How common are fig wasps? But first, a tale of two young fig trees.

Over the Australian winter I added another two fig trees to my collection. I got these figs while in Adelaide, while attending my grandad’s 80^th birthday celebration.

Many years ago when I was young when we used to visit my grandparent’s house there used to be a fig tree right in the centre of their lawn in the backyard. Every few years when we would managed to get over to South Australia my brothers and sisters and I would eat heaps of figs, as well as the jams my nanna used to make.

So I was quite horrified when I found out that a few years ago, they had at some point decided that the tree had become too much work as they got older, and as they were travelling a fair bit. And so they had it removed. I don’t know how old it was, but considering I am now almost 30, and my earliest memories at their house included this fig tree, that was already a large established tree, I would guess 30 years+.

Anyhow, at my granddad’s celebration he has some interesting news. In his garden were two fig trees, self-seeded, must have been dropped by a bird or something. They had been there for about a year or two, and are just saplings.

Of course I got a shovel and immediately dug them up, to bring back to Canberra with me. My grandad was quite sentimental at this visit, 80 is quite the milestone after all, he told me that he is glad they will be added to the collection as something to remember him by one day.

They were actively growing at the time, and I mistook how far the roots ran on one, and sliced through a major root with the shovel. I wasn’t sure how well they would do after this mistreatment, especially as I remember something from a nursery a while ago that says, if you disturb the roots of an active growing fig tree it will die. I was also bringing them from a relatively warm climate into a very cold Canberra quite abruptly, this was toward the end of Autumn.

Happily though, one of the two has broken dormancy, which I forced upon it once getting to Canberra, at appears to be quite vigorous, sending up some suckers as well as breaking bud along the stem. The other still has some green in the stem, and I am cautiously hopeful that it will awaken too.

Now, all my figs prior to this are named varieties, and taken from cuttings, and thus female. I am pretty sure that they all carry FMV, some displaying more than others.

I am excited to have two plants that may each or neither be males, and am even more excited about the prospect of trying to germinate some new plants from my favourite varieties. I know that the chances of getting a new really exceptional fig are low, and it takes a while for fig trees to come to fruiting age, but hey- I’m young and its more for curiosity sake than anything else. I think they should also by FMV free, at least for the time being….

Should one of my two figs from my grandad’s garden be male, this may not be enough. I need fig wasps too.

I don’t believe I have ever seen one, or if I have didn’t recognise it for what it was.

I have posted in the past about the two or three self-seeded figs growing outside my gym at the top of a palm tree, so it is clear that figs wasps exists in Canberra, but how common are they likely to be?

Will I have to seek them out somehow? Will they come to me?

Heya, well to be honest Im trying to think back to answer some of these questions, we are in the final month of winter now, so its been a few months, and the new babies have left me quite sleep deprived!

Thinking back, I picked a number of other fruit from this plant, I cant say I know much about Black Genoa as a variety over any other variety, but I can tell you that my particular plant seems to starts off the season favouring 3 lobed leaves, and then later in the season favouring large 5 lobed leaves. It is quite a vigorous plant, but is particularly frost sensitive, losing many leaves in a frost at the start of the year, when others right next to it kept theirs. It also seems quite susceptible to rust toward the end of the season.

I recall the fruit being excellent, and next to my White Adriatic the best flavoured, but I cannot remember if it was a berry or honey type flavour. The fruit were always quite large, and I don’t recall anything particularly remarkable about the skin.

I cant recall the exact size of the apple sorry. The fruit was probably ripe when I picked it, though I get quite impatient, so it possible had a few days left in it. I believe it was main crop, although some of my plants had breba figs that seemed to take forever to ripen, perhaps into Feb…

Here is a picture of the full plant taken on March 18. I hope that helps!

Hey all, I thought I would share my collection, from Canebrra Australia. I have 11 varieties total, the 10 below and another which I don’t have a pic for right now for some reason – Prestons Prolific.

All are doing well except for my blue province which is heavily affected by FMV, and is kind of struggling. Another plant I got from the same nursery as a bare rooted plant St Dominque Violette never woke up after winter, so I am reservations about their stock, although they will replace the violette next winter. The third fig I got from their nursery the white nicollina is doing very well, as well as some cherries I got as well, so maybe I got unlucky with these two other figs.

Anyway here they are! I have only had them for about 9 months and have not yet had the chance to taste any of them, so very excited to wait the next few months!

White Adriatic

Brown Turkey

Black Genoa

White Niccolina

Yellow Excell

Italian Honey

Blue Province

Pink Jerusalem

My Mystery Cutting

Thanks for that, that’s interesting. So once the correct amount of chilling units has been satisfied, does the plant somehow swap and begin accumulating  heat units instead, ignoring further cold? How does a tree measure the amount of time it has been cold or warm?

I went for a walk around the neighbourhood yesterday to check out all the neighbourhood trees I know of, and none seem to be breaking bud, although I did see this cherry tree (I think it’s a cherry) in full bloom which makes me think Spring coming early http://db.tt/q6Y5o8Xt

Hey all, over here in Aus we still have a month of winter to go, however I am getting impatient with pots of sticks and want to see them all pick up and put on some growth. In total I have about 12 potted fig sticks, as well as some in the ground, and some other type of potted sticks, such as stonefruits, apples and berries.

In Canberra where I am we have quite cool winters, however this year has been fairly mild so far, and the weather bureau has predicted a week of almost spring like temperatures, with the extended forecast much the same;

M: 6/15C (42.8/59F)

T: 6/15 (42.8/59)

W: 2/14 (35.6/57.2)

T: -1/14 (30.2/57.2)

F: 1/14 (33.8/57.2)

S: 2/11 (35.6/51.8)

S: 1/12 (33.8/53.6)

Seeing this and knowing August is generally warmer than July I pulled out all my figs from the garage in the hope they would break bud early. Thinking about this, I began to wonder exactly what is required for a fig to break dormancy and started looking through forum threads and research papers, but couldn’t really see what the exact trigger was.

Some posts seem to indicate that above about 6oC should be enough to  trigger, but for how long!? Is this soil temp or air temperature? Does day length have anything to do with it? We have had temperatures hovering around 15o over the last couple of days and this hasn’t been long enough to cause the buds to break.

So, what I am really interested to know is the experiences of forum members here. What is the soonest you have had your figs wake up? What caused it? Was it a single really hot day, or an extended period of medium warm temperatures? Have you deliberately forced your figs out of dormancy and what did you do to achieve this? Know any old wives tales about this?

This is really just to satisfy my obsession and help tick me over until Spring more than anything. Itll also make me feel a little better about the hours I spent looking at my various sticks in pots over the weekend, trying to decide if the buds were looking a little bigger this hour compared to last!

Thanks all, I kind of thought that might be the case!

I am in Aus, so the Black Genoa is one of the common varieties we have here, that plant much more vigorous than the other two so far! We are right now in the dying days of summer, and where I am in the ACT, we could get our first frost any time from March, but usually in April, with April 25^th generally considered the herald of daily frosts. As of today we still have quite warm temperatures with our maxes generally above 26oC (76F) and minimums in the mid teens (59F) so it would be strange for it to be going dormant just yet, I would think.

Hi guys, I am interested in some expert opinion on whether or not I should be concerned about a fig I have, my gut thought is probably not, but as a new fig owner I am worried about my new fig-children!

I bought 3 plants from a nursery almost exactly a month ago today, and I repotted them all into a larger pot and new potting mix. They have been in the new mix about 22 days.

Since then one fig (Black Genoa) has put out about 3 new leaves, one (Brown Turkey) has tried to put out a couple of figs (which I pinched) and has broken one bud, but  the final fig (White Adriatic) has done nothing… it only has two buds spikes on the plant, and about 4-5 mature leaves, which are not in pristine condition. Not only is it not doing anything, but the two buds seem to be turning brown, and I am worried they are degrading/dying.

So my question is, will these buds eventually pop, or is this tree dying a slow death? Also, if both of these buds die for some reason, is it all over for the plant or will it develop new buds on older parts of the stem?

I have attached photos for your consideration!

Cheers!

Hi all, this is my first post here, although I have been lurking and reading for a good while now, and find this forum a great source of information.

I am currently attempting to grow a number of figs in containers, and one in the ground in Canberra, Australia, and have become enamoured with the thought of owning a Violette de Bordeaux, as it sounds quite unique and different.

Problem being, in Australia they are very rare/non-existent. The best I can find is a document from the Heritage fruit society in Australia noting that they have been recorded growing here in the past, but currently have a ‘whereabouts unknown’ status.

I am trying to email our border control people to find out how I would legally import a cutting, but before they even respond I have a strong feeling that the answer will be that it is impossible.

So I am hoping an Aussie on this forum may have a tree that I could purchase some cuttings from, or perhaps know of a friend of a friend or something, or hidden away nursery that stocks this variety!

Thanks everyone for reading!