Fig Tree Update | Main Crop, Watering, Grafts, Soil, Fertilizer, Etc...

All right everybody this is Ross the Fig Boss. Today we're going to talk about figs and I particularly wanted to show you guys the potted trees first, talk a little bit about this. We're going to look at some of the in-ground trees as well because kind of what's been going on this year as I've been looking around the patio, as I've been looking around at the in-ground trees is that we're about a week behind this year and I need to really check the actually the growing degree day chart which I think Cornell has put out. We've talked about that in years past and that's a good indicator exactly how much heat we've had so far this year, how many heat units we've gotten and you can really actually use that Cornell tool and zero in on your exact location, your exact yard and it will give you a precise data, precise data on how much heat units you've received and now it's not a perfect number the growing degree days and how that relates to figs but it's actually a good indicator just to see where we are at in the year. Where are we compared to other years, compared to the 15-year average, compared to a 30-year average and if I had a guess without really looking at it I would say we're roughly five to seven days behind normal because as I'm looking at the figs this year I'm not really seeing that much fig development and in terms of where we should be at this time of the year. It's the end of May, it's May 31st so I kind of feel like right around the 22nd and the 21st of May which is what we saw last year and I think even the year prior we had saw fig development at least small figlets. Now there is development on these trees don't get me wrong and some of them have now been in the greenhouse for many months they've come out of the greenhouse there's main crop definitely on these trees and a lot of the main crop actually will ripen some of it will ripen in July on these potted trees but the majority of it I think is going to ripen in early to mid-August this year which is great we've timed everything really well but on the trees that did not receive a head start they came out of the sunroom we put them here on the patio we did this after frost I could have probably done that maybe a week or two earlier get them out here on the patio as we were expected to have frost but it actually never never happened but in any case you know with all the circumstances we've had it was a you know pretty you know pretty lackluster spring it was relatively cool and then I think you know the the weather kind of playing the law of averages realized oh it's been rather cold let's add in some some super warm temperatures and it really warmed up really quickly from about the middle of May onwards and we had even you know days in the 90s actually that were definitely record temperatures I would imagine they're record temperatures and then today we're it's the last day of May and it's going to be like 96 today so the nighttime temperatures have warmed over 60 and that's really the key thing there it's not just the daytime temperatures but if we could keep the nighttime temperatures over 60 consistently the metabolisms of the trees with all that heat just goes crazy so you know you have to look at the the averages of the temperatures of the day and the nighttime temperatures but from what I'm seeing so far is that we kind of are about a week behind in the fig development I haven't really seen just exactly on some of these trees the main crop production as you can see on some of these branches here although actually this tree got a head start from the greenhouse you could see it got a little bit sunburned and look here's actually a brava and this is a main crop that's considerably far ahead but if we look at even just the earliest varieties I have we're kind of just now seeing the the main crop development here like here is a variety called azaloto which is a variety that's green and elongated and dries on the tree it doesn't really taste very good if it doesn't dry on the tree but this one I imagine actually is quite an early fig and you can see right in there I know that's difficult with the shadows but there are tiny tiny main crops forming in there not as progressed as maybe I would expect now if I go to a hardy chicago because typically last year it was the sangua dulce that formed main crop first here is norella I've decided I really like this variety in fact we're trialing a number of hardy chicago types again this year after eliminating some I have navid's dark greek we have norella again in the trial azores dark obviously conde and then I even have a malta black now in a to kind of compare but norella now has fig development and you can actually visibly see these figs now so I would count this kind of as where we were at last year but that was the 21st the 22nd of may and now we are you know at the uh the end of may it's the 31st so we're we're I think a week behind where we normally are and that's just doing an evaluation we actually have smith brava here we've had a few smith brava so far and there's some actually way back in there on that tree which has a ton of brava but those are trees that came out of the greenhouse and that's the only way I'm actually able to ripen figs in may which is pretty awesome when that happens here's also I just want to point out a really standout variety this is la bourgeoisie this is brava of la bourgeoisie and it did get a head start in the greenhouse but uh it's such a great grower this fig it's pretty amazing um so it puts out you know good growth every year but the figs are just as prolific and vigorous it seems like as the as the growth itself so there's a you know bravas on this tree quite a few bravas actually I think it's four bravas on this relatively young tree yeah there's four bravas and the main crop has grown super well um because it's such a good grower it seems to be relatively disease free yeah that there was some sunburn that actually has slowed it down all the trees that came out of the greenhouse for the most part got burnt this year but this is a really surprisingly super good grower and fruiter uh same thing with this tree whatever this is let's see oh this is I think fauna but fauna to me uh seems like it's gonna be a winner here I'm really excited to actually see what indeed this really is I got this from a grower in I think Massachusetts and uh I was worried that this was a hardy Chicago type I and it had a similar shape um to a hardy Chicago but it wasn't and it didn't ripen properly I have actually planted one in the ground this was an air layer I took off the one in the ground you can see it's grown really well and uh the leaves in my opinion don't match a hardy Chicago they look like a hardy Chicago in the feel and that sandpaperiness but uh that one I think is the most I'm the most excited for that particular variety that's in terms of new varieties um we also have over here I just want to look at this really quickly as some graphs I probably have about a 75% take rate this year on the graphs here's some uh verdino del nord that I grafted onto raspberry latte a super vigorous variety here's another uh verdino del nord graft some of them I hope will actually grow because it looks like the buds want to expand but they have not what we need to do from this point by the way guys is take off this growth that keeps popping up on the root stocks because that's the only real way assuming the graft has taken it's the only real way that this is going to grow from those locations you have to keep removing that stuff um we also have another one over here this is another verdino del nord graft we have a vertolino graft over there there's some black celeste grafts another verdino del nord graft so we have pretty really actually really good success this year this one I don't think has taken this black celeste graft looks like it took but it hasn't grown away from the the bud here are two black celeste grafts that took and then here's actually another vertolino that took and it looks like it really wants to grow away these were all done believe it or not probably two or three weeks ago roughly I think it's been about two weeks at least two weeks so this is the amount of time it takes we also had uh even some over here that I I was kind of really smart this year and I decided to graft onto some of the varieties that have dropped figs for me so some of the varieties like parola great black is another one recover from tieri actually has dropped fruits for me and I decided to go ahead and graft you can see a graft union down there that actually took a different variety onto those trees in the event that uh they dropped once again for me here's actually the great black tree that I have here's a brava on it which I'm excited to see if that will ripen because this will give me an estimation of maybe it's a you know a san pedro or a smirna or maybe it'll be common who knows but I've grafted different varieties onto them in preparation for them to continue to drop and it's worked out actually I was really surprised to see that they took and they're actually growing away because the dominance not necessarily I thought was going to be there so this is a really a really nice thing actually the only thing I think left to do is to just kind of support these grafts if the varieties indeed continue to drop figs like I predicting them to well then I'll just chop off the variety itself that is going to drop the figs and keep the variety of course that I grafted and then now I'm not wasting a season realizing again that this tree is going to actually continue to drop figs we're also going to experiment this year at some point with hand pollination the capra fig in the greenhouse put out a number of bravas proficci I don't know if I can harvest the pollen so far I have been unable to really get an adequate fig off of those trees to be able to tell oddly enough the younger trees are growing super well and that's I think a lot to do with the fertilizer this year I'm using a different soil this year but the fertilizer last year we just didn't really use a ton I and some of the trees actually I didn't use the osmocote I used chicken manure and it didn't last very long and I don't think it was enough but we tried different products this year this is Coast of Maine a lobster compost and then I also have the bumper crop from the same company actually that is Coast of Maine they're both organic it says master nursery on it organic soil builder it has mycorrhizae in it I didn't like the potting soil from them because it has mostly peat moss and and perlite and those are two products that figs grow really well in but I just I don't really like using them in my mixes oh look at this so here's a tree that is in a container and I've been watering these trees actually twice daily because it's so warm as it's 96 degrees today I have them all hooked up to irrigation finally and have them on a timer and this is the time of the year you really want to water them because the more water we give them the better they're going to grow the better they grow the more figs we potentially have so we're trying to make them grow but this one here it's clear that this pot doesn't have any holes in it so I need to get underneath there and actually drill some holes that's a good thing I've spotted that because that could have definitely impacted the health of that tree for the rest of this season so that's really good we also have melons by the way in containers that's a whole experiment to see if I can get really sweet melons by constricting and limiting the water oh I did want to mention all the way over here totally forgot about this but I've got some trees back here too and this is my Paradiso from Bode and it actually has a number of Bravas on them I cannot wait to taste these Bravas they are massive so that's not good because they're probably going to split but we'll see what happens there's actually another graft back there I grafted that on a pew fine which translates to fine skin and that was supposed to be a really special variety but it's been dropping for me but I know that a big bill in Lancaster has ripened some fruit so we'll see what happens with that variety but I was like you know what before I knew that knowledge about bill I was like you know I probably should plan ahead and grab something onto that over here actually these younger trees like I said I was getting to before they really have grown super well and at this stage I think with these younger ones it's pretty simple I'm just letting them go crazy letting them grow in every which way direction when I come in here in the winter and the fall when I do my pruning I'll prune out the unhealthy growth maybe at that time if it's just a very unhealthy tree like I probably imagine this Popone here will be unhealthy for the unforeseeable future I will cut that back to something extreme and rejuvenation prune that so some of these are a bit of a year like a work in progress process I should say for you know many multiple years but eventually we get something really healthy and that's what you stick with as the main trunk of the tree but there are some good varieties in here that are rather new that I'm expecting good things from actually quite a few that I've already really had higher hopes for I went ahead and already planted them in the ground I had a number of spots we talked about with the in-ground trees that we we looked at not too long ago I went ahead and actually planted in the ground some varieties that I have higher hopes for in terms of them working out I already had so many spots in the ground I probably had over 30 different trees I could plant and I only had about eight trees that were in a position to be planted what I decided to do this is a couple varieties really quickly this is Lampyra one I actually have one in the container the one in the container is going to fruit at an early date whereas the in-ground tree I have on the other side of the property it's probably going to take some time and probably will ripen at the end of the year like it did last year and the year before but for me I'm like you know what I'll take some air layers which I did to kind of guarantee myself a little bit of easier way of fruiting the tree and that's what happened so but because that pot of tree is going to fruit I decided you know I'm going to plant this other one in the ground because I know it's such a special variety the other thing I've done is the same same exact thing with this tree this is Barnasote from UC Davis they're actually mowing the lawn next door right now so that's why it's pretty loud but Barnasote from UC Davis super underrated not talked about variety I'm seeing such huge potential in this variety from other growers that I just finally decided to take the leap it took me years I could have had this variety many many years ago the problem is it's not a very healthy tree so there's a lot of fig mosaic virus but this tree now I've had in a container for a year planted it in the ground it actually has good fruit production this year the main crop will form and it's going to form very quickly I already see very small figlets so I felt comfortable enough planting this tree in the ground because I wanted to guarantee like I said with the Lempira 1 kind of guarantee myself fruit production to really further evaluate the variety so I'm doing the same thing with this tree but I'm you know killing two birds with one stone right I'm getting the fruit production I wanted but I'm also putting this in the ground getting it more established so that next year when we rejuvenation prune this it'll be super healthy for the the following years to come so that's really critical for me at least and it's a very similar situation with most of these varieties here is a Marsa Lazy that we planted this is a variety that dries super well and because of those drying capabilities it's going to do really well here it does tend to split I've heard so we'll have to see how all that works out but yeah some other ones here is Bosco Rosso this is a Nicky variety I also planted what is this guy down here maybe this is Bosco Rosso here's the tag this is oh Louisa's fig from Peter Kendary this is a Staten Island Unknown that's been in an heirloom fig that to me looks like a type of Celeste it could be a type of Hardy Chicago but I actually think this is Black Celeste and believe it or not I think Louisa's family who this comes from as a French origin if I'm not mistaken which is where Black Celeste has originated I'm almost convinced that that's kind of where that fig is from so we'll see what happens with that I got an heirloom one for Peter another good one here is 505H I saw some photos of this and I thought wow this is a seedling it was proven common and it just looks like it's such a good fig for this climate it almost looked a little bit like Verdino Del Norte or Fregoyne but looking at the tree itself it doesn't match that so far at all so we will see what happens it's got figs on it as most of these either have figs on them in a container plant or they have figs on them in the ground and I went ahead and planted them same thing back here this is another actually interesting unknown called Madigan and Madigan is a fig that Danny Gentile found and I forget actually I should have looked at some photos of that again it's been a long time since I remember even what the shape is but Danny Gentile the owner of FigBid actually put out a number of New York City heirloom figs on FigBid and gave them out for very cheap prices and I was able to get a cutting of Madigan from Danny and to me it was the only one really worth my it looked like the only one that was going to be you know really good in a humid place obviously they're heirloom figs they're probably going to do well in the northeast in general but to me that one looked like it had the most promise and actually promise in terms of just figs in general in terms of varieties in general so I was pretty excited about that and I went ahead and planted one in the ground back there we also planted I know an Ashia Black UC Davis air layer that I put in the ground but things are coming along here in the yard even though considering like I said we are a bit behind but very soon this whole thing here is going to turn into a jungle it's going to be incredible how fast this stuff is going to grow it's crazy so anyway guys thank you for watching this one we'll see you for the next one talk to you guys soon take care and hit that subscribe button we'll see you soon