This has been my first year trying to grow from cuttings...a few growing pains, several methods, and even more cuttings later, I've got over 20 seemingly healthy trees actively growing.  My latest "oops" was when I finally introduced them to natural sunlight and a few got a little "crispy", others got REALLY crispy.  All trees are still alive but I've got a lot of damaged leaves I've had to look at and here's a my question...

Is more beneficial to the tree to remove those damaged leaves or let them on until they maybe die and drop off?  This would involve some trees getting close to half their leaves picked off.  The way figs grow, I'm thinking that's a non-issue but just want to hear some opinions.

 

If they're damaged enough, they'll fall off on their own.  That's been my experience anyway.  lol...  Been there and done that!  

Funny part is that I didn't just shove them outside (which is probably what people reading this think I did) but I slowly introduced full sun over 2-3 weeks and only certain plants got sunburn.  I guess some can take more than others.

Mike, another thing to remember is when watering, try not to get the leaves wet. Especially during the hot daytime, the wet leaves will magnify the sun's rays causing damaging effects . Same goes if your spraying any protective oil, such as neem oil. Spray late in the day or on cloudy days.

That is a great point.  

They all have drip irrigation run to them so the leaves don't get wet, only when it rains, of course.  But that's something I didn't even think of.

Another possibility is, what time is your drip irrigation set to go off. If it is during the hot time of the day, the water in the drip line get really hot, therefore, watering with hot water. Just thoughts????

Well, the irrigation isn't on a timer, I do it manually in the evenings (which is the only time I can do it after the kids' go to bed).  

Another good point, but I purposely put a valve before any of the feed lines so I can bleed the hot water out before watering.  

One thought might be that the plant would expend a lot of energy nursing an ailing leaf. Remove it so the plant can put all it's energy into new growth. On the other hand it's hard to give up on leaves that are already there. Maybe do a test with a plant or two to see how it responds with the questionable leaves removed.

Given the weather I'm having right now (highs in the upper 80's and humid) just about all my trees, damaged or not, are showing good signs of growth, so I'm just going to remove them all.  At this point I don't think it can hurt too much.