Sept Figlets Overwintering

[Sean1ucc]

I have an Osborne's Prolific fig tree that was pot planted earlier this year and since the end of August has started producing fruit buds. Some of them are getting close to 1cm diameter now and wondering whether these will need removing over winter or whether they will survive to be next year's breba crop?
The tree will be moved in to the lean to for the winter which has an opaque PVC roof.

[Nicos]

Just bumping this in case anyone is able to help?

[Sean1ucc]

Thanks for the bump, they haven't swollen much more from where they were. Just looking to know whether I should remove them after leaf fall if they won't make it through the winter

[Snoop Puss]

Might this help?

It says breba figs are seldom produced by this variety. But by the sound of it, don't be in a hurry to remove them, as they could carry on ripening.

Have you tried one? Might they in fact be ripe already, albeit small?

https://figvarieties.com/fig_varieties/osborn-prolific/

[Snoop Puss]

A photo here that might interest you: a leafless tree with figs hanging off it. Judging by the other trees, it's an autumnal scene rather than spring:
https://www.ourfigs.com/forum/figs-h...rn-prolific-or

That said, when the proper frosts start, I'd probably remove the fruit.

[Sean1ucc]

Thanks for the info and links! They're definitely far too small to be near ripe yet so just going to move the plant inside in the next couple of weeks and see whether they continue to ripen.
if they look like they are going to die off I will just remove any of the larger ones and hope the other survive

[ameno]

There's no particular need to remove them. If it gets too cold they'll just die and fall off all on their own. But don't expect anything larger than a pea to overwinter successfully.

[Babru]

I've been reading this with interest. A friend gave me a cutting of her Brown Turkey fig. It's about 15 inches high, in a pot, and has some tiny figs. It will be in the greenhouse over the winter. From reading the above, it sounds like these tiny figs are a possible crop for next year. As a fig newbie, is this how fig crops work?

[Plot70]

I am reading with interest.
I have got two trees that sprouted from the dust out of the bottom of a bowl of fruit and nut.
They are both a couple of feet high and have not yet produced anything.
They are planted directly in the ground and often loose there opening buds to late frost.
I am guessing that they will produce something after a spring without late frost.

[ameno]

I've been reading this with interest. A friend gave me a cutting of her Brown Turkey fig. It's about 15 inches high, in a pot, and has some tiny figs. It will be in the greenhouse over the winter. From reading the above, it sounds like these tiny figs are a possible crop for next year. As a fig newbie, is this how fig crops work?

In their natural (far warmer) habitat, most fig varieties produce two crops a year.
The "main" crop starts developing around June or early July on the current year's growth, and is ready around October or November. This crop almost never fully develops or ripens in our country.
The second, or "breba" crop starts developing in around September or October, just as tiny pea-sized (or smaller) fruit, on what is at that time still the current year's growth. They then overwinter in that state, and start growing again when the tree leafs out the next year. At that point, they are obviously then growing on the previous year's growth (that's the main way you tell the difference between the two crops). These will ripen July or so in warm countries, but here in the UK, more like August or even early September.

There is sadly little point in trying to preserve main crop fruit on the tree as autumn sets in. These fruit are not meant to overwinter and have no capability to do so. They are meant to ripen in the autumn, but our summers just aren't warm or long enough to achieve that. Even if you can protect them from frosts, once the leaves start dropping (which they will in response to day length, even with frost protection) the fruits' water and nutrient supply will be cut off, the fruit will stop growing or ripening any further, and will eventually just die and drop off.

I did actually have a semi-successful main crop of figs from my Brown Turkey last year (about 2/3 of them ripened, all in October). But this was almost certainly because it didn't have a breba crop last year, and so all its energies were put into growing the main crop instead, thus making it mature earlier than it otherwise would do.

I am reading with interest.
I have got two trees that sprouted from the dust out of the bottom of a bowl of fruit and nut.
They are both a couple of feet high and have not yet produced anything.
They are planted directly in the ground and often loose there opening buds to late frost.
I am guessing that they will produce something after a spring without late frost.

Figs don't produce visible flower buds. The "fruit" itself sprouts directly from the stem. Technically speaking, the fig "fruit" is not truly a fruit at all. Rather, in its immature state it is a big cluster of flowers, and the access to those flowers is inside the fig itself. Once the flowers set, they each grow into a fruit, which fuse together into one big fruit, the fig (each seed inside the fig actually came from a separate flower).
In their wild state, they are pollinated by tiny wasps. The wasp flies into the tiny hole in the bottom of the fruit. However most commercial varieties are (and have been for centuries) able to produce fruit without pollination.

If you want to look for signs of developing fruit, what you need to look for are tiny (no more than pea size) green fruits in the leaf axils. Leaf buds are long and pointy, immature fruits are round and squat.