Posts by Cooper

1396655293

	Subject: Increasing Hardiness	Replies: 11
	Posted By: Cooper	Views: 704

Just got this off of http://www.planetfig.com and was wondering if anyone has ever tried ringing the bark on their fig tree to decrease growth and thus harden their fig tree?

"The demise of the Tarring Fig Gardens didn’t signal the end of interest in growing figs commercially in England. A fruit farmer called Justin Brooke took up the challenge in 1951 by importing several different figs from France as a way of extending the range of fruits he grew. Mr Brooke owned a 300 acre commercial fruit farm near Newmarket, Suffolk, growing the usual sorts of fruit but was blessed with an experimental frame of mind and was particularly sceptical of the conventional view that figs were hardly worth growing outdoors in the central areas of Britain. Having read ‘The Compleat Gardner’, an English translation of Jean - Baptiste de La Quintinie’s book ‘Instructions for Fruit and Vegetable Gardens, with a Treatise on the Orange’ and being impressed at what the gardener to Louis XIV had to say about how he grew figs at Versailles, he devoted part of his farm to trial plantings of outdoor fig orchards (and also peaches and apricots). He subsequently published his findings in a book entitled ‘Figs – Out of Doors’.

This book is of interest to anyone growing figs in a climate similar to that of Great Britain and is well worth reading for its practical suggestions. The main point made by Mr Brooke is that success in growing figs in Britain is to ensure that vigorous, lush growth is restricted and short stubby fruitful growth encouraged by various cultural techniques. Brooke states that fruitful growth should have no more than a 3 inch (7.5cm) distance between the nodes, or leaves, on the stem.

He found that planting in specially constructed concrete ‘boxes’ that are sunk into the ground dwarfs figs but the cost in materials and labour makes them unsuitable for mass plantings. He also found that a very heavy clay soil can retard growth to an acceptable level by itself, particularly if feeding is kept to an absolute minimum.

However, the technique he favours above all is to remove a complete ring of bark, about half an inch in (1.3cm) width, from the main stem of a young fig tree, and to then replace it upside down and cover in the same way as covering a conventional graft. This works because the vascular tissue of the phloem, found just underneath the bark, which transports the products of photosynthesis (sugar) throughout the plant has polarity. In other words it doesn’t work as efficiently in transporting food to the root system if turned upside down resulting in a sort of modified ring barking effect but without the danger of killing the plant. Apparently the effect is quite long lasting and reduces the vigour of the fig tree markedly, giving the short compact growth which leads to fruit production. In addition Brooke noted that such sturdy growth is also more cold hardy and so less prone to frost damage in winter.

Justin Brooke died in 1963 and his visionary outdoor peach and fig orchards are now all gone, replaced once more by conventional crops. Sadly, to my knowledge no-one else has taken up the challenge of growing figs commercially in Britain… and certainly not as an outdoor orchard crop. "

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