Earliest Ripening Dark-Dark Figs After Mt Etna?

[mountainfigs]

Any thoughts on this? Dark skin, dark pulp earliest ripening variety that is not a Mt Etna? In this rubric, I don't count any sugar figs or honey figs, so no Florea, no Improved Celeste, no O'Rourke, no LSU Purple, no Beall, no Osborne Prolific, etc. I consider Malta Black, Zingarella, and many another dark-dark to be a Mt Etna variety. So what would be the next earliest dark-dark variety? Figo Preto? LSU Black? Main crop. So no breba, no Grantham's Royal, no Bordeaux breba. Wait that's it: Ronde de Bordeaux, main crop. Okay, so after Mt Etna and RDB, what dark-dark main crops are next earliest?

[hoosierbanana]

Southern Brown Turkey.

[mountainfigs]

Well, but I consider Brown Turkey and Celeste to be sugar figs with amber pulp, therefore not in the dark-dark category. Or does Southern Brown Turkey have red pulp by any chance?

[FMD]

RDB is pretty early, Brent.

[hoosierbanana]

Don't have one, the local tree I think is SBT does have a darker center than the Celestes I have seen and tasted different.

Was this a rhetorical question Frank?

[greenfig]

RdB and Scott's Black

[mountainfigs]

Yes, RDB. I caught that a split second after I posted and then noted it but don't have it in the title. So the question is really what are the earliest dark skin with dark pulp figs after the Mt Etnas and RDB?

[greenfig]

Actually, the one before the Mt Etna was this and last years the Unk Pastilliere, but I bet you do not have it either.

[mountainfigs]

Yes RDB ripens before Mt Etna. Rooted a bunch of different varieties this year, and Unk Pastilliere was one that did not make it. Am growing a young Pastilliere. Had forgotten about Pastilliere, that it is supposed to be an early ripener along with RDB and Mt Etna. Like Celeste, it's said to drop easily. My Celestes are my biggest droppers, and maybe the only ones that drop much at all. Seems to be too big of a cultivar to grow easily in pots.

[Chrisk]

SE brown turkey does have pink/ red pulp and so does Celeste. I had some yesterday from a friends tree at work. Very poor quality, watered down and souring with that big eye due to all the rain we've been getting. CH is miles better this year.

[mountainfigs]

I've had Celestes and Improved Celestes that have darkened depending upon the season but often for me the pulp is amber or maybe light pink at best. Tasty figs, very sweet but not in the berry and/or molasses categories that I consider to be reliably or thoroughly dark pulp figs.

[Kelby]

Kathleen Black, VdB, and Nero600m look to be next on my list.

[mountainfigs]

A few late Bordeaux dark-dark breba began ripening in early and mid-July this year, the earliest dark-darks, though breba not main. Turned out not to be VDB and Nero 600m, at least this year, but Vista and Negronne.

[Rob Ster 010]

For me Madeleine des deux saisons. Ripens even before RDB here.
Pastiliere is also early.

[mountainfigs]

Had forgotten about Pastiliere. Any problems with it dropping there? Not sure that MDDS has the dark pulp, red or purple, that I'm considering. And I suppose it is the breba crop that ripens early, not the main crop? Have one started now, so will see.

[Rob Ster 010]

No main crop Madeleine des deux saisons i'm talking about. It's faster here than RDB.

And yes, it's dark with red pulp!
http://s24.postimg.org/l5bd0oswl/IMG_3059.jpg

http://s12.postimg.org/c0mfx8k3h/IMG_3073.jpg

About the Pastiliere, will report back. It's the first year it fruits for me.
Baud said fruit dropping of Dauphine and Pastiliere might be related to high N fertilizers so i've been using a 3-6-18 this year, low N high K like Baud recommends.

[mountainfigs]

Thanks great information, and great photos. I'll look forward to MDDS...assuming I have the dark one and not the light one bearing the same name...

[Ripple]

Noire de Barbentane

[mountainfigs]

The fig that looks similar to Nero Barnissotte? Would have thought it would ripen later like a Barnissotte. Do you have one in a pot and get it to ripen in a timely way without a greenhouse or early start or know of somewhere that it is producing early?

[Rewton]

Last year Bari was one of my earliest figs. This year I'm going to keep better records so I should have an answer to your question.

[mountainfigs]

Look forward to it. The more information, the more knowledge of what works. From what I've seen, Bari has the nice features of a Mt Etna fig.

[Ripple]

Tony, I came across Noire de Barbentane when I was researching early ripening figs last year. I never did get it. At the time I found it described on an a 2007 gardenweb post. It sounded like a better all around fig and was 2 weeks earlier ripening than Nero B, don't really know.
Here's the link, you can check it out if you haven't already read it.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussi...barbentane-fig