Hi. Great forums , my 1st post here:)

I'd like to find the earliest ripening possible fig tree. This will of course be more difficult because each variety is more featured in certain countries, but by using the knowledge of collectors and gardeners it should be possible because they normally plant various varieties side by side .

So me first. Earliest variety I've seen is magiatiko from Greece, which ripes mid May on the Heraklio Crete province.

magiatiko:  which ripes mid May
Black Vasilika: which ripes first days august

-VK

breba on some common, and san pedro can be had as early as may around my area, if they can stand the low temp. main crop usually starts around july/aug. the ones that sets figs super early, main crop, are RdB, Ischia White, Pastiliere, and some others in my front yard. other than ones known for late ripening, most of my figs are tiny figs on them. so the tasting will start around july it seems for this yr providing weather cooperates and i don't make big mistakes. 

Florea and desert king are also early.

Florea, Texas Everbearing, and Marseilles White are early in my climate.  I usually start picking figs in June provided we have a hot Spring and this year....we do!

According to Herman2, Improved Celeste (O'Rourke not) and Florea give the earliest main crop in the northeast/mid-atlantic.  Besides Desert King, another San Pedro is Filacciano Bianco which is supposed to ripen in early July here in Maryland.

Kirkinis, welcome to the forum. It would help in answering your question if we knew your zone/rough geographic location so you might want to add that as a signature line.

When everyone is saying "earliest ripening fig" is that only in ground  planted trees.  Or does this also included the shuffled figs in pots?     So. WI Zone 4

Sorry, the ones that I mentioned were for in-ground trees.  With containers (fig shuffle) you would get fruit even earlier.

i keep all mine in containers. this yr, they are about 2 weeks late, but i did shuffle. last yr with rain and cold weather, the figs were 1.5 months late. so.. as long as the weather hold up, it will be a great yr. 

Hi Kirkinis, Welcome !

May seems to be in the Northern Hemisphere the early limit to see ripen figs, most likely all brebas.
Mild winters and warm sunny Springs will certainly dictate when during the month of May you shall have  mature brebas... my understanding is that even observing those mild conditions you never get those fruit ripen before May 15th !... always after this limit.... there may be an exception but very isolated.

Are you in Greece ?
Have a look on the following page found on the Internet and apparently prepared in 1995

http://om.ciheam.org/om/pdf/c13/96605637.pdf

See Table 2 on Page 7 , with a breakdown of the most important Greek varieties of figs and there you have at least 4 different varieties ripening two crops, the first ones always in May
Can you please tell what if any of these 4 varieties is or are San Pedro ?

Are all the remaining single crop figs on that table, Common types or any of these are Smyrna ?
Thank you

Francisco
(Portugal)

Hi !

Yes I am from GREECE and specifically from Crete. I working with fig trees in recent months.
In my area we have many varieties. Here the figs is a free fruit, rivers and uncultivated areas is full of fig trees but nobody knows names or names are different from place to place!

Even the tree shops have not fig tree or his sell black or white fig tree without varieties

So try to gather as many varieties as I can and more early varieties are very rare here
and to classify the names are well-known international

some photo with brevas if someone know varieties

photo 5 may fig tree 1

 




photo 28 Apr fig tree 2

 


Lampo thanks for PDF

-VK

I think we all are getting fig withdrawal this time of year.
Norman's Yellow has a breba crop that ripens mid May. Rolling River Nursery sells it. Here is a thread on it:

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?Normans-Yellow-5251675