or is it Figenstein (and for the record, it's pronounced "Fie jin steen")

I layered several clones of a neighbor's fig tree in Richmond, VA in 2003.  It was an unnamed that had been in his yard for over 30 yrs, and he had rooted it from a cutting off his mother's tree where he had grown up. 

I gave all but one away, and it has been in the ground in south Louisiana for 7 years after spending a few in a pot.

I like to piddle in my garden. . .



July 2004






April 2006  It's the "big" one in the foreground





May 2006




March 2009




Gotta download some more pics, more to come.  Shaping and grafting. . .

June 2010





Jan 2011








March 2011

Nov 2011











Going for two planes, about 4' and 6' off the ground




March 2013










And now the grafts (Most covered in foil).  Most of the grafts are now budding out.  I;l get more pics tomorrow.  


 May 2013

I used a variety of graft techniques.  Total rookie.  Here are a T graft and a chip graft.

15 varieties grafted (if the ebay sellers are all accurate):

LSU purple
Neighbor's Celest or BT, will see in fall
Unknown yellow from local source
Violette de Bourdeaux
Panache
Kadota
Alma
Conradia
Black Mission
Neri
Galban
Paridiso
st Jerome
Hardy Chicago
unknown Bronx Yellow from jimmychao (thread on this site)

I now need to do the top layer.  I figure I can fit 8-15 more, depending on the grafting density.  ANy ideas for closed eye varieties, good fresh?

That's one amazing tree... I mean 15+1 amazing trees..

Thanks.  I look at the really pretty shape from a couple of years ago and sometimes wonder if I should have stuck with that.

Wow, that is one incredible figatron. I don't know much about grafting, but I have one large, disappointing tree that I've been thinking about adding grafts to. Did you use dormant cuttings for the grafts? You have some good varieties. One thing I would suggest for the next layer would be to add a couple of breba-only figs, like desert king. That way you can stretch out harvest time. Those pictures are so cool. Thanks for posting.

That tree is amazing, very nice work.

Thank you for sharing that photo montage, documenting the progress of this amazing fig tree.  Very enjoyable viewing.

Beautiful children....future fig growers.


Frank

Nice pics...and nice to see the kids involved.

And noone is going to comment on my outstanding Young Frankenstein reference in post 1?  Uncultured louts. . .

Some cuttings were greening up a bit, others freshly cut from activelyt growing limbs, but most were dormant. I don't see a trend in which technique worked best, because almost all are budding out (assuming budding out suggests the grafts are taking)  They've been in LA heat for at least two wks, many up to three, so I'm guessing they're taking.

Thanks for posting the pictures and the chronology. It's a very attractive topiary.
How productive was the 2011 form?
How do the figs look and taste?
Thanks.

This is a nice grafting idea....

[QUOTE]Thanks for posting the pictures and the chronology. It's a very attractive topiary.[/QUOTE]

Thanks. 

[QUOTE]How productive was the 2011 form?[/QUOTE]

It was my first really good year.  I'm not sure how to quantify, but it was loaded.  It has struggled in the LA heat at times, and rust usually claims all of the leaves in late summer.  It refoliates before winter, though.

[QUOTE]How do the figs look and taste?[/QUOTE]

They are brownish purple and just under golf ball size. 

I don't have a wide experience, taste-wise, and I've never done a side by side comparison of figs, but you can be sure I will this fall including with celeste and BT (dime a dozen around here).  I will say that the figs are delicious fresh.


I intend to milk the expertise outa this place this fall with pics of leaves and figs for opinions on accuracy of the named varieties.

Also, I have read with great interest on this site about FMV, and it seems consensus that if my tree was not already infected, it almost assuredly is now, likely by several different viruses.  I have decided to subscribe to the "cold sore" point of view, that it can manifest itself when the tree is stressed, resulting in stunted growth and/or reduced yields, but it is not fatal or otherwise constitutionally harmful.

Still, I took cuttings prior to the first graft.

I added LSU Gold and Magnolia today.  The magnolia was a spontaneous Lowes purchase for 6$.  I have read now that it is an open eye variety prone to split and rot.  Not good for wet south LA.  I'll leave it be, but I may have my first contestant for swapping out if it does not please me.

After counting, I have two more spots on the bottom and 14 up top, though I'll likely leave several as the native tree.  They're ppretty good in their own right.

Thank you brackishfigger. I love all the photos. You took them all at just the right time making it easy to see how to do what you have done. I feel like I have been totally schooled. In a good way.

Thanks again

THISISME

A few updates and some random pics

Of the previous grafts, these made it with varying degrees of vigor, a few still tenuous:

LSU purple
Neighbor's Celest or BT, will see in fall
Unknown yellow from local source
Violette de Bourdeaux
Panache
Magnolia/Brunswick
Alma
Conradia
Black Mission
Neri
Galban
Hardy Chicago
unknown Bronx Yellow from jimmychao (thread on this site)


I lost these, including the rooted cuttings:

Kadota 1
Paridiso
st Jerome
LSU Gold

I have since added using cuttings from the LSU orchard:

Scotts Black
O'Rourke
Hollier
Hunt
LSU Purple (duplicate, but this one from one of the mama trees at LSU)
Champagne
Tiger
Marseille

and from one of my fellow LSU field-trippers, whose name I did not catch (THANK YOU!!):

"Native Black" Becnel Belle Chase


and I have added 4 new unnamed from local sources.



So 17 named cutivars and 8 unknows if including Native Black.

I have room for 5-6 more.







The first three pics are of the same chip/escutcheon graft


















Fresh whip graft






a well healed but ugly whip graft




chip/escutcheon graft





saddle graft




bark grafts







a well healed whip graft






 This is the same chip graft shown in the last pic of post 4 above

Great job brackish figger!  I would love to see that tree someday...

I would recommend LSU GOLD, although the eye is not completely closed, there is usually a drop of honey that seals it.  And even in rainy weather here near Baton Rouge, I only have a handful that have ever split, and remarkably those don't necessarily sour if you get em soon enough.  It has become one of my favorite figs, it produces a ton of very large sweet figs with good flavor. 

Thanks Cal, it is on my short list and I can't believe I forgot to grab a cutting at Burden/LSU.  No shortage of them around here though, so I'll come across one eventually. 

My "Purple" I bought at a local nursery, for the cuttings to graft,and it remains in the pot with figs.  The graft took great, one of my four best, but the figs on the potted mama are the wrong shape and appear to be ripening yellow, so I may have a Gold already!  Glad I got cuttings from a true Purple at Burden/LSU.

Of the large batch I grafted on LSU day (7/13/13, 15 days ago), only the "Native Black" has clearly "taken" (and two different grafts, to boot!) , with all of the others yet to bud out.  I remain confident that some/many will make it.  Thanks again to the anonymous supplier of the Native Black.

Here is a bark graft of the nursery-bought-probably-isn't-really LSU Purple that I pruned because the one on the other side was the more vigorous of the two, and it refuses to die.




Edit 12/29/15  The little sprout never gave up!

 

 


Both of my Neri 2 grafts died, but two cuttings are growing.  I decided to try a whip/tongue graft using the bottom of a rooted cutting , and reroot the top.  I incorporated the roots into the graft by cutting a slit along the length of the rooot stock, separating the bark, and placing the roots in that space like you would a T graft.




















Edited 10/22  this graft did not take

Awesome.

Did you reach any conclusions as to which method works best? Or are they all much of a muchness?

Damn! That is one majestic tree. Gorgeous!

How are the figs?  Which varieties have been productive and good?  (Great work grafting too... but I'm especially interested to hear which ones work out well in terms of production and taste, viability, etc.).

Mike   central NY state, zone 5a

p.s. Hmmph, eye-gore to you. :-)

Too bad I didn't read this thread 5 months ago!  All the grafting and espalier doesn't interest me much at this point, but that truly was an outstanding Young Frankenstein reference in your initial post!!!!  I picked up on it right away, along with the fact that you probably weren't the only one piddling in your garden!  (BTW, Young Frankenstein was one of the first movies I ever saw in the theater.  It was for a kindergarten birthday party, of all things.  Most of it was way over my head at that age!)
Jim

Very nice pictures and awesome project.   Thanks for sharing pictures of your tree.  Awesome!

Thank you. I enjoyed looking at the photos from over the years. They tell an interesting story. I especially liked the espalier aspects.

Speaking of classic cinema references, some of the training phases for the tree remind me of the old movie 'Coma'.

Wow! What a crazy projetct! :-D

I love the way you formed the tree over the years.

Nice tree! What month do you do your grafts?

Best Wishes,

I began grafting in early May as the tree was coming out of dormancy.  Despite my rather sloppy technique, that large batch had the highest percentage of takers.  As I added more over the summer, I became less and less successful, not too surprising in south LA heat. 

I had the best luck with whip, bark, and chip/escutcheon grafts.  I had the worst luck with T grafts.  I think timing is the most important element, early spring when the tree is pushing.

Only the Hardy Chicago made any figs to ripening, and they were as the tree was exfoliating with rust, so they weren't so hot and were small. 

Interesting that some of the grafts seem less suseptible to rust, but I suspect that has more to do with the age of  the leaves.  The last old leaves of the rootstock are now finally falling, from rust, but the many small new leaves from the second blush are unmarred.  I'll have to see if the difference remains when all the grafts break dormancy with the rest of the tree this spring, and all start making leaves at the same time.  Or should I say at their appointed time, as some may retain characteristics for earlier/later spring blush.  Can't wait to see! 

I have many pots with cuttings of figs whose graft did not take and I have several varieties lined up with users here for use this spring.  I hope to score a trip to the LSU orchard some time in late winter.  LSU day was in July, and few grafts or cuttings survived.

My grafts seem to come in three varieties:  survive and thrive; die outright; or surge then stall, or even die back in stages, sometimes with mini surges between the die backs.

some great links for those interested in graftin (also some great youtube stuff.  Don't limit yourself to fig vidoes/info, the techniques are all the same)

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/english-translation-of-axiers-how-to-graft-an-adult-fig-tree-4504717

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/simple-stepbystep-grafting-5830743

Young Frankenstein is one of my earliest movie theater memories too, though I had just turned four when it was released, so it must have been a reshowing some time later.  Plenty of humor for the little ones.  Put.  The candle.  Back.  I don't know if kids today would recognize all the classic monster movie references/spoofs.

I planted a persimmon last week.  Another creation beckons!  I am going to be busy this spring!!

Interesting project brackishfigger.  It'll be interesting to see how the fig production works out in such a Figenstein.

Mike

Winter blues as we're "snowed in" here in south LA.  A bit of a wintry mix with nothing really sticking and the whole city is shut down.  It's a great day to take fig inventory.

Here is the tree now



 



 


I count about 26 peripheral sites where I can add new grafts.  I can also add a few on the lower tier main branches for an internal understory.

Current surviving grafts:

LSU purple (?)
Neighbor's Celeste
Violette de Bourdeaux
Panache
Magnolia/Brunswick
Alma
Conradia
Black Mission
Hardy Chicago
unknown Bronx Yellow from jimmychao (thread on this site)
Scotts Black
Champagne
"Native Black" Becnel Belle Chase, LA
Kathleen Davis White (local fig)
Black Bethlehem

So that makes 15 grafts that took. Two or three(Panache, VdB) are not looking so hot though.



I lost these, including the rooted cuttings (I think), though I have a date to collect new cuttings from all of the LSU specimens next month :

Kadota 1
Paridiso
st Jerome
Unknown yellow from local source
Neri 2
Galban

LSU specimens:

LSU Gold
O'Rourke
Hollier
Hunt
LSU Purple
Tiger
Marseille



I have these 24 cuttings ready to go in the fridge, plus whatever cuttings of prior losses I discover amongst the many potted yearlings.  Some are ebay, others are from generous members here.  Many many thanks to those here who provided any of the listed cuttings!!

Armenian

Italian Honey

Acciano

Dottato (Kadota)

Salce

Trojan Calabrese

Morocco

Green Ischia

Excel

Galbun

Bealle FN

Paradiso Bronze

Panachee

Conadria Early

UCR 135-15

Bealle



The LSUs:

LSU Gold
O'Rourke
Hollier
Hunt
LSU Purple
Tiger
Marseille

@brackishfigger, I am speechless. What a determination! what zone are you in, location? may you have a very fruitful season this year;)

Hi,
14 varieties on a tree is already good - especially if you plan to have some fruits out of the tree. I wouldn't add more varieties to that one.
Is Frankenfig meant to have brothers and systers ? Perhaps time to consider that option ? You seem to still have lots of lawn space to make some new trees ...
The choice is yours of course ...
It is said that if you leave the original variety to grow, that will weaken the grafts as those branches will wick all the sap .

By the way, are you growing other fig trees and getting good harvest ?

"For what we are about to see next, we must enter quietly into the realm of genius."

It is my understanding that a grafted branch more or less becomes a part of the original. Most every graft on my tree repaces a leader at the periphery of an already well-pruned tree.

Unless i am approaching the maximal natural spread of the tree (not so based on the mama it came from nor based on the clone growing in NC), i expect each graft to give me 3-10' of fruit-producing spread.

I do wonder regarding the vigor of the individual cultivars, and the limitations in growth if some of the individual grafts were poorly matched, cambium to cambium. Can time adequately resolve such imperfections?

I have entertained placing a ring of 4-8 rootstock around the tree and training them up to meet, and be grafted to, each of the horizontal braches, ultimately free of foliage themselves (or not), simply existing to lend robustness in both mechanical and metabolic sense. Can you imagine such a jungle gym?

I got nothing but time and winter day dreams.

This is a beautiful tree. I like the idea of living supports. I've long thought the Japanese style espalier would be a great format for a multi-variety grafting project. For me, I have always though of it as a way of trialling a variety before giving it a more permanent place in the field.

I love this thread!  Wow!  Amazing information!  You will help a lot of people with limited space!  Congrats on your Frankenfig!
Suzi

I got ample replacement cuttings for all of the LSU figs today, along with three persimmon varieties and one mulberry (Shangri-La), out at the LSU orchard.  Many thanks to my helpful host. 

Feels like spring today, its hard to believe I didn't get to grafting 'til May last year.  I'm sure I'll hit it earlier this year.

That is one cool tree.  I think you should go for the living supports jungle gym approach. That would be awesome.  Congrats on having the coolest fig tree in LA.

PS here comes winter again...

Did a boatload of grafting today.  Used a modification of my tongue/whip grafts I found on a persimmon grafting site, scraping the bark down to the cambium on the scion over which is draped a piece of bark pealed back from the rootstock.


 



 

I replaced all of the LSU orchard varieties, plus Smith, plus several of the new scion listed above.  I have many left and about 14 spots on the rootstock.


Is there a difference between Conadria and Conadria Early?   Bealle and Bealle FN?

Conadria has leafed out earliest for me this year.

9 grafts survived the winter.  Many borderline grafts did not survive our terrible winter, down to 18 once and many time to the low 20s.  Not typical down here.

I really like that graft. I'd never seen the bark peeled back and used in that way. It stands to reason though that the more cambium surfaces you have in contact with each other the better your odds of success should be. I will have to give it a try this spring. Thanks for sharing that.

Looking forward to seeing more progress pics of that awesome "Frankenfig" tree this summer :-) .

Thanks Bill, it looked good to me too.  As I looked though, isn't that xylem on the undersurface of the peeled bark, not cambium?  I wonder if I increase the cambium matching at all.  On a few, I shaved away some of the undersurface to expose some green.  We'll see. . .


Several of your figs went on this week:

Italian Honey
Algerian
Armenian
Paris Purple
Acciano
Salce
Troiano Calabrese

I counted 31 new varieties on 70 individual grafts today.  Most varieties got an end graft (using either bark or whip/tongue) and 1 or 2 chip/escutcheon grafts. 

60 or so are looking great, and only 2-3 varieties show really poor progress on any of their grafts.

here are a few pics


I tried a new (lazy) graft using a saw to cut a groove atop a branch, 





I cut a V into the scion and taped it in after taking this pic.  This ischia green graft is looking good.  



  


I got the idea from some bonsai sites. They use a looped-around branch or a temporarily-adjacent smaller tree to create new branches.  Inosculation, or approach grafting.  We'll see if it works with an unrooted scion as above.


OTOH, I was able to do a true approach graft using a different ischia green from another source that I rooted last year.  I approach grafted it onto the same branch as the one above, only a few inches closer to the trunk

  


You can see both of those grafts here with two others, right to left: approach graft, (bottom) "lazy" graft, cleft graft, (top) whip graft


 


my galban is giving me figs!

 


A few chip grafts


 

 


 

More

   


Morroccan


 


 


 



I have brebas on both of my main figs, my freestanding/ungrafted and the frankenfig, but on none of the grafts from last year

 

You are a mad scientist, awesome pics!

I have room for 7 more varieties, with three spoken for. Ihave rooted cuttings of Black Bethlehem and Excel that need to grow large enough to approach graft, and I lost my Champagne grafts over the winter. i didnt get them while at LSU thinking I already had it. Ill get some soon. i hope toget native black, and I have a few more coming in the mail. j ust about full, though that may be counting chickens.

Whew.  Ok, all full, or at least spoken for.

37 new varieties grafted in 82 grafts (give or take)this spring, plus 7 that made it from last year, with two spots left for Excel and Bethlehem Black when last year's rooted cuttings of them are large enough for approach grafting.

That's 44 (soon 46) varieties on one tree! Plus the root stock.

Many many thanks to those of you here who helped make this happen. 

If history is any guide, some grafts won't take despite looking great for now.  I hope to have rooted cuttings of some of these to try again with approach grafts

An overwhelming proportion of my grafts appear to be taking.  Here are a few pics



malformed breba

 


 



a chip graft

 



Two sides of a graft from last year.  I keep them wrapped in parafilm for as long as possible, and the humidity seems to induce callous formation on the outer surface of the bark.  (One of the chip grafts from this year put out a root!)

 



 



with or without rubber bands, which degrade pretty rapidly, the paraffin tape frequently will split along its length, and thickness.  I have been just rewrapping new tape over the old tape.  Here a few pics of the young Galban graft that had two brebas on it, with the tape pulled back before rewrapping (which shook both brebas off)


 





Ischia Green chip graft before rewrapping.  This is just down-branch from the "lazy graft", which looks great.  The approach graft even further up-branch, however, I think I separated a bit too early fromt he donor rootstock, and is drying up. 


 

The lazy graft

 


Panache

 



The arrows may not show, but here are a series of typical branch-ends, with two grafts taking on each.

yellow arrows: bark or whip grafts
red arrows:  chip grafts

 

 


 




The LSU orchard 4/9/14

 

Please do your best to ripen the breba, I am so interested to see what it will become of it.

Hi Brackishfigger,
Thanks for the update.

The orchard looks funny to me as fig trees hate lawn . Lawn will keep them feet wet and thus not promoting deep roots which is what we should go for.

What an amazing creation you have there!

One great far out idea leads to another. 
You have made grafting look easier than rooting cuttings?  I am running about 60% success rooting.  Most have been my mistakes but also many times weak and damaged cuttings make it impossible.

So if you are lucky enough to have a mother tree and can manage the timelines why not graft some of the precious new cuttings? 
3 cuttings could provide you 2 cuttings to attempt rooting and up to 3 buds for grafting.
The successful grafts can then be layered or provide cuttings in the future:)

I'm jealous! I tried grafting several varieties and all have failed with the exception of a couple T grafts. After seeing your pics though I believe I can remedy my mistakes. Thanks for posting, very inspirational!

I love your project. keep us updated.   my tree lost the grafts I put in it, I guess the new grafts were too cold for the long soggy winter. I wish you have better luck than me.

Wow!  Really cool, man.  I love it!

[QUOTE=pino]One great far out idea leads to another. 
You have made grafting look easier than rooting cuttings?  I am running about 60% success rooting.  Most have been my mistakes but also many times weak and damaged cuttings make it impossible.

So if you are lucky enough to have a mother tree and can manage the timelines why not graft some of the precious new cuttings? 
3 cuttings could provide you 2 cuttings to attempt rooting and up to 3 buds for grafting.
The successful grafts can then be layered or provide cuttings in the future:)


[/QUOTE]

I agree, though I do think that as the weather gets hotter I'll find that some/many of the grafts are not taking well, just being kept moist enough under the parafilm to look healthy.  Kind of like cuttings that leaf out in the humidiy bins , with no roots.

THose of you with several in ground trees who do the cutting dance every year should consider putting a few grafts on a tree.  Especially with the chip grafts, you get more attempts from each cutting than with rooting, and all it takes is one taker (rooting or grafting) to assure future access to the variety.  Spread the risk around.

As it heats up here this spring, I am again reminded how late I started last year, mid May, and I believe using refrigerated scion wood on a tree verging on explosive spring growth has been key to success (assuming they don't all fall off in the hot weather. . .).

Do you wrap over the bud with parafilm on your chip bud or do you leave the tip of it exposed so it doesnt have t force its way out throught the film? Also after rapping and waxing it do you cover it with foil or leave it exposed to the sun? If you wrap it with foil, do you remove the foil when the bud starts to swell or before that point?

Fascinating project! I can't wait to see how it ends up producing for you!

[QUOTE=blueboy1977]Do you wrap over the bud with parafilm on your chip bud or do you leave the tip of it exposed so it doesnt have t force its way out throught the film? Also after rapping and waxing it do you cover it with foil or leave it exposed to the sun? If you wrap it with foil, do you remove the foil when the bud starts to swell or before that point?[/QUOTE]

THe entire length of the chip grafts get covered with parafilm, tightly.  Consistently, the buds push right through it.

This year I have used parafilm and rubberbands only, and I ran out of rubberbands well before finishing.  I think they are most important for whip and bark grafts.  The wax was a pain in the rear last year, but I will probably wax all of the grafts once they establish and I get tired of rewrapping.

No foil this year, I started early enough that cool temps were the norm (and lots of chilly overcast days, which may have helped).  If I start any grafts from this point on, Ill probably shade them. 

I don't wrap foil around the branch except up-branch of the graft in a narrow ring (scotch tape), then "tent" the foil over the graft, taping on the other side for chip grafts, and to the graft itself for end-grafts.  I will keep them shaded until I am confident the graft has taken, likely long after the buds have become branches

Do you sterilize your tools before you cut the plants?

Great grafting techniques, thanks for the inspiration!

[QUOTE=LizzieB]Do you sterilize your tools before you cut the plants?[/QUOTE]

I use a cheap 10-13$ swiss army grafting knife.  I find it dulls quickly, and gets covered in latex/sap, so I have to use an alchohol rag to clean off the sap, so that it doesn't clog up the diamond impregnated rod-sharpener I stroke it over to sharpen it up. 

I figure the alcohol sterilizes the blade pretty well, but since all of the scion wood goes onto the same tree, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference.

I am in the watch and wait phase of the grafting season.  Lots of watching.  Two or three varieties have tenuous footholds, with only Armenian showing absolutely no signs of life.  The rest look pretty solid in at least one graft.

My persimmon grafts seem to have all taken too!  Two grafts each of three new varieties onto six main branches of a Saijo . 

My blueberries are loaded, tomatoes growing faster than I can pinch suckers, new asparagus bed looking strong (Purple Passion and Jersey Knight), and citrus setting fruit.

Here are a few progressive close ups of a chip graft, Bealle, I think


 


 


 


 


Same graft, other end


 



A bark graft. 


 



A few closeups of the Malformed Breba (a great name for a rock band, BTW)

 


 

 

I think you just lost to this guy with his 70 varieties of grapes grafted onto one single plant, in which 22 are already producing fruit. their goal is to have 190 new varieties... unreal for them and you also.. if only your brebas behave...

http://todovinho.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html

A few updates.  The malformed breba didn't like the rain, and quickly browned and rotted

 


THe "lazy graft" appears to have taken, but the approach graft using the still-rooted scion is no more.  I cut the graft off of the potted donor/scion plant too soon and the graft browned over time and the leaves dried up and fell off.  Even worse, when I pulled the graft out, it appeared to have taken after all.  dang it.  Ill try again and be more patient.  The rootstock is healing well

  


Here is nice looking chip graft

 


Here are several pics of the same whip/tongue graft, with the extra flap of bark/cambium from the rootstock as I described above.  If only they all took this well. . .

 

 

THis one shows the extra flap.  It looks like some of it (most?) has fused/joined/grafted pretty well

 


I have now had every single cultivar show some growth in at least one graft, with two very late bloomers. 

My UCR135-15  end graft (whip or cleft?, Blue arrows) finally greened after 6-7 weeks, and the chip graft up-branch (pink arrow) is just greening today a full 8 weeks later.  The red arrow is from the rootstock I let leaf out for some shade.  I did that in a lot of places.

 


 



Armenian was my other late bloomer, showing green for the first time today after 8 weeks of looking like a dead stick.   


 



I have learned to just leave them alone.  If they dead, they gonna fall off without my help!

As the tree grows ever outward (and some varieties are going nuts with over 2ft of growth already), I am training multiple branches of each variety to the horizontal, to fill out the increasing circumference.  I am hoping to avoid exclusive use of the "stake and string" method for want of ever increasing numbers of stakes (I rip them from 2x4s, four per) and the kinda fugly appearance. 

I am instead using some fiberglass rods I salvaged after the little ones ruined yet another cheapo tent, about 2.5 feet long.  I tie the rod in two places up-branch to secure it, and will be pulling the branches down as they grow

Thanks for all the cool updates. Very interesting project. :)

Hi brackishfigger,
On an healthy stem, I remove every weird looking fig as soon as I spot them... be it brebas or maincrop .
Could you make 4 pics west, north, south, east of the tree, just to see the global volume and surface used ?

Inspiring and educative, and that is to say the least.  Thank you for your time and dedication and all the photos (for all of us in the St. Thomas category). 

I have just been pulling off the parafilm as it splits and leaving them bare, with no apparent effect.  Hasn't gotten really hot yet though.

The only variety I have definitely lost is Champagne from LSU, a late addition I grafted in April from a non-dormant scion.  I hope to get another.

Almost all grafts are growing robustly, with a few less so.

A few pics

Bark grafts:  I cut a flat face on the scion that is roughly half its thickness, and it rests flush against the face of the cut rootstock for stability.  To expose the cambium on the scion, I shave/scrape top of the outer edges of the point, the part that makes contact with the rootstock after being shoved under its bark.  Instead of the usual method of making only one cut along length of the rootstock with the knife straight up and down,  I remove a very acute triangle length of the rootstock bark, and I do it using two very angled cuts (knife almost laying down on the branch) so that there is an "overhang" of bark that can lay upon the scraped scion surface rather sit above it.  I don't know if this made a difference, but it's what I did.

You can see the roots that grew out of the bottom of the first graft.  I wonder if they will (would have? but for no parafilm as of today) fuse with the lower margin of the rootstock branch.

 

 

Chip grafts


 


The graft below was photo'd just after unwrapping the cracked parafilm.. The graft promptly dried up and died.  I really should learn not to pick and leave well enough alone.

 



Whip Grafts 


 

 


THis is what happens when I create a great whip graft joint in the scion, before realizing it is on the wrong end


 


New approach graft, Excel


 


 

Your multiply grafted tree looks really healthy.  It's fascinating to me that you can graft so many varieties (many of which are undoubtedly infected with various forms of fmv/fmd) onto the host tree and there are no obvious signs of fmv.  Do you ever see fmv localized to the scion?  Anyway, this would seem to support the idea that some varieties are fmv resistant.

That is an awesome creation!  I envy your grafting and espallier skills.

"skills" is a bit of and overstatement, though "experience" is starting to be somewhat accurate.



I do often see grafts that form stunted, mottled leaves that are consistent with what folks here have described as FMV.  Most are in the slowly-wither-and-die group, or died this past winter. 

Interestingly, of the 3 galban grafts from this spring, one is doing a spot on impression of a plant infected with FMV, while adjacent grafts from the same source are very healthy looking, so I'm not sure that the symptoms I see reflect FMV, bad graft, or some other malady.

Thanks everyone.  I hope you enjoy the pics and updates as much as I enjoy sharing and showing off!

I have enjoyed figs from so many varieties off of this tree this year, and anticipate much greater production within the next few seasons.  I had a request to post some pics, so here you go

 


  

 


 

 




      


Some figs.  I also started a thread where I intended to document the varieties, but I end up eating them before I can properly document.  Oh well. 

There is nothing like eating one fresh fig after another to appreciate the wide variety of flavors that exist.  Also, weather conditions and degree of ripeness can cause even a single variety to change flavors quite a bit


 

Our Welsh Terrier has also discovered the joy of figs.  She goes bonkers over them!

Wow! what a nice selection. Congratulations!

Amazing job! Just looked over the whole thread and am in wonder of your frankenfig! And very healthy looking.

Love it! Thanks for posting the pics!

Nice, you've inspired many including my self to try this next spring. I've got several duplicate varieties from cuttings I rooted this year that will go under the knife next spring. I have too many I believe to put in ground in my small yard so this is really the only way I can accommodate so many varieties. Strong work and please keep posting updates as this is very fascinating.

Great job!

Wow, what an amazing job. To say the grafting you did is impressive would be an understatement.

The rewards :)
Thanks for sharing your exciting project with all of us Andy.

Aaron, I have unripened figs on all three of the figs you sent me, and all grafts of them took well.  Thanks.  Can't wait to taste the figs!

thanks for the update, thanks;)

winter shot

  








I will be grafting the Champagne cuttings (I got today at LSU) and a small handful of others to complete the tree this spring. 

I will also be grafting some of the rootstock back onto the tops of the main branches where  the bark has died.  You can see that in my first year of grafting, I was sooooo clever.  I cut off every new branch of the rootstock as it grew, to promote growth of the newly grafted scions along the periphery.  Instead, it just left the branches unshaded near the center of the tree through an entire south LA summer, and burned it badly. 


My next big project is a pear espalier along our new SE facing wall.

Interesting to see it dormant.  If I was a kid, I'd make a fort under there!  Framework is in!

Good luck with your new grafts and with your pear tree.

Suzi

brackishfigger, I admire your dedication and patience. Amazing work.

First time seeing this post. I should be working on a project but am amazed at the work. Thank you so much for sharing. Can see your kids growing through the years too in the initial posts. What an awesome story.

I think I can safely call this tree a work of art.  From the grafting of the many varieties using so many different methods to the shaping of the tree it is one of a kind.  I appreciate your dedication to this project!  Nicely done.

Hi,
We're still waiting to see figs ripen on the tree :)
Should be fun to have yellow, dark,brown,green,big medium,small figs ripening on the same tree ...
Hope that this will happen !

I count 22 varieties in the upper level and 17 in the lower that took robustly and are breaking bud nicely.  Many varieties have more than one graft that took. 

Several have brebas including Bealle, Armenian, Galban, and Conadria.  But the Morrocan is loaded!! 

Added the Champagne and a local white this weekend, so if they take, 41 total varieties, and I could squeeze another few if I needed to. . .

Truly an amazing montage of photos showing the progression of this unique fig tree.  This whole thread, from start to present, has been a perfect way to show other growers just what can be done, by using some simple grafting techniques, to produce many varieties of figs in a small space.  It was a great idea to photograph this project, starting right from the very beginning.

Best of luck with this unique tree.  May it continue to bring you happiness and delicious figs.  I hope the small children shown in the opening photos, can one day bring their own grandchildren to harvest figs from your tree.


Frank

The morrocan  3/16/15.  Arrow is the graft, red circle is the "m" inked on it, and the yellow circles are brebas.



 



 



One year prior, 4/5/14.  Hard to conceive that that little green bud becomes that stout young branch next to the "m"!

The whole yard is waking up after one last gust of winter last week.  The lazy graft is looking good

 

Brilliant!!

A few shots of before and after of my attempt to speed the healing of the sunburned horizontal limbs from summer 2013.  I just brought over an adjacent smaller branch and, sometimes after scrapping the undersurface, nailed it to the injured limb.




Before

 





After

 




different area

 



same one

 





Another still.  I have the big vertical pulled down with wire and that blue twine.

 







As they grow, I will graft the leading branches of the donor wood into the viable bark that is down-branch from each wound. 

The first two that I showed won't need it, as I think that they will look pretty cool intact, but the third, in the last two pics, will eventually need to have the donor branch removed as it messes up the symmetry of the tree and was only kept for this use.  I made certain that there is cambium contact where the donor branch first makes contact with the injured limb.


Any consensus on merits of treating or coating the exposed wood? 

A couple of those pics showed the progress in healing that happened last summer, 2014.  THer is about a quarter to half inch of dark brown growth beginning to encase the wounds from the outside in, healing by secondary intent.  But it's got a loooong way to go, even if my grafts take and eventually fuse with the underlying branches as expected.

Add Unknown Bronx White to the list of breba producing grafts, with three baby figs.