Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [NAFEX] wrapping figs

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Richard Moyer <ramoyer@gmail.com>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] wrapping figs
  • Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 14:04:10 -0500

Lee,
Have you tried these tricks to ripen your figs, based on my experience
with in-ground fig bushes fruiting on current-year wood. (I have
little experience with brebas or trees in pots, so others (Bassem?)
can help with ripening those.)
---Oiling full-sized, green Chicago Hardy fruit really brings them in
early, at least 2-3 weeks and perhaps earlier. Did this experiment
over a number of years with students, as an example of manipulating
ethylene as a ripening hormone. Striking to see a control, un-oiled
limb still with green figs at every bud, contrasted with oiled figs on
surrounding limbs all turning dark and more ripening each day. Oil,
over the fig eye, seals ethylene in this apparently inverted fruit.
Ray Givan reports that response to oiling is variable, working much
better in some figs than others. Chicago Hardy he reports as
responding well.

---Figs ideally should have no more than 2 inches between nodes, so if
your leaf distance along the stem exceeds two inches, your mulch may
be too rich in nutrients. Some advise never fertilizing in-ground
figs, as plant-based mulches often give them all the nutrients they
need. Holding off on water later in the season can also help induce
dormancy. Though extreme drought will cause green fruit to drop
prematurely.

---Ray recommends topping the stems when they have set as much fruit
as they will ripen, to encourage the plant to switch from vegetative
tip growth to ripening the green fruit already set lower on the stem.

Others please chime in with additional ripening tips, or additions to
those above.
Richard Moyer
Still enjoying kaki persimmons




From: Lee Reich <lreich@hvc.rr.com>

Around here, where winters reliably drop to minus 10 or below, fig
roots often survive winter, depending on the depth of mulch. The
problem is that new sprouts on varieties that bear fruit on current
season's wood do not necessarily have enough time to ripen fruit. My
Chicago Hardy, on the south side of my brick house, died to the ground
and grew almost 10 feet high by season's end without ripening even one
fig. One year I put a fence around it, filled it with wood shavings,
and capped it with plastic; for some reason, it still died back, to
within a couple of feet of the ground. Still no ripe fruit.

So getting roots to survive winter isn't that difficult. What is
important in harvesting ripe figs is how far back the stems die and
how long (and hot) a season new shoots have to grow.

Lee Reich, PhD
http://www.leereich.com/
http://leereich.com/blog.html.




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page