I acquired a leggy Desert King in a container. It has a few leaves right at the tip indicating life. How can I get it to branch out so I can get some figs?

Air-layer the top portion at 3' height from soil surface in the pot. By mid-June you may have two 3' tall plants. You may have to cut the top of the air-layered plant (about 6") for that plant to branch out too. Root the 6" cutting to get 3rd plant. Then you will have an orchard of 3 plants.

It will be interesting to see if that's a characteristic of the DK.  I'm suspecting I may have gotten a DK by error instead of a White Triana tree, a couple of years ago.  It was the larger size tree and the first year, it produced nothing.  The second year I had it, it got only a few brebas on it, but no main crop.  This year, it has 19 breba figs on it and some are getting very large, but they are all near the tip of the few branches it's got and the leaves are all up there, as well.  Looks really funny!  I hope the figs will be good.

I'm thinking of air layering two of the three tips because they don't exhibit much FMV, as the other one does and the two scruffy branches are even worse.

I think we're supposed to pinch the growth tips to make them branch out some, but then, there would hardly be any leaves.

noss

Since it has broken dormancy, saw if off where you want branches. After dormancy breaks, they seem to break more buds, rather than just the apical bud, when pruned. Root the cuttings.