Beware of this fig type if you want to eat figs

if you want to grow fig trees as a fig grower it's very important to know about the different fig types i'm gonna explain what i mean but first if you're enjoying these videos please like share subscribe and hit the bell icon to be notified of future videos okay so fig types now i'm not talking about green figs and black figs that's a whole different conversation altogether about people that classify all the green figs the same and all the dark figs the same like i'll call my local grocery store that gets figs all the time and ask what kind of figs do you have and i always get one of two answers we got green ones or we got black ones green ones are black ones i bet if i called and said what kind of apples do you have i wouldn't get the response we got red ones or green ones anyways that usually ends up with me asking if he can read the name on the box and sometimes i'll get oh it says kadoda or calamirna but sometimes even the box they came in or were put into after arriving to the grocery store doesn't even have a name on it but like i said before that's not what i meant by fig types so what did i mean by fig types picture this scenario you take a flight to go visit some family in the beautiful mediterranean or maybe a cousin in california and you taste these incredible figs from a local farm or history and they blow you away because they're so good you ask him for some cuttings so you can grow them when you travel back home and he says sure so you get back home and root these three different cuttings from three different trees that you got and they grow into three beautiful trees and eventually they all carry figs and you're excited to start eating figs from your trees well tree number one and tree number two put out a briba crop as soon as the spring hits a briba crop is an early crop that starts growing on last year's wood instead of this year's wood these are figs that were about to come out last year but then everything got cold and the tree stopped growing so they kind of hung out under the wood during the winter waiting for spring so they could pop out a lot of people love having a fig tree that puts out a breeba crop because it gets them eating figs earlier in the season even though the burrito crop doesn't usually taste as good as the main crop which are the figs that grow on the new branches that are formed this year so tree one entry two put out a breva crop but tree three didn't because some varieties just don't produce a breville crop and tree three happened to be one of those varieties all right no problem we can just eat the main crop from tree three right well as the season progressed and we ate all the breville crop and then the main crop figs on all the trees got bigger you notice that both tree two and tree three are dropping their main crop figs before they even ripen and are ready to eat while tree number one is doing fantastic and has even started ripening some delicious main crop figs for you to eat so what's going on all these trees are receiving the same treatment the same watering the same feeding the same sunlight so why did you get two crops from tree one one crop from tree two and no crops from tree three well tree one is what's called a common fig tree two is what's called a san pedro type and tree three is what's called a smyrna type all of these fig trees are female trees and there is actually a male fig tree as well and it's called a caprifig and what nature actually intended is that all three of your fig trees common san pedro and smyrna be pollinated from a male fig tree called a caprife how that happens basically is a very tiny flying insect called a fig wasp will fly out from the male caprifig and bring pollen to those three female fig trees you have this process is called caprification the caprification process is very interesting but we'll leave that for another video now even though the common fig tree you have tree number one ripened its figs without caprification and they tasted good they would have actually been even bigger and sweeter had they been caprified [Music] now that fig wasp cannot exist in colder areas like where i live it's indigenous to the mediterranean region and actually what they did to get it in california is they went to turkey and brought the fig wasp to california and since the weather is warm enough the fig wasp survived in california so what's the deal with tree 2 the san pedro type why did we get a briba crop but not a main crop well that's how a san pedro type is the breba crop will ripen without the fig wasp but the main crop needs the fig wasp so a variety like desert king is a san pedro type this variety is very popular because the breba fig it produces is so delicious it's better than some main type varieties so to summarize we have the common fake tree let's split that into two the female common fig types that don't produce a briba crop such as black madera which will grow and produce delicious figs without the fig wasp but will be better with the fig wasp then we have the other female common fig type such as italian honey that do produce a briba and a delicious main crop that again will taste even better with the fig was then we have the female smyrna fig such as calamina i think is a smyrna fig correct me in the comments if i'm wrong which will only ripen for you if you live in the fig wasp zone then the female san pedro type such as desert king which will grow and only ripen the briba crop if you live outside the fig wasp zone and finally the male capri fig which from what i understand is rare to have edible figs but of course there are always exceptions to the rule because a delicious fig called pingo de mel which i'm happy to have in my collection is a male and puts out a spectacular fig so if you live outside the fig wasp zone make sure you get the right type of tree so you can ripen some delicious figs beware of buying from ebay a lot of international growers don't realize the figs that they're growing need the fig wasp when they sell you thanks for watching please like subscribe share and leave me any comments if you have any questions

Channel: rkfigs figs

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Keywords: Gardening, Garden, Plants, planting, growfoodnotlawns, FIG, Gardens, Tree, Italian, GrowYourOwn, propagation, Landscaping, Growing, Farming, Organic, gardeningtips, Toronto, rooting, Springtime, Fruits, Figs, Mississauga, Ontario, Montreal, Agriculture, homeGarden, Vancouver, Canada, vegatables

Id: 9EF28jftqXc

Length: 8min 2sec (482 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 21 2021