Gadenin日本語Get the appFruit that drops before it ripens
Premature fruit drop is by far the most common complaint, and it is almost never a pest. A fig sheds fruit whenever the tree decides it cannot support it, and the trigger is usually water, root disturbance or a sudden check to growth. Fruit that yellows slightly and falls while still hard is the classic sign.
Work through the causes in order of likelihood before doing anything drastic. Irregular watering accounts for most cases, especially in containers and restricted root runs where the soil volume is small. Recent root pruning, a knocked pot, a hot dry wind, or a heavy nitrogen feed will all do it too.
| Cause | How to tell | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Dry, then flooded | Drop follows a heavy watering after a dry spell | Water evenly; mulch 2 to 3 in (5 to 8 cm) deep |
| Roots disturbed | Follows repotting, moving or a spade near the tree | Keep moisture even; it recovers in weeks |
| Too much nitrogen | Long shoots and huge leaves alongside the drop | Stop feeding; use a potassium-rich feed instead |
| Too little light | Only fruit in the shaded interior drops | Thin the crowded branches next winter |
| Wrong fig type for your garden | Fruit drops small every year with no other cause | Some types need a specific pollinating insect to hold fruit |
A little drop is normal. A tree that sets far more fruit than it can ripen sheds the surplus, and losing perhaps one fig in ten while they are pea sized needs no action at all.
Splitting and souring
Split figs come from a surge of water into fruit that is close to ripe, usually rain or heavy irrigation after a dry period. The skin has already stopped growing, so the flesh expands through it. Splitting itself is not a disease, but a split fig has an open wound at the point in its life when it is full of sugar.
What comes next is souring. Vinegar flies and sap beetles enter through the split, or through the open eye at the base of the fruit, carrying yeasts and bacteria. The fruit ferments on the tree: it weeps, smells of vinegar or alcohol, and the inside turns to pink slime. Souring cannot be cured once it starts, and one souring fig attracts insects to the whole tree.
- Even out the water first Consistent soil moisture through the ripening period prevents most splitting. Mulch and a regular watering routine do more than anything else on this list.
- Pick daily once ripening begins Fruit left a day past ripeness is the entry point for the whole problem. Daily picking removes the bait before the insects find it.
- Remove every spoiled fruit from the site Take split, soured and fallen figs right away and bin or bury them. Left on the ground they breed the next generation of flies within days.
- Trap the flies rather than spraying A jar of cider vinegar with a drop of detergent, hung in the tree, catches large numbers of vinegar flies. Sprays achieve little because the insects are inside the fruit.
- Note which fruit has an open eye Fruit types differ in how tightly the eye closes. If souring is a yearly problem on your tree, it is the eye letting insects in, and picking early in the ripe window is the practical answer.
Fig rust and the other leaf troubles
Fig rust shows in the second half of summer as small yellow-brown spots on the upper leaf surface with rusty orange powder underneath. Badly affected leaves yellow and fall, and a tree defoliated in late summer ripens the remaining crop poorly and goes into winter weakened. It thrives in warm humid weather and spreads from fallen leaves.
Control is mostly hygiene. Rake up and remove all fallen leaves rather than leaving them under the tree, prune to open the canopy so air moves through it, and water at the base rather than over the foliage. Leaf spot and anthracnose behave the same way and respond to the same treatment. None of these is worth spraying a garden tree for.
| Symptom | Likely cause | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Orange powder under the leaves, late summer | Fig rust | Clear fallen leaves; open the canopy |
| Brown spots with dark edges | Leaf spot | Same hygiene; usually harmless to the crop |
| Yellow mottling or distorted leaves all season | Fig mosaic virus | Incurable but rarely serious; keep the tree well fed |
| Whole leaves suddenly wilt on one branch | Root or crown rot from waterlogging | Improve drainage; remove the dead branch |
| Leaves yellow between green veins | Trace element shortage on limy soil | Chelated iron or magnesium foliar feed |
Fig mosaic virus is spread by mites and is present in a large proportion of fig trees. On a healthy tree it causes leaf mottling and little else, so it is not a reason to remove a tree that is otherwise cropping.
Sap suckers, borers and the ones that live in the bark
Figs attract a small, predictable set of pests, and most of them are manageable by hand on a garden tree. Scale insects are the most persistent: brown or white limpet-like bumps along stems and leaf veins, with sticky honeydew below them and black sooty mold growing on the honeydew. Left alone they weaken a tree over years rather than killing it.
| Pest | What you see | Treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Scale insects | Brown bumps on stems, sticky leaves, sooty mold | Scrub off with a brush; horticultural oil in winter |
| Spider mites | Fine speckling on leaves, webbing, hot dry weather | Hose the undersides of leaves; raise humidity |
| Aphids | Clusters on soft shoot tips in spring | Squash or wash off; they rarely persist |
| Root knot nematodes | Stunted tree, poor growth, galls on roots | Cannot be cured in the ground; grow in containers instead |
| Borers | Sawdust at holes in the trunk, dying branches | Cut out affected wood; keep the tree unstressed |
Horticultural oil applied to bare dormant wood in late winter deals with overwintering scale and mite eggs in one pass, and is the single most useful spray on a fig. Do not apply it in freezing weather or in full summer sun.
Birds, wasps and the last week before picking
The competition for a ripe fig is fierce, and it arrives exactly when the fruit becomes worth eating. Birds take the top of the tree and open fruit that wasps then finish. Once a fig is opened it will sour, so the two problems compound.
Netting works but must be held clear of the fruit on a frame, or the birds simply peck through it and small birds get tangled. On a large tree, netting the accessible lower branches and conceding the top is a reasonable compromise. Bagging individual fruit in fine mesh or organza bags is fiddly but very effective on a small tree with a modest crop.
- Start before the first fruit softens Birds find ripening figs a day or two before you do. Netting put up after the first losses protects only what is left.
- Hold netting off the fruit Use canes or a simple frame so the net sits four inches (10 cm) clear. Netting draped directly on the tree lets birds peck through and traps them.
- Clear all windfalls daily Fallen fruit is what draws wasps to the tree in the first place. Removing it every evening cuts wasp pressure noticeably within a week.
- Do not hang sugar traps in the tree Sweet wasp traps placed among the branches attract more wasps to the crop. If you use them, put them twenty feet (6 m) away as a decoy.
What to write down when something goes wrong
Fig problems repeat annually and the causes are seasonal, so a short note the moment you notice something is worth far more than a diagnosis made later from memory. Record the date, what you saw, the weather in the preceding week, and what you had done to the tree recently, including watering, feeding and any root disturbance.
Note the first date you see rust, the first split fruit, and the first wasp damage each year. After two seasons those dates tell you when to act rather than when to react, and most fig problems are far cheaper to prevent by a week than to treat once they have started.