5 Fig Varieties That Rose in the Ranks from Prior Growing Seasons
Channel: Ross Raddi
Date: 2022-11-09

For two different reasons and maybe it's a combination of both I saw very high fruit quality on a number of my in ground trees in 2022. Specifically the increase in fruit quality was from the trees that survived my mild winter lows and because they survived, they were able to produce fruit on older wood rather than on very fast growing suckers like I normally see. These suckers have a tendency to not fruit much at all due to a hormonal imbalance, but because they also grow so much, those shoots can reach 10-15ft in one season! All of these additional leaves and lack of fruit set produces a much higher amount of carbohydrates, which I believe is being stored in a higher quantity in the fruits on those particular suckers. This increase in carbohydrates you could argue would make the fruits potentially sweeter or have a higher brix, but I think what it's actually doing here is dramatically changing the fruits. Especially in regards to the size and skin. When fruits are larger, they definitely don't perform as well as smaller fruits in humid climates. They also don't taste as good. They typically have more problems with moisture because of a larger surface area and so my opinions on these figs have dramatically changed from prior seasons. We also had a drought in the northeast, which should decrease the size of the fruits and therefore improve quality. It's hard to exactly pinpoint what the true reasoning is, but I have a hard time believing that the fruit produced on older wood rather than suckers from the base doesn't consistently produce a higher quality fruit. This details a lot of my thoughts on these improved varieties and the process of why this is happening. Check it out!

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