Male Fig Trees?

[SikeandKari]

Hello to you all.
We have bought this finca on the banks of the Guadiana about three months ago and don't really know very much about the trees on it. We have four large fig trees. They are within 30 yards of the river and are very big trees so we have not been watering them. They all look very healthy - no signs of disease or water stress. Two of them have produced a lot of fruit now and although some fell off after they had formed a lot have reached the stage where they are turning purple and soft but the fruit is dry inside and really not edible. The internet says that they are possibly male fig trees anybody any idea how to tell? We have also been told that maybe they have not been watered enough but the fruit has swelled it is just full of seeds and very dry and papery inside. The other two trees also have lots of fruit but they are still small so we have hopes that either they are a different variety or.....a different sex! One other thing - these trees are probably wild. There is no sign of grafting and from their positions they are most likely to have been deposited by a bird sitting in an orange tree and getting rid of its breakfast. So do wild figs produce fruit that is any good normally? Our neighbours seem never to have heard of 'male' fig trees so maybe we have the wrong end of the stick! Thanks for any ideas.

[gerryh]

There are a few fig trees on our dog walking route.
Usually the first lot of fruit they produce is not very good.
They have just started on their second lot of fruit and these are usually edible.
There are 3 trees not very near each other and no rivers/ streams anywhere near them.
Nobody attends to them so we pick some of the fruit for breakfast.
Cheers
Gerry

[Enrique]

Hi SikeandKari,
I go alone with Gerry on the fig trees, have three (green) on my land, July is usually the best fruiting time.
One tree by the waste pipe from the loo was the best until we sorted the plumbing out....
There are other fig trees around on my dog walks/runs, black ones for September picking.

[Wicksey]

We have a similar problem with our fig tree. It is on our terraces along with many other different trees and vines so we presume it was planted there by the previous owners (who were keen gardeners) and is not wild.

It produces the first early crop of brevas that are quite large but completely dry inside. The second crop later in the year is exactly the same and we have never had any edible fruit, which is really disappointing. Considering that we have picked fruit from trees growing wild that has been delicious, we are wondering if it is the wrong type of tree. It must be at least 7 or 8 years old now and gets watered along with the other fruit trees on the irrigation system.

We did see on a TV programme that some figs needs a small wasp to trigger the ripening process
http://scribol.com/environment/the-life ... e-fig-wasp
It seems that the green fig is the flower of the tree that needs to be pollinated by the wasp which then triggers the ripening process.

[oliveview01]

We are the opposite, our first figs, the Breva, are delicious, maybe you need to leave them on the tree longer. Once they are dark and the skin starts to crack they are perfect. Our second crop, the figs, are usually rubbish!!

[SikeandKari]

Spike here (I know the sign on says 'Sike' but I mis typed it and once done it seems it's stuck). Thanks for all your comments. Looks like Wicksey has exactly the same problem. The fruit on two of my trees now has turned purple and is falling off so no good to leave it on any more unless I use lots of sellotape to keep it up there! From my reading the wasp is necessary to fertilise the flower which is the 'fruit' we see with the stamens and stuff inside it. I am waiting now to see what the fruit from the other two trees which are much later and obviously behaving very differently does. Here where I am (Guadiana) what I am calling a 'male' tree the locals call 'wild' and say that there has to be one close by the others for the others to fruit. They also cut branches off the 'wild' figs and hang them in the 'edible' figs branches. Really disappointed that you guys all talk about delicious figs and the huge trees I have on the finca have turned out to produce dry fruit. I'm watering them now but they are so huge the roots must be down at the water table and I'm not sure it will do much good. Thanks again for your help and I will post what the other two trees do!

[Wicksey]

The fruit on our tree is turning purple and soft but when you break it open although the outer skin is soft, the inner part where the seeds would be is dry, hard and yellow. In fact, the yellow parts do smell more like a flower (like a chrysanth, not scented, but flower-like). It doesn't smell like a fig fruit at all. Some of the fruit has just rotted and fallen off without ever ripening.

This quote below seems to explain it more clearly. It seems to say that the male figs don't turn into edible fruit as they just seem to house the eggs. Perhaps we do have the male plant Spike

Figs are not actually fruits but a mass of inverted flowers and seeds that are pollinated by a species of tiny symbiotic wasps. The male fig flower is the only place where the female wasp can lay her eggs, at the bottom of a narrow opening in the fruit that she shimmies her way through. The baby wasps mature inside the fig into males that have sharp teeth but no wings and females ready to fly. They mate, the males chew through the special fig pollen holders and drop them down to the females, chew holes in the skin of the fig to let the females out, and then die.

The females, armed with the pollen, fly off in search of new male figs to lay her eggs in. In the process some of the female wasps land on female figs that don't have the special egg receptacle but trick the female into shimmying inside. As the female wasp slides through the narrow passage in the fig her wings are ripped off (egg laying is a one-way mission) and while she is unsuccessful in laying her eggs, she successfully pollinates the female flower. The female flower then ripens into the fig that you can get at the supermarket, digesting the trapped wasp inside with specialized enzymes!

[oliveview01]

Since I read about the wasp in the figs I have not been able to look at the Breva fig with the same sense of yum!

[gerryh]

Interesting article that.
I wonder how it works where I live.
As I said previously there are only 3 fig trees, that I am aware of, and they all produce edible fruit, so they must all be female. So where's the male fig tree?
Is it possible that the trees could have been grafted with both male and female branches?
Cheers
Gerry

[GerryinCajiz]

I have 3 varieties, the brown version is now bearing edible sweet fruits. The other 2 produce in July and August. My understanding is that watering should be avoided during fruit ripening time as it affects the quality of the fruit. My trees are now 12 years old and have never seen any irrigation other than that that comes out of the sky.

[SikeandKari]

Thanks for your replies. All the breva fruit fell off the third tree but more coming now and two other smaller trees setting fruit. They can't all be male!