Nature of the beast

[cjmach1973]

So for the past two years, I have bought cuttings, rooted plants, and tissue culture plants. The Black Mission, Olympian, Green Ischia, LSU Purple, Lattarula and Celeste were all T.C. plants. All of them grew a lot of side shoots(suckers) from near the base. It seemed like they all wanted to grow like a bush instead of a tree. All the others(cuttings or rooted trees) grew more like a tree shape. Is that the nature of the beast when it comes to T.C. plants?

[Rewton]

I have never grown TC plants but have read from other's experiences that they put out a lot of suckers.

[bigmike]

Hey CJ. I have four TC plants, i think all from wellspring. They are VDB, Green Ischia, Celeste , and Chicago hardy. Three out of the four have suckered. The VDB is the worst about 10 suckers. The Celeste, and Green Ischia put out three. Chicago Hardy is keeping a nice tree shape. Hope this helps Maybe others can shed light on usual growing habits.

[cjmach1973]

I forgot, I got the VDB from wellspring also.

[wellingtonbill]

Hey fellow growers, I got my hands on three Kadota tissue culture figs almost two years ago. They look like upside down big spiders now. Should I cut some of the suckers and leave one or two legs growing per pot? Any advise would be appreciated.

[COGardener]

Interesting, I have 10 TC figs all from Well Sping. They range from 1 to 2 years old and have produced no suckers.... so far anyway.

[cjmach1973]

If it were me, I would leave 2 stems. One to become the main trunk, and the second one to do an air layer, just to have a back-up tree, in case you loose the original.

[COGardener]

Or grow a multi stem bush form.

[jkuo]

I got an Olympian, "Ischia", and VdB as TC plants. They all grew suckers, and I let them be and later pruned them to single/double stem after I learned a bit more about shaping a fig tree. If I were starting with them now, I would prune out all the suckers and grow to a single stem.

[Schroeder]

Could someone please explain simply what tissue culture is ?....I've also read about delaying of fruit with the tissue culture trees too . Thanks

[Jamie0507]

Hi Schroeder Tissue Culture or (TC for short) is also called micropropagation.. From what I gather TC plants are produced from tiny bits of a specific plant/tree etc and placed into a sterile environment where "stuff" is done to it to induce it to grow into a new plant.. It's supposedly a much "cleaner" plant & less apt to have diseases/viruses etc.. Problem is many times whatever they use to "induce growth" will have a lasting effect and the plant will just shoot like crazy & grow like a weed out of every node. Though this is not always the case.. It is said that unlike the propagation of cuttings, the TC plant may return to its juvenile or "seedling" state and take many years to produce fruit, but again this is not always the case. TC plants/trees are often much cheaper than buying one grown from a cutting, because the cutting will usually retain the maturity of the mother tree it was taken from.. In other words, bear ya some delicious figs in a shorter timeframe.. Man that was a mouthful! Lol

[Kelby]

Yep, while young they sucker a lot.

[cjmach1973]

My Black Mission was pushing a lot of suckers, and the main trunk was thin and needed support.(from bamboo sticks).And then all of a sudden last summer, it decided to become a tree , and have a strong trunk. It took until the third year.

[Schroeder]

So a small piece of leaf or stem is chemically treated ...similarly to rooting hormone but much smaller scale with more powerful chemicals ?? That makes sense,possible long term issues in exchange for fast large response ...it's always a give and take .....thanks for the short answer ✌😊