Fig Report 2016 Season

[jkuo]

I went number-crunchy this season to try quantifying my fig performance. In case anyone is interested, I've compiled my records from this past season into a Google spreadsheet.

My takeaways from looking over last season's numbers:

• The clear productivity winners: the Mt Etnas and related (Hardy Chicago, Letizia, Owensboro Unk, Takoma Violet, Bryant Dark, Malta Black, Gino's, MBVS), with honorable mentions to Hollier and Improved Celeste.
• The taste winners (notching a 9 score at some point during the season): I-258, Panache, Scott's Black, Smith, LSU Tiger. Honorable mentions to Paradiso Bronze, Longue d'Aout, and Takoma Violet for notching 8.5 for at least one sample.
• *(%$#^&(%$^ hornets! Another curse upon SWD. I had pest damage/loss to 18% of my figs overall, but those losses were highly skewed towards the Mt Etnas and Salem White where the percentages spiked to 30-50%. I'm not entirely sure why those varieties were preferentially attacked. It's probably a combination of location, that they ripened relatively more figs than the other trees, and they ripened at an inopportune time during insect season.
• The losers: Hollier = splitsville, Salem White = souring and insect damage, Longue d'Aout = insect magnet and souring probably as a result from said insects, Panache = souring, splitting, probable fly magnet

[cjccmc]

Nice summary Johnny - thanks for sharing the info, hope to see more like it from other growers. Only lost 18%??? I need to send some of our birds and furry critters out your way :-)

I only had two producing trees, Celeste and my Unknown Green. Great results from Celeste but Unk Green was the pest magnet this past summer.

[jkuo]

The furry and feathered critters do plenty of damage to my berries. I'm praying my luck holds for a bit longer as they don't seem to have discovered the figs yet. I suppose 18% isn't too terrible a pest loss, though it is a bit traumatic to have 50% loss on some trees after being relatively pest free just 1 season ago.

[jrdewhirst]

Great stuff. Just one quick question before bed -- how did you protect the in-ground plants, if at all? I see that your 3-yr old Italian Unk did ok but 2-yr old RdB and 1-yr old JHA were a bust. Was that related to damage? Thx.

[jkuo]

Joe,

I wrap my trees. Last winter, I put a bottom-less garbage can over the unknown Italian and filled it as much mulch as I had on hand. I covered the remaining wood with a blanket and tarp. That tree made it through the winter with almost no dieback.

The Adriatic JH and RdB were just put in ground this past season. The AJH did set about 6ish fruit, but they just didn't ripen in time. It's still a smallish, young tree and was only a 4 foot tall whip at the end of the season. I expect it will do better as it matures. The RdB was a bit of a disappointment, but I did have to cut it back severely due to borer damage. It started the growing season with only 6 inches of wood. On the plus side, it put out 3 branches with 4-5 feet of growth. I bent those down as the start of a stepover espalier. I'm expecting it to do a lot better next season if the wood survives.

[jrdewhirst]

Johnny -

Got it, thx. I've posted elsewhere on my pruning and protection, so I won't repeat here. Similar to yours. I have no suggestions; you can't beat "no damage."

Based on my experience in the same zone, you should see improvement of the in-ground crop to ~50, 100, then 150-200 figs per plant over the next 3 years. RdB has been a good producer, as have MBvs and HC. Florea and Paradiso are my oldest plants, and so produce the most. I've got a 1-year old JHA that I'd like to put in-ground, which partly explains my interest.

To protect the crop, I did have to trap possums (2), raccoons (3), and squirrels (6) this year. Once they were gone, there were only minor losses, mainly to deer and hornets. For some reason I have not yet been bothered too much by birds and not at all by bugs (e.g., borers, SWD).

Good luck, and please continue to keep us posted. The data is invaluable.

[eboone]

My experience with putting 1 plant in ground 2y ago and 6 more in ground last year is that the first year they go in ground their fruiting is somewhat delayed, I think they must be establishing roots, maybe adjusting to the change in some way. I got tremendous growth and about 80 figs on my second year inground (3yo) Sal's(Gene) last summer. Hope they all increase like that.

[Bigbill]

Thanks, Johnny! Very good information, thanks for sharing.

[BrooklynMatty]

Awesome Review Johnny. I hope to be able to report next year more accurately, having plants protected from critters (squirrels in my case), should prove for better analysis

Keep it up dude!

[jrdewhirst]

Johnny --

I had some time to look more carefully. I have a few further questions, all about earliness.

1. Your berry fig Italian 258 produced its 1st fig on August 13, just after Florea and Improved Celeste. Was this an anomaly or is the variety really that early? Said differently, did it keep ripening lots of figs in August?

2. Your honey figs Salce and Izbat An Naj produced their 1st figs on July 27 and 31, two weeks before Florea and IC. Same questions.

3. All three of these plants were in 5g SIPs, whereas Florea and IC were in buried pots. Did you do anything to the SIPs to accelerate ripening?

Thanks.

Joe

[jkuo]

Joe,

I-258, Florea, Salce, and Izbat An Naj were first year trees which I started as cuttings in the winter under grow lights. They were young trees with an artificially expanded growing season. As such, their ripening dates should not be considered representative. I meant to tabulate the first year trees separately for clarity, but I never got around to that level of organization.

I don't know if SIPs vs buried pots affects ripening that much. I think my collection wasn't matched well enough and my sample sizes too small to infer any trends there. I do think buried pots are more productive based on my limited sample size. I was quite pleased with the size, caliper, and production of some of the buried pot trees given their relatively young age.

[jrdewhirst]

Thanks. I will anxiously await your results for next year!

[eboone]

And I also had 10 plants in buried 4g pots - 8 were 2nd year plants, 2 first year plants. All grew pretty well and gave figs but some seemed delayed in starting to make figs. I know I have heard others say the same. Maybe Salce and Izbat an Naj were not accelerated but the IC and Florea were a little delayed in starting figs as I had noted, being in buried pots..

[jkuo]

Somewhat delayed fruiting with buried pots would make sense based on what I've read. With room to stretch roots, a tree could divert more energy to root growing which would slow down fruit set. Herman (Vasile) noted that soil temperature seemed to affect the timing of fruit set. Roots in colder ground might slow down the fruit set a bit.

[Rewton]

I had a similar experience last year with Longue d'Aout and Niagara Black (which is highly related if not the same). It was very difficult to ripen them fully without major insect damage. The flavor wasn't very impressive either but I think that likely has to do with needing to be potted up. I plan to put both in the ground next year.

[jkuo]

Ok, it's not just me. After having good luck with LdA the previous year, I thought I had done something terrible to upset the fig gods. I was rather annoyed that insect invasion and souring were such problems with my LdA. The ones that ripened early and late were pretty tasty for me. It's all the ones in the middle of insect season that were lost.

[Rewton]

I also have had a handful of very tasty LdA figs in previous years. I still think it is a great fig for our area but for whatever reason the wasps and hornets seem to gravitate toward those large figs and an opening in the ostiole (due to moisture) was exploited. Maybe next year will be better.

[jkuo]

Finally started digging through my photos of last season. Here are the brebas (Adriatic JH, Conadria, Kathleen's Black, LdA, Valle Calda).

[jkuo]

And here are the main crop.

[Fygmalion]

super...

[jkuo]

Main crop, cont'd.

[Fygmalion]

awesome looking.... especially for a cold, winter night.... a reminder of warmer times to come....

[ross]

How is your Paradiso Bronze compared to JH Adriatic? What rating would you give izbat?

Also do you have many flowering plants nearby, Johnny?

[jkuo]

As young trees, I don't know if I could make a fair comparison between them, especially since they grew under poorly matched conditions. Paradiso Bronze had better tasting fruit on my young trees, but I don't expect that trend to hold. The fruit I sampled off a more mature tree at Bill's place was phenomenally good with a great berry bite and good sweetness. They are both good enough to keep in a collection, but I'm going to give the edge to AJH from my wildly unfair comparison between different age trees.

Izbat is a nice honey fig. It probably wouldn't stand out in the honey fig category, but the banana notes it takes on when it gets really ripe make it a unique fig. This one is unique enough that it has earned a spot in my collection despite my bias towards berry flavored figs.

I do have a lot of flowering plants nearby. Why do you ask?

[ross]

They say that with enough beneficial insect attracting plants it greatly lowers pest pressure. Even SWD if you can attract hummingbirds.

[jkuo]

I did have hummingbirds in my yard, but I'm unsure as to how much of a dent they put in the SWD population. They are territorial, so I don't know if I'll ever have more than 1-2 around. The flowers might be a mixed bag IMO. More flowering plants probably means a bigger hornet/wasp population, too. I lost a lot of fruit to hornets chowing down on my figs. Overall, it's probably tradeoff worth taking to have lower pest pressure on the rest of the garden and having flowers in the yard.