Figs Dropping due to a Lack of Sunlight

All right everybody, this is Ross the Fig Boss. Today we have an important topic to discuss that I think this has been really on the fig community's mind. It's been a mystery for many years and I don't think really anyone has come up with a great answer. And I have a theory, this is my personal opinion, that I think this is the answer to that particular question. And the question that we often get is, well why do some figs like Pastelier, Celeste, why do they drop figs? For some people and for others they don't. Is it really the source of the fig? Is it the fact that maybe there's a partial part in a carpet with maybe that some of the figs are common and some of them maybe require pollination? You know again, is it due to the source of the figs? So maybe that one type of Celeste will not drop figs and another type of Celeste will? Is it the source of the Pastelier trees that I've tried to grow? Like we've talked about in the past where I said, you know what, I'm going to try to grow as many Pasteliers as I can. Because Pastelier really is the, and Celeste, are really the two most common figs to have this phenomenon occur. So I got myself a couple Pasteliers. There's a number of different Pasteliers floating around, some from the USDA. This one here is from an Italian grower. This other one here is from a French conservatory. So I wanted to find out, because there's definitely some genetic differences between these figs. Maybe it is in the source. Maybe one particular source of Pastelier drops, another one doesn't. And there are other people who have grown, you know as an example, my Pastelier from Braintree and have reported absolutely no dropping. There are other people who, even like myself, who really continually struggle with dropping year after year. And so the figs will form on the trees like you see here, but then they'll fall off at a certain point before that final ripening stage. And again, it's just been a crazy mystery that I don't know if anyone really has come up with a great answer. And for me, I think the answer actually lies in a light. I think the figs themselves, first off, they required light to set the fruit buds. But of course that if there was a really shaded part of any tree, really low down, typically that's heavily shaded, maybe an internal branch, the tree is not really going to support that branch, right? You're just not going to have good energy allocated to that area, and the tree is almost in a way going to reject that branch. Now I have some interesting observations actually with air layering, in that if you have an air layer, let's say up high on the tree, well that's in the sunlight, and the tree is making use of that branch here, as an example, as good photosynthesis, well of course the tree is not going to really reject that branch. But if you come down here to some of my lower air layers that I put on, all of the leaves have fallen off. I mean that's partly due to rust, but these air layers here are not even rooting. And I think a lot of that, of course it could be due to the fact of the air layering method, maybe it's the moisture in the soil, maybe it's the soil itself, maybe it's just some kind of error. But I've seen time and time and time again, for multiple years, that when you have an air layer like this and it's not in the sun, the tree tends to kind of reject that air layer, and it doesn't really produce a quality air layer. So the same thing I think is really happening with our figs, is that things like Celeste, Pastelier, and another one that I've really struggled with in the past, is actually St. Martin. There was a thread on our figs years ago, and everyone was like up in arms, they were like, Ross, I don't know if what you have really is St. Martin. And I said, no, this is St. Martin. I ripened Braebas, it's not supposed to produce Braebas, but mine did. And so now we actually have here a St. Martin air layer that I took last year, put it into a five gallon pot, and has now basically positioned this tree in more light, and I'm not seeing any of this fruit drop that I have in the past. In fact, this fig here looks like it's about to swell, turn color, and get larger. So of course, this is not really, I guess, will we ever really prove what I'm saying? Probably not. But this is my personal observation, that it's all about the light. And it's not just about the light, well, because over there where my St. Martin tree is, it's very dense. There's a lot of trees over there. There's a lot of internal shading between the trees, like one tree to the next. Even on this patio here, there's a lot of density of foliage, and I don't really get a ton of light here on my property. If I planted this St. Martin tree, or if I planted my Pastelier from Rain Tree, or any of the Celeste figs like Stallion, that tend to drop, and I planted them in full sun all day, would I see any fruit drop? Maybe. So I think the other important characteristic, or thing that we need to think about here, is the internal shading. Not just, of course, the lack of sunlight and hours and intensity just shining on these trees, but actually the fruits themselves, I think, is my little caveat here. The fruits themselves need to receive that sunlight. So if we have a leaf that's rather large, like Pastelier and Celeste tend to have very large, you know, leaves that cover the fruits very easily, if this were to be the case, that this leaf were completely shading out this fruit, I think we would have a problem. And so that's my little caveat, in that we not only need to have good sunlight hours just where we plant our fig trees and where we grow them, but we also need to have good amount of sunlight into the center of the trees. Because if we just don't get that sunlight, again, we're not going to see the success that we want. I made some adjustments this year, mid-year, with my stallion because my stallion was dropping, and here's actually my St. Martin back here. You can see just how dense this is, how crazy this tree is. There's no fruit on it this year, but in the past I promised it a set... Actually, that's not even St. Martin, that's my Thermalito, but behind it is St. Martin. And I promise you, for years now, it has produced ridiculous amounts of fruit. The amount of light required actually to set the fruit buds is very low. The fruits will set, and then at a certain point of the year, they all start very slowly falling off. And we said, oh, well, maybe it's a pollination problem. Maybe it's this, maybe it's that. It's just not getting enough light. And as I noticed over here with my stallion, which is now basically done ripening fruit, we had a few fruits in the beginning of the year that started dropping. And this is a common fig. I don't know how anyone could argue that Celeste is not common. I don't know how anyone could argue that it has partial parthenocarpy. That just seems like some kind of half-baked or not really well-thought-out theory. But I had a few fruits actually drop here in the center of the tree. There was a couple here that I noticed were starting to get close to swelling, and then they fell off. So what I did was I actually removed a few leaves here in the center of the tree, because all this growth that had formed up here was shading out the center and middle of the tree. And then by doing that, after removing a few leaves, the next few fruits started to ripen. Not immediately, but certainly with allowing more sunlight into the trees, it seems to have definitely helped. And not only was this able to be course-corrected, like, you know, let's say some other point of the season, but actually just directly right in the middle of the ripening process. So I think it's insanely critical is this light factor. So for me, I'm not really focused all that much on this dropping thing anymore in terms of, you know, what source is going to be one that doesn't drop, which source is going to be one that does. You know, there is a difference in the growth habit, perhaps. So one pastelier might grow differently than another pastelier. Same thing with the celests, right? They all have different epigenetics, different characteristics. So therefore, maybe one of them just has a more dense canopy than the other. Maybe that's why we start to see a consistent more dropping in some varieties than others. And of course, you know, it's so amazing that if you really think about how one tree could be in one person's yard and have no dropping, and the same exact tree can be in someone else's yard and have dropping. What's that about? And this whole, you need three years before it'll stop dropping. To me, that just says, well, the tree needs about three years to really get a wide enough canopy to reach the light that it needs to actually stop dropping the fruits. The form needs to be set up at an appropriate level for the fruit to actually stop dropping. Here's a pastelier really quickly before I go, right here from Rain Tree. Actually, this isn't from Rain Tree. This is, I think, from an Italian grower. A lot of foliage in here, but I had made sure I came in here, removed some of these leaves. I know a lot of them have rust now, but this is holding strong right now. So we'll see if these ripen, but that is my professional opinion. Alright guys, hit that subscribe button, check out our blog figboss.com. We'll see you soon, alright? Take care.