I keep reading about fig trees growing back from beneath the soil after a total freeze.

Of those varieties that get killed to ground level, which ones tend to come back and produce in the same season especially in cold areas? I've noticed that when I heavily trimmed some of my trees this past spring, some varieties grew with a vengeance but did not produce at all. As an example, Ronde de Bordeaux which produced the previous year did not produce any fruit this past season.

Perhaps we could create a log of inground figs that tend to come back and produce immediately.

There is some good work on logging the qualities of cold hardy figs you can find here:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ihfyIwZ8l5DyVMFvTOAthQf65jn-2bRRMPGR57AKSyw/edit?usp=sharing

I can't remember who put this together, but it's great work and a good start for what you're talking about.

Wow that is an amazing spreadsheet.  Thank you for sharing this.  Warmly, Jodi

That's Kelby's spreadsheet.  He got banned a while back from here, but he's still a great contributor over on Ourfigs.com

Hardy Chicago will die to the ground and still produce plenty of good figs every year.  You have to bury a lot of wood when you plant it. I comes back from wood buried deeply enough so it doesn't freeze.

Not sure if my theory is valid. But I do believe that certain varieties especially when in pot take better to pruning than others by continuing to produce as expected such as what Bob described above with his hardy Chicago(dies to the ground but still produces the same year), while others tend to concentrate their energy into regrowth, and hence not producing as expected or missing the season altogether.
The way I see it when a fig tree dies to the ground, it is much worse than pruning and forming a solid list of those that do come back and produce immediately (and take well to heavy pruning) is my ultimate goal.
You see I have many varieties in pots and the majority sits idle from one year to the next only to produce a very limited number of fruits or no fruits especially when pruned.
I am thinking of reducing my pruning activities on some as an experiment in order to see if skipping pruning or reducing it helps certain varieties produce better.

I get a couple small trees that usually die back in winter.
It has never killed enough figs to make a note of which variety.
They almost always grow back and set fruit. No matter the variety.
I look at my whole orchard, planted in stages.
All 1 year old trees look about the same as any other 1 year old.
Same with the 2 year olds, and the ones over 3 years old.
There is a definite pattern of growth between the ages of the tree.
I don't worry about die back, just roll with the punches and learn.
I've lost more trees to rodents chewing bark when I
put straw around the tree base than winter die back.
The straw in winter collected mice.

Doug

When growing figs in pots there is also the issue of whether the tree is rootbound.  When I have had poor performance (as I had this year with some varieties like VdB) it seems to correlate with needing to be potted up.

As for the original question of this post, the Mt. Etna varieties (as Bob mentioned) are well known for coming back from severe die-back and still producing fruit.  With any variety your results for coming back from cold damage will vary according to how long and hot of a season you have.  I think I have also read from Herman2's posts that Malta Black will also produce fruit after severe die-back.

I have a feeling that with many varieties, I might have to keep increasing the size of container (which might not practical due to space restriction) or put in ground, rather than root pruning. Thanks

Hi,
Never met such a strain until today ... But I don't have access to HC.
But age of first fruit setting will vary with the strain.
My quickest from cutting was some sort of "pingo de mel" . Cutting had two years old wood. Taken in July 2014 and set to root the same month. I got 10 figs from that tree this year.
Here, usually fig-trees take 3 full years before starting to fruit.
I'm speaking about in-ground trees.