Fig Tree

[Dermot66]

Dear all

My fig tree for the 1st time since planting (5 years old) has no fruit Could anyone tell me if I've done something wrong or do they sometime have dormant years.

Thank You

Dermo

-- Dermot66

[Tom J]

Was it get killed in winter back to ground level and have to put new growth from the roots??

If so that's the cause, otherwise I have no answer because I'm having a record harvest this year with some of mine over 2 inches long.

Tom J

[Omelet]

Needs direct sun and plenty of water.

[sherwindu]

Did you have an unusually big crop last season? If so, it may be your tree just taking a rest. To prevent this 'biennial' (every second year) behavior, thin your fruit early in their life cycle to take a load off the tree. By the way, this principle holds for almost any fruit tree.

Sherwin

[sueb]

Did it flower? Figs are pollinated by a wasp, if something disrupted their cycle then the tree wouldn't have been pollinated. There are definitely problems with bee populations where I live.

Susan B.

[Tom J]

QUOTE: "Flowers: The tiny flowers of the fig are out of sight, clustered inside the green "fruits", technically a synconium. Pollinating insects gain access to the flowers through an opening at the apex of the synconium. In the case of the common fig the flowers are all female and need no pollination."

I live in the South East USA and I've never seen a flower on a fig bush/tree UNTIL I cut open the ripe fruit. Figs are self pollinated in my area. I just don't see that as the problem unless you are in the Mediterranean.

Tom J

[Billy]

on losses in bee colonies Crisis could worsen, boost food prices, House told

Published: Friday, June 27, 2008 at 4:30 a.m. Last Modified: Friday, June 27, 2008 at 3:44 a.m. The Press Democrat, 2006 Honeybees are declining rapidly, experts say.

WASHINGTON -- A record 36 percent of U.S. commercial bee colonies have been lost to mysterious causes so far this year and worse may be yet to come, experts told a congressional panel Thursday.

Food prices could rise even more unless the strange decline in honeybees is solved, the lawmakers were told.

"No bees, no crops," North Carolina grower Robert Edwards told a House agriculture subcommittee. Edwards said he had to cut his cucumber acreage in half because of the lack of bees available to rent.

The year's bee colony losses are about twice the usual seen following a typical winter, scientists warn. Despite ambitious new research efforts, the causes remain a mystery.

(cont.)

[sueb]

This is from a website of a professor of Biology at the Imperial College London: "Phylogenies of insects and their host plants There are several hundred species of fig trees (Ficus species) found throughout the world and each has its own unique species of pollinating wasp. The fig is totally dependent upon the wasp for pollination while the wasp is similarly dependent upon the fig fruits for the development of its offspring. Consequently this relationship is an obligate mutualism. In addition, each fig species also supports a number of non-pollinating wasp species whose offspring develop in the fig fruits but provide no pollination service."

You don't have to live near the Mediterranean to live in a Mediterranean climate. Most of California has a Mediterranean climate.

Susan B.

[Tom J]

That writer knows not of what he writes. That's just not the case in the SE USA. In 70 years of eating fresh figs right off the bush and 60 years of making fig preserves and fig syrup, I have yet to find a wasp or wasp larva in or on a fig. What I have found are yellow jackets, ants and gnats where some were left until they were over ripe and split, but that's it.

Tom J

[Omelet]

And every fig you eat contains at least one dead adult bug. ;-)