Steps Towards Successfully Growing Quality Figs in Florida

Recently someone contacted me asking for my opinion about varieties and input about growing figs in Florida. I'm going, to be honest, it's a very difficult place to grow figs, and my hat's off to whoever can figure it out and ripen high-quality fruit. Having never grown figs in FL, I don't have any first-hand experience, but I can give you courageous and potentially insane Florida fig growers the tools you need or at least the step in the right direction.

Key Takeaways:

• Growing figs in Florida can be difficult due to the high humidity and monsoon season.

• To achieve quality figs in Florida, it is important to ripen them before or after the monsoon season.

• An experienced grower in Miami was getting reasonable results with in-ground trees planted in 1-2 ft high berms for drainage and higher soil temperatures.

• LSU Scott's Black and LSU Purple are varieties that are doing well in Florida. LSU Purple is RKN resistant and a fast grower.

• To ripen figs before monsoon season, focus on helping the trees grow quickly in the winter after frost with a very early main crop fig variety that is rust and potentially RKN resistant.

• To ripen figs after monsoon season, learn River's pruning or pinching to perfectly time the harvest before frost.

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Here was Ed's question proposed to me:

Hello, I am in South Florida. Many varieties won't do well here. I have several of them lol. I looked up all I could find on YouTube and Figdatabase, but still have no idea if either of these would work here (he's referring to Smith and Azores Dark) where there is usually zero or one light frost, but the rains in August, September and early October can be torrential with 100% humidity.

Have you sold either to another South or Central Florida buyers? Any input is appreciated. Thanks, Ed.

Tips for ripening higher quality figs in Florida:

The way to eat quality figs in FL is to ripen them before or after the monsoon season. I was just in Miami at the end of April and I visited an experienced grower there. He was getting reasonable results with in-ground trees planted in 1-2 ft high berms. This is critical for drainage and higher soil temperatures.

LSU Scott's Black and LSU Purple are so far the varieties doing well for him. LSU Purple is RKN resistant according to LSU publications and that seemingly seems to be true among the trees I've seen from other growers. Additionally, I would recommend a fast grower that's also rust-resistant.

I wrote all about rust in this informative blog post, click here:

I don't know what variety fits that description as rust is not really an issue here, but in the South rust quickly defoliates fig trees. That constant high humidity can be brutal, so choosing a variety that can resist rust OR a variety that can keep pumping out new leaves as quickly as it's losing them would be a huge plus.

The two scenarios for growing figs in Florida:

Ripening figs before monsoon season

Ideally, you focus on helping the trees grow quickly in the winter after frost (this is achieved with additional soil temperatures that you can give them to jumpstart their growth early in the season) combined with a very early main crop fig variety that ripens high-quality fruit in humid places, grows quickly and is rust and potentially RKN resistant. LSU Purple checks almost all of those boxes. I would try Black Celeste as a second option.

Ripening figs after the monsoon season

This is highly dependent on your skill as a fig grower. Particularly you need to learn something called River's pruning AKA pinching to perfectly time your harvest in that window before frost.

You can learn all about River's pruning in the video below:

Also check out the informative article I wrote about River's pruning, here: