00:17:48 NAFEX: Put your questions here in the chat and please share your fig growing experiences later in the meeting.
00:18:35 iPhone (2): ‘Uncommon Fruit for Every Garden’ is kinda the Bible for us growing rare fruits. Propagation tips too. I display this book at selling events.
00:19:06 michael s thompson: Michael Thompson Chicago here
00:19:23 Kris Klueg Heeter, NAFEX President: Reacted to “Michael Thompson Chi…” with 🙂
00:19:29 Kris Klueg Heeter, NAFEX President: Reacted to “Minnesota here!” with 🙂
00:19:40 Kris Klueg Heeter, NAFEX President: Reacted to “‘Uncommon Fruit for …” with 🙂
00:27:16 Libby Levison: In Zone 5, what time do you advise pruning?
00:27:25 michael s thompson: Timing>
00:27:27 michael s thompson: ?
00:28:09 Logan: Zone 8a should I prune back a ton if I want the tree to be huge ?
00:28:27 Jeanne Calabrese: When deciding on which fig to plant, would one ask about Breva vs Main?
00:29:34 rocco perciballi: I have some figs in pots and will be bringing them into my sunroom. the temperat
00:32:40 rocco perciballi: I have some figs in pots and will be bringing them into my sunroom. The temperature is about 45-50 degrees …. is that too warm to go dormant and stay dormant? Its also very bright since it has a glass roof.
00:33:06 Charlotte Rosendahl: what about water in the winter time?
00:33:12 Sean Williams: What is the lowest temp you allow your container figs to experience in the fall???
00:33:34 Jen Blecha: I want to bring them into my basement, but it’s hard to get the temp down below. Will they stay dormant?
00:33:51 Jen Blecha: Replying to “I want to bring them…”
Below 60.
00:34:14 Charlie H.: What are your favorite varieties for flavor?
00:34:19 Logan: What type of soil do you use ?
00:36:58 Jen Blecha: w
00:37:45 Jen Blecha: I’m thinking about outdoor buildings that would work, but in Minnesota with unheated outbuildings… It easily gets down to Zero. Too cold?
00:37:48 Mike T: Dormant watering: 1/2 – 1 cup water every 4-8 weeks during winter depending on pot size. Check the soil with your finger or a meter.
00:38:14 NAFEX: Reacted to “Dormant watering: 1/…” with 👍🏼
00:38:42 EVE EMSHWILLER: My basement only gets down to 50° or 55°F. Last year I let my fig get too dry and I was afraid I had killed it, but it eventually leaved back out. The figs don’t look as if they will ripen, though.
00:41:40 Jeanne Calabrese: When you plant a fig tree in a pot to dig up each winter and bring inside, you drill holes in the side of the pot . . . did you remove the bottom of the pot?
00:42:00 Robert Liebermann, Newberry, MI: mummies!
00:42:04 Linwood Watson: You could put Christmas lights on the swaddled tree. A babe/fig in swaddling clothes…
00:42:18 Leslie Wade, NAFEX Host: Reacted to “mummies!” with 😂
00:48:12 Jen Blecha: How do you wrap the 2-horizontal trunk system?
00:50:53 Jen Blecha: Is the required minimum length of trunk you discussed – if the trunk is growing horizontally, should it be a minimum height from the ground, or is what counts the height (length) from the ground. (This is hard to put into words!) Is it the height from the ground, or the distance from the base that counts for earlier bearing?
00:51:32 John Cummins: I’ve found a wide variety of figs at direcraft.com
00:52:48 Leslie Wade, NAFEX Host: Reacted to “I’ve found a wide va…” with 👍🏼
00:54:43 Logan: We are planting a commercial fig orchard in zone 8a SC. We intend for the trees to be pretty large but we want them close enough to have a microclimate. How far would you recommend we plant them apart from each other and how far the rows apart
00:55:03 yms: If I wanted to do this kind of horizontal espalier in a very large Zone 6 greenhouse should i plan do cover the horizontal branches in the winter or just trust the hoop house?
00:55:26 yms: sorry hoop house not greenhouse, it’s 30 ft by 70 ft, unheated
00:56:36 Mike T: It’s really easy to harvest too soon; hard to harvest too late.
00:59:04 Mike T: What is a/your simple fertilizing method?
00:59:20 Max Rubinstein: Could you talk about propagating Figs from cuttings?
01:00:23 cartm: what do you think trigger ripening? Day length? (short days) decrase in light intensity or just season length days…? can you trick them to ripen?
01:00:48 BarbaraR: We’ve had figs freeze to the ground in our 6b/7a climate. Then a huge amount of suckers come up. How do you approach pruning so you have the best chance for a crop?
01:02:20 Sean Williams: What is the lowest temp you allow your container figs to experience in the fall ??
01:02:30 iPhone (2): Figs don’t demand heavy fertilizer, but will take it if you give it to them.
01:02:36 gloria bell: How common is it to have fruit flies larvae or other larvae in very ripe figs
01:02:41 Juan Carlos Arango – Sobremesa Farm: You can make a dessert with the green ones
01:02:46 Mike T: My container figs’ soil is too heavy and my figs weren’t very vigorous. Next spring while dormant, should I repot with your soil cutting method (maybe replacing 50% of soil) or should I spray bare root, prune roots and start over with 100% new soil?
01:04:35 Ben Simpson: I pinch late varieties in late june/ early july. seems to force fig formation earlier. however it’s a bit of a happy medium as you want to make sure you have enough new growth to form a considerable amount of figs.
01:04:53 Jen Blecha: There’s FigBid, too.
01:04:58 Linwood Watson: For what it is worth, here in North Carolina Zone 7b, if you have a cutting/new fig and are worried it was “burnt” by the winter, I would not “give up” on the fig until Father’s Day/mid June. They can be slow to leaf out but will indeed be alive.
01:08:22 Jen Blecha: I used to grow Violet de Bordeaux in California and I enjoyed it a lot.
01:08:29 Bradley: Can you talk about best practices for rooting cuttings? Specifically I’d like to know the best time to take cuttings in a cold climate.
01:08:52 BarbaraR: Hey! I really like Violette de Bordeaux!
01:09:23 Andrew Walsh: Lee, do you know any cold hardy persistent caprifigs? Thinking about getting into fig breeding.
01:09:25 John Lenart: drying out the fig trees in the fall may help to finish a crop. Am I right that figs will abort early in the season if they experience drought, which is a problem with container growing. I grow them in central Yukon, cold frame summer root cellar winter
01:10:57 G wines: Where is a good list of cultivars with descriptions ?
01:12:19 EVE EMSHWILLER: http://www.figaholics.com/cuttings.htm is a source in California that sells cuttings in January after they prune their hundreds of varieties of figs.
01:12:24 Ingela: Here in Seattle, zone 8, we only reliably get the breba crop to ripen and at the tips of the previous year’s wood.
01:12:49 Ben Simpson: Replying to “Where is a good list…”
https://mountainfigs.net/
01:20:03 Bradley: Can you talk a little about how serious (or not) Fig Mosiac Virus is, and if there’s any concern about buying cuttings from bigger nurseries that likely have FMV infections?
01:21:50 iPhone (2): Green Ischia is more cold hardy than most.
01:22:28 Mike Ewanciw: Besides ‘Desert King,’ ‘Olympian’ has done very well in Seattle, as does ‘Gillette,’
01:23:24 Ben Simpson: Olympian is said to be a type of English brown turkey. very good
01:26:20 detriquet: Lee, Have you any experience in direct rooting fig cuttings in the ground? If so, when do you take the cuttings and when do you plant them outside in your zone?
01:26:32 Andrew Walsh: Can I use the burying method with a potted fig? Or will the soil in the pot get too dry?
01:28:17 yms: you can get incandescent string lights at harbor freight, heats a lot but break easy
01:33:54 Chris Cioffi: Checkout YouTube for fig tree spacing, you can see orchards from japan for example
01:34:30 Chris Cioffi: Replying to “Checkout YouTube for…”
They keep them pretty close but prune heavily to the same spot every year and keep them low to ground for ease of harvest/maintenance
01:35:49 Nick Kasko: Olympian fig was found near Olympia WA and I tasted was in Seattle, was really good! Also Violetta (not VDB) is also a good breba cropping fig, it’s large and tasty
01:37:14 yms: for us in Louisiana, it’s fire ants
01:38:31 Jen Blecha: Sorry if I missed Lee answering this, What’s the minimum temp for winter storage?
01:40:45 Ingela: Thank you so much Lee!
01:41:16 Dan Lefever: Any southern growers have issue with rust, which causes deformation and thus limited ripening.
Had figs in pots in a barn that got down cold enuf to freeze pot soil solid, top survived, but didn’t grow out til mid June
01:41:17 Juan Carlos Arango – Sobremesa Farm: Thank you
01:41:26 Mike Ewanciw: Thanks Lee.
01:41:35 Doug Cook (MA): Thanks for a great meeting and all the work Coordinating!
01:41:39 Ingela: Thank you Leslie!
01:41:47 Ingrid Bush: Thank you!
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