground. Every so often we would root prune to check vigour
or you can call it balancing the root base & canopy.[/QUOTE] If I understand you correctly you're suggesting something like a half buried pot with holes in the sides to allow the roots to grow out into the soil, but still allow easy access to the longer roots for periodic pruning? So I don't have to dig them up like this poor fellow?

I used to bury my pots 2 to 3 inches deep with many side holes. If my pot has a middle hole, I plug it up. These days, I do not bury
my pots but let them sit on top of the soil. This makes it easier for me to root prune. I do not root prune all around the pot. I do
half of it one year and allow the side that was root pruned to get some growing. On the following year, I prune the other side of the
pot.

Your picture shows a lot of work. Recently I gave a large Latarrula tree away that was grown in a half whisky barrel. It was easy
digging out the tree. Took only 15 minutes and the whole barrel with tree could be moved. This was a result of what I described
above. The Latarrula was 8 yrs old and produces more figs than we can eat. It took 4 guys to move and load this gift into their truck.
This well branched Latarrula tree was about 8 to 9 ft tall. The same happened to my gift of Longue d'Aout -- easy to root & moved
tree away from my yard.

Please note -- IF MY POT BASE IS 2FT IN DIAMETER, I PLACED CRUSHED GRAVEL 2FT IN DIAMETER & PACKED THEM IN WELL UP TO
A DEPTH APPROX. 5 INCHES. DOING SO WOULD MOSTLY FORCED THE ROOTS NOT TO GROW UNDERNEATH THE POT. I Generally do not
keep large trees. I give them away as I will have replacement trees ready by then. I think this only applies if one is not doing it commercially
selling ripe figs. I grow figs mainly for my own consumption and hundreds of fig per variant is not what I want. I opt for diversity to achieve
my goal in volume.

Thanks for taking time to provide that valuable insight.  

My own goals for growing fig trees are mixed.  Yes, I want to have many varieties to try for my own consumption.  I haven't had a chance to have many fresh figs yet, but I can say I'm definitely hooked!

Secondly, I want to see what varieties do well here once the weather turns bad (hot with a lot of rain vs merely hot and humid).  Try as many varieties as I can and see what produces and what doesn't.

Third is  to provide a nursery service for others who want to try growing their own figs locally.  Farmers here are desperate to diversify into new crops.  I think figs is a viable option for those around here as we are only 2 hours by truck (using only major thoroughfares) from the biggest wholesale fresh vegetable and fruit market in the country.

Only lastly is it to sell fruit myself, but that, however, is my wife's goal, and she has her own fig plants for that purpose.

In any event, I plan to top all branches at about 6 feet, I don't plan to stand on a ladder to harvest ;)

All good wishes to your endeavour.

Here is an update on another of my earliest figs. This is Conadria. Pic 1 is how it looked on Feb 7 when I first potted it. The air layer had a small root ball mostly filling up the small plastic bag which is the usual way air layers are made here. You can see it looks rather weak and stressed after transplanting. Pic 2 was taken two weeks later ob Feb 21. The leaves are bigger and the roots have expanded enough so the heat no longer stresses the plant. Ive started a new air layer using the top of a soda bottle.

Pic 3 is the mother plant and recently transplanted air layer. Total elapsed time 9 weeks.

For anyone intetested in how quickly a Brown Turkey air layer will grow in the tropics, I've uploaded 3 pictures of the same plant, 1st one taken early last February, next one in mid March, and the last one today. If it can grow from nearly nothing to this in only 4 months, it's hard to imagine how much bigger could get in 4 more months. And yes, I harvested 2 ripe figs earlier this week.

Now I will air layer off the main stem and begin my own Frankenfig project.

Thank you for your picture，nice job！