Over the years many folks have wondered why nobody seemingly had their order requests for Ischia Black with USDA filled.  I spent the day at Wolfskill with Jon and Dennis on August 19, 2014 and decided to check out the Ischia Black specimens.  One was completely missing and the second and only one remaining was in very bad shape with maybe 15" of growth for the season on the best shoot (see first photo below).  I mentioned it to Howard (the general orchard and fig manager) and he said that he had some others in pots that he planned to plant in the new block (should be planted by now), but I doubt they are doing great as this accession is heavily infected with FMV and grows slowly.

I got a couple of plants in 2014 and they have grown slowly and I have not been able to take cuttings off of them yet.  But I decided to buy some cuttings from Herman (Vasile) who had originally obtained his from USDA about 15 years ago.  I grafted these onto Brown Turkey rootstock on November 20, 2015 and today up-potted some of them.  The best ones have about 15" or so of growth in just over 3 months (see second photo below).  The rootstock were very rootbound and I expect growth rates to be better now that they are in larger pots.

I encourage everyone to give grafting a try for such difficult varieties.



 

Great job, they are beautiful.  You have mastered the art work of grating. Beautiful art work. Congratulations! I know it must be lots of hard work.

Good job Harvey, when will you offer these?

Thanks.

Brian, I have no idea, I plan to plant these.  Maybe I'll sell extra trees but that is putting the cart before the horse.  These look great so far but it's still early.  I may donate one to CRFG/Prusch Park like Ive done with others but am not sure if it would be safe there, to be honest.  May wait a year on that.

Harvey do you recommend a certain style of grafting that works best for you? Thanks for sharing nice looking trees!

Chad, it really depends on the size of rootstock and scion, I do a lot of cleft grafts but prefer whip and tongue of the sizes are close to being the same.  I tried a chip bud the other day with pricey Scionon grafting shears to see if that would help my success with those.

@ Harvey - Wonderful, you are amongst the best. Bye-bye to rooting. I bought a grafting tool and it will
keep me busy as the weather is starting to warm up.

Great job Harvey,and Congratulation.
I am sure in your climate this cultivar will make wonderful tasting fruits.

Excellent work!

Bump. Harvey, how are these doing?

I posted updates about these grafted trees in my Figaholics FB page.  Sorry, don't have time to dig for those now but I had several trees that grew very well and fruited for me last year.  Fruit was not stellar but they were from very young and fast-growing trees so that's not surprising.  I expect better fruit this year.

Harvey,
I got 20+ cuttings of BI a few years ago fro UCD.
I got a number of the scions to root and I picked the best of the 15+ that rooted. It shows very little signs of FMV.
It produces excellent figs and I have gifted it to a couple folks who have gotten great figs from it.
It is not a fast grower but it is a very nice producer of figs and a very nice plant -- although a tad slow -- growing wise.
Let me know if u want a cutting.
I only get a few cuttings a year and so far my tree has never produced more then 50 figs -- but they were excellent.
mgg