FIG PRUNING LESSON [3-4 year old] @ BareRoot Nation's Topical & Rare Fruit Tree Garden

[Music] all right I'm Charles Malky biologist and Plant expert with ivy organics when we grow cool plants and today we're in the bare-root nation tropical and exotic garden of my friend here Kevin Chang who I met about a year and a month ago today and pleasure to finally meet you and see I know we've been chatting a lot on Instagram and on Facebook and YouTube and tell us a little bit about you and your business and what you've got going on here all right so my name is Kevin I mean we're here at bare-root nation where we grow exotic and rare fruits so the premise of what we do is we try to find fruits and plants that you typically wouldn't be able to find in your local nursery that's great I know you gave me the tour before we started I know there's a lot of awesome stuff that I want to share with the viewers which we'll do a tour in the upcoming video to this what I want to specifically share with those watching is we just did our fig tree cutting giveaway but Kevin was so gracious and sharing the cuttings off of his green Kadota fig tree and so what we're gonna do in this lesson is we're gonna be pruning this fig tree and we're gonna be talking about the benefits of successfully pruning your face every single year and the best time for accomplishing that is right now if you live in Southern California as their chance of frost has passed at that last week of January here we are now the first week of February and the plant will begin to be pushing out new shoots and new growth and even on that initial crop of figs and we got to accomplish all that before any of that happens which is gonna be happening in the upcoming few weeks so this is an excellent time to be pruning those plants in your garden we're gonna be doing that together but before we do I know you've got a can on the ivory organics in your hands and I noticed with your early on post and Instagram if you can share with customers how have you used ivory organics within your garden all right so yeah I actually stumbled across this just looking for things that I can protect my plants at all costs you know so I bought it got it on Amazon thought I'd give it a try I planted it plain I painted it on about 50 or 60 of my trees at the time to give it a test right as you can see our fig here it's worked wonders it's protected it from sunburn all the rodents all the bugs because it comes with a bunch of oils in it and it's really nice and safe and it made my trees look nice cuz I got the green version when it comes in white brown or green and I thought the green would just blend in with my trees that's great thanks I noticed with your Instagram post do you mention I used it a lot on your fig as we're here in front of your figs and also your mangoes that you've seen a lot of beard was also there yeah not only with the figs I did on my mangos I also did it on avocados because they're kind of similar and with the ones that I didn't paint are almost half of the size now as the ones that I did great they are looking beautiful wonderful thanks so much well let's get started on pruning the fig so here we are to begin with the pruning I've got with me my put my pruners I made sure that they're sharp and and ready for the job and then I've also got my handsaw this is all I'm gonna need and then towards the end of this once we prune in we've got all this exposed wood well then apply the ivory against to seal it to basically prevent any beetles and boars from entering those exposed wood areas and I'll repeat that towards the end of this lesson the first thing and I'm glad I've got Kevin here next to me is to make sure I've got his permission as I cut away with with this fig tree I want to make sure that I've got his permission but I want to explain to all of you the benefits of also pruning your figs the first thing I want to share with you is if you come in a little closer you can actually see that there's already some figs that are developing on this dormant wood as you can see from last year right it's the tip of my finger and I'll even go here with my pruners to use the tip of it right here was where the leaf scar was from last year so a few months ago there was a leaf that was once attached at this point right above it is right there there is the node where a future branch could potentially come out and right next to that leaf node is the fruit and right there is a little baby starting baby fig so if by keeping some of the old wood on your fig tree you'll be able to capitalize and benefit off of the rubber crop which is your first crop of figs so it's important to consider keeping some wood but when pruning your fig and this applies to most varieties of figs there's a lot of gain by pruning your figure anywhere from 50 to as much as 70% down and back because what's gonna happen after your Brevik crop is gonna keep some old wood as much as as we discussed 30 to 50 percent of the old wood will stay with all of that new growth you're gonna get because now you've increased the vigor cuz we've removed all of that extra wood from the height the roots are now still strong enough to support this entire structure but by shortening it it's gonna put all of that extra strength into creating more branches and at every single node along the new branches will be the main and the sweetest and the most delicious crop of figs so for those of you out there that don't prune your figs you'll notice every year I might be just growing in a matter of inches and producing fruit along only those inches of new growth but by pruning it back again by that 30 to 70% rule you'll be able to capitalize on all of that new growth and typically every single leaf node will generate aside from the center of the leaf another fruit will be in there so hopefully we'll revisit this garden come spring and summer and we'll get to see all of the fruit just as we explained it today so we're gonna start back by pruning it I want to share like the structure of this Kevin if you want to explain what is going on here like what like explain like I see all these branches and I know a lot of of our customers have also sent me pictures of their figs where there's just a lot of branches coming out like from the ground so if you can kind of explain like where did it start which one is the parent plant and where do these suckers you know originate from all right so yeah as you can see in this little section right here this is the original mother plant and last spring cut it back a couple branches and a sucker came out the side and this stock actually produced way better fruit and way more abundance of fruit than this original stock because it wasn't cut back enough so I know we discussed this before we started recording but that the new growth the stronger more vigorous branches of the fake which have come out after the original parent plan which is right here all of which are genetically identical because I can see they're all connected here at the base and we've also discussed the fact that this particular figma riot II was never grafted as most figs are typically not grafted unlike citrus and other fruit and nut trees which are almost always grafted on figs are generally propagated by way of cutting so with that being the case and we also you know discuss the fruit and the quality and the size and all that between the parent plant and these suckers that have originated around it they're all the same they're all identical so I got Kevin's permission to actually remove the original parent plant is this structure is growing inferior to the surrounding will call them suckers but they're not just suckers are actually very highly productive quality new branches and we're gonna focus on making that the Future Trunks and the future branches that will support figs for the many years and decades for Kevin and his family so what we're gonna do first is we're gonna remove the parent plant as low as we can go to the ground so I'm basically going by handsaw right here and I'm being careful not to damage these other trunks that are in the area so we're just gonna come in like so and we're gonna go as low as we can to the base so I'm being real careful here to not damage the other trunks that are around this one and there he goes you can see how smooth we've got it the goal is eventually that this trunk over here in the back this other trunk that's over here to my right is going to eventually swell and grow over this area there may be another sucker that's gonna come off from this side in the future and we may consider keeping it as well but we've just removed the original parent branch so I just basically went back with my saw one more time I just want to share with you that I just removed this additional wood from the trunk if you come in a little closer I just want you to see how closely I brought that in this wood used to be over here the goal is and I've seen a lot of a lot of landscapers well though sometimes I just prune randomly and I'll create like these dead areas within the tree which will be an entryway again for boars and termites eyes are gonna see this dead wood and then work their way into it the goal is again by cutting it as close as you can to the living tissues here's one branch over here another branch going up is as they swell it'll eventually heal over this prune job that we did and again we're gonna coat this with the ivory organics three and one to prevent any beetles and termites from entering it another thing I've noticed is Kevin had coated this entire plant about a year ago with the ivory organics as you can see with the color green so that you might notice there's a little bit of glue greenish on the bark but that was before all of these branches grew about another eight to ten feet above my head from this point which is when he last applied the ivory gynexin I think it was about a year ago right so um the other thing I want to point out is if he come in a little closer right where my finger is you'll notice was the top of where he pruned and figs are notoriously high very thin and soft pith which is the center of the branch and he can see that this is a perfect entryway and I've seen ants colonized areas like that termites beetles a whole bunch of insects can get in there the goal is we're gonna come back with the ivory organics gonna patch that as well towards the end of this video when we get to that part of it and now let's work on basically bringing the height down I'm hoping you can share like how tall it is my reach is eight feet so some of these branches are at least 10 maybe 11 12 feet tall and the goal is we're gonna bring it down by 70% all of the wood that we get and this is proper annual pruning Methodist cut back from all of last year's growth which is about 8 feet of you know at least 6 to 10 feet of new growth on all these branches you're gonna cut them down by about 70 percent every year no less than 50% and fortunately Kevin is donating all of this these cuttings which last years would like the wood that's usually typically 1 or 2 years of age are best for accomplishing cuttings more so than using wood that's three four and five years old so this younger wood even though it may be thicker near the bottom or thinner in the near the top is the preferred wood to use so we're gonna come down now by 70% what I'm looking at and I'm hoping the camera person wouldn't mind checking you know taking a look at what I'm doing but I'm gonna prune it down to where I see there's a bud pointing away from the center of the tree and the center's like right around where my hand is back here so we're now out towards the edge we've got this bud over here and we're gonna prune it at about 1/4 of an inch above the bud and we're gonna leave a little more wood in front of the bud and less behind it so we're cutting at an angle like so and the reason for cutting at an angle is to make sure that if there's any moisture that it actually works its way off and prevents any mildew and mold from happening on the top and again you can see the white pith that's right here and if I touch it with my pruners you can actually you can always push it right in it's that soft material whereas the rest of it is woody and a harder material then that Center part so again another reason to be coating it once you're done with your pruning job so we've just cut that back and what we're gonna do now is we're pretty much gonna repeat that process throughout the other important lesson is we've got this branch which is growing again towards the middle of this vase structure the goal is always have them open an open structure with your fruit trees and it makes sure the branches are going out as a lot of the branches will eventually come off the branch and work their way towards the middle filling in the inner canopy we don't want the branches to get all tangled with in the middle of the tree so this branch is coming out all the way as close as I can to the trunk so I'll be basically going for my handsaw and I'll be cutting this again this will be a lot easier to do than that original cut um I think if you come in from this angle you'll be able to see it or maybe you can come over my shoulder wherever it whatever you prefer but my point is you just want to see that I'm basically pruning as close as I can to the tree trunk and we're gonna go like this what I'll do this as a mistake what some landscapers will do is they'll just cut randomly like so and if there are no buds off of this branch then it'll basically end up with a knob of dead you know like a basically a dead branch that's going to be hanging on to the tree trunk which again is going to result in more disease and more risk of pass entering the plant what you need to do is cut as close as you can to the tree trunk like stuff what will happen now is it as if we can spit over is that as the tree trunk now expands it'll heal over this wound which will take I'm at least a year possibly two to three years to eventually close and seal over as it's done in places such as here I can see that there was once a wound that's healed over and trying to see if there's any other examples but eventually like this wound over here that was created from about a year ago this will heal in the next year or two it takes that long for these larger exposed areas to heal over which again we're going to protect and prevent disease and pests from entering with the ivory organics products so I've also noticed that there was a supporting stake which was used well upon the installation of the tree now that the tree is pretty much in its position we were gonna remove mistake to the best of our ability to try to pull it back out of the ground there it goes and next we're gonna bring the rest of the tree down to about the same height as this bringing it all down to about 70% again I'm keeping my eyes out on the buds and making sure that they're all pointed in the direction that's away from the center so that the branches don't regrow and tangle themselves toward the son of the tree so I see that there's a butt on the outside and that's the but I'm going to select over this one that's good grub you know angled towards this branch so this is the preferred branch and again we're cutting about 1/4 of an inch above that bud and now we've got some more wood I'm continue the processor and the last one we're looking for a but going away from the center and notice I'm not just randomly cutting in the middle of the nodes I'm actually focusing on the nodes looking at the buds I'm cutting a quarter of an inch away from the bud and that's it the last thing that's caught my eye is you've got all these younger smaller sucker wood and there's no reason for these to remain on the plant as these are less likely to support figs and additionally they're gonna be in the understory of this larger plant that's going to be shading all of these leaves anyway so the performance even if it were to create figs is going to be inferior to what's going to happen on these canes that we've just pruned so we're gonna remove all of this sucker wood as well like so and that's it that's Kevin's our bear with Nations now pruned Kadota green fig tree and what's going to happen now is we've now increased the vigor of the plant it's gonna perform way better is gonna create that much more wood for more giveaways they can get through bare root nation and I'll put all of those links to his Facebook account and his Instagram account which is where we met initially and in any other way she wants us to reach out to him so the last step that we're gonna do here is we're gonna coat the product now with this product over here which I want to share with you which is the ivory organics three on one plant guard protection against damaging sunburn insects and rodents and registry material for eastern organic agriculture we're going to now use this to basically coat all of these exposed surfaces and and then the plant will be off to a great start so thanks again Kevin for the opportunity yeah thanks again for sharing all of these cuttings that we'll be sharing with the ivory organics customers and and looking forward to coming back here again for those of you watching again I'll be putting the links to Kevin and all of his contact information and get a hold of them if you want to add some beautiful exotic trees which I'm going to do a tour of within his garden momentarily in another video which you'll see uploaded in the meantime don't forget to like this if you've enjoyed on this demonstration and don't forget to subscribe down below to be connected to all of our other educational gardening videos with Aubrey organics thanks again for watching and happy gardening [Music]

Channel: IV Organic

Views: 29,915

Rating: 4.9307089 out of 5

Keywords: ivorganic, iv organic, bareroot fruit trees, fig trees, fig tree, fig, figs, varieties of figs, types of fig trees, prune, pruning, how to prune a fig tree, pruning fig trees, bareroot nation, barerootnation, kevin chang, rare fruit grower, crfg, fig tree care, how to plant a fig, fig care tips, fig cuttings, cuttings, cut, potting figs, pot, potting, growing figs, planting figs, kadota fig, kadota, kadota fig tree

Id: dDB1f9NWHAI

Length: 18min 55sec (1135 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 10 2018