Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
remove dead, diseased (rare in figs) or very
crowded and crossed growth. Modify your
pruning depending on whether you are
aiming for two crops a year or only one (see
above). Pruning in summer will help to
restrict growth, while winter pruning will
rejuvenate fruiting wood.
Table 6.1
Fig cultivars that bear no or a very light breba
crop.
In very cold regions the breba or first crop of any fig will not
eventuate due to frost damage of the previous season's growth.
Note:
A single cultivar can be known under varying names
Adriatic, syn. White Adriatic, Strawberry fig, Verdone
Brown Turkey, syn. Aubique Noir, Negro Largo, San Piero
Kadota, syn. Dottatto, Florentine, Whote Kadota
Panachee, syn. Striped Tiger, Tiger
Harvest
Harvest your figs when the neck of the fruit
starts to wilt and the fruit droops from the
tree. A ripe fig should not exude any milky sap.
to the radiated heat from the wall. It also
makes them easier to protect from frost.
The Japanese treat them more as a grapevine
with horizontal fruiting arms. Four main
fruiting arms are established from a trunk.
The new growth in spring grows up and bears
a main crop. At the end of the season after
harvest, these stems are cut back to two buds
which will produce next year's main crop.
This is exactly like spur-pruned grapevines
(see page 114). These spurs may need
thinning, as figs are blessed with many
dormant buds that will spring into being with
this heavy pruning technique.
Figsinpots,andkeepingthemsmall
Figs sucker freely from their roots and to
maintain the aesthetic shape of a tree they
should be removed. This habit, however, can
be utilised for growing figs as a coppice-style
plant that can be easily covered for frost
protection, or just fitting them into a
smaller space.
The fig will not have a formal trunk but will
be encouraged to sucker. When the plant has
established after three years at least, any wood
that is two years old or older can be cut down
to the ground or to its base on a short trunk.
There should be one-year-old stems
remaining that can be thinned if necessary.
These will carry any breba crop and the later
main crop on their new spring growth.
Maintain this system by consistently removing
wood that is two years old and thinning the
one-year-old wood.
Hazelnuts
Corylusavellana
Hazelnuts, filberts or cobs are shrubby trees
that love to sucker. In fact, they are the
archetypal coppicing plant providing
excellent wood for all manner of
woodworking or craft activities (see page 84,
'Coppicing'). Unfortunately hazelnut
production and coppicing are mutually
exclusive. Good harvests are only possible
when the female flowers receive sufficient
light, a commodity conspicuous by its absence
in close-growing hazel wands.
Figsontrellis
Figs are generally trained as a fan espalier
(see Figure 5.16b, 'Espalier', page 135).
Growing them flat against a wall can make
fruiting more reliable in cooler climates, due
At the time of writing, the Turkish hazel
Corylus
colurna -
a non-suckering hazel - is being
