Why Are My Figs Splitting or Cracking? Causes, Fixes & Split-Resistant Varieties
If your figs keep splitting or cracking right as they ripen, the culprit is almost always water: rain, humidity, morning dew, or a flood of water at the roots. The best fix starts long before the rain, with the variety you choose.
Hey there, fig growers! I'm Ross, the "Fig Boss," and I've dedicated my life to this amazing fruit since 2014. I've trialed somewhere around 400 to 500 fig varieties here in the Philadelphia area, zone 7A, where hurricane remnants can rain for four or five days straight.
Splitting almost derailed my whole fig journey. My very first fig tree was a $50 tree from Lowe's with 25 to 35 figs on it. They all started to soften at the same time; it rained, and one by one they turned rotten, sour, and fermented. If I'd chosen the right variety, I could have avoided most of that.
Here's what I've learned since: why water causes splitting, how a fig's shape, stem, and skin affect how often it splits, what you can do about it, and the split-resistant varieties I grow.
Splitting vs. Cracking: What's the Difference?
Cracking is the mild version: small fissures in the skin. Splitting is the severe version, where the skin tears open, usually at the eye, and the inside of the fig is exposed.
Both are largely caused by water and high humidity sitting on the skin of your figs. Cracking has one more common cause: excess nitrogen in the soil, which I'll get to below.
Why does it matter? The skin is there to protect the inside of the fig. Once it's open, mold, fermentation, and spoilage become far more common, and pests like spotted wing drosophila (SWD), yellow jackets, and June beetles move in.
Even mild cracking costs you. Cracking may be beautiful (just look at the Hivernenca thumbnail above), but with too many cracks, you're robbing yourself of potentially another one to two days on the tree, and cracked figs are much harder to dry on the tree. A crack near the neck can hint at ripeness, but the real test for a ripe fig is a soft neck.
Why Figs Split: Water Absorbed During the Final Swell
A fig is nearly indestructible while it's green and hard. Once it starts its final ripening stage and softens, rain and humidity can soak right into the skin.
Think about a hard, unripe peach: the chance of water absorbing into it is nearly zero. A ripening fig is more like a raspberry or strawberry: soft, and able to take on water through the skin.
When water absorbs into the skin, the fruit expands very quickly, and any fruit that expands fast has a much higher tendency to split. After a long rain, the cracks are almost always where the rain was sitting on the fruit, and the longer it sits there, like overnight, the more is absorbed.
The skin of a fig can act like a waterproof jacket, like a sponge, or anything in between, and that comes down to genetics. A variety's genetic code decides the size of the fruit, the size of the eye, the shape, and the quality of the skin. Unfortunately, most fig varieties have a skin that absorbs water rather than repels it. That's really why the fig's worst enemy is the rain.
Why the Eye Splits First
Figs ripen from the bottom up. That's why you check the neck for softness when you harvest. It also means the eye, at the bottom of the fig, is always riper and softer than the rest of the fruit. It's the most sensitive spot, and all it needs is a little water to burst open.
Humidity and Morning Dew
You don't need a downpour for this to happen. Below about 50% humidity, a fig actually evaporates water from its skin, which concentrates the sugars. Above roughly 50%, that dehydration doesn't occur, and at high levels of humidity, moisture is even absorbed into the skin just like rain would be. Morning dew has the same effect.
During a two-and-a-half-day nor'easter, the humidity sits near 100% the whole time, so even parts of the fruit the rain never touches take on water. Humidity can also keep figs from ripening properly.
Water From the Soil: Overwatering and Uneven Watering
The same thing happens from the bottom up. If you water your trees too much, they take up too much water at one time, and a lot of that water is sent straight into the fruit. The fruit expands more quickly, and it splits more often.
The worst pattern is a dry spell followed by a flood. I water a consistent amount every day rather than deeply once or twice a week; that's the key to better fruit quality and less splitting. My full fig tree watering guide covers how much and when.
Don't overcorrect, though. If the soil dries out in the heat, the tree drops its fruit or the figs take damage and won't ripen or taste right. Watch for underwatered fig trees and figs dropping before they ripen.
The simplest way to stay consistent is drip irrigation on an automatic watering timer, and if you're not sure what's going on down there, stick your hand in the soil or use a soil moisture probe.
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Too Much Nitrogen Causes Cracking
Cracking can be caused by excess nitrogen in the soil, so I recommend you don't overfeed your trees in humid places. A lot of growers fertilize too much late in the season, right when the tree is fruiting. Too much nitrogen after fruit set causes cracking and "mule" figs, which are beautiful at a glance but have lower fruit quality.
That's why I stop feeding my container fig trees once the fruit has formed. One season I gave my trees just four feedings and stopped by June 1st. I saw almost no cracking from July to early September, and my fig quality was the highest it had ever been. Big temperature swings seem to cause cracking too, but you can't do much about those.
Violette de Bordeaux is especially prone: its cracks quickly turn to mold, and less nitrogen or planting it in the ground prevents excessive cracking. More in my guide to fertilizing fig trees and my Violette de Bordeaux review.
Fruit Shape: Why Some Figs Shed Water and Others Collect It
Elongated, oval, or teardrop-shaped figs with long stems and long necks shed water. Flat or round figs with fat bottoms, especially ones whose eye points at the sky, collect it.
When there's a depression in the fruit, or any area where water can collect and sit, the fig absorbs a portion of that water. A long stem, a long neck, and a slender body without a fat bottom let a fig shed water very easily. The rain hits the side and slides off instead of reaching the eye.
Montserrat Pons describes six major fig shapes in his book Fig Trees of the Balearic Islands: Esferica, Cucurbiforme, Turbinado, Ovoidal, Piriforme, and Urceolado. Through years of trialing in a humid climate, it's clear to me that figs with an Ovoidal (oval) or Piriforme (teardrop) shape shed water a lot better and split far less often. My full breakdown is in the shape of fig fruits.
Just as important is how the fig hangs as it swells. While a fig is still hard, it's very difficult for it to split. As it softens and expands, most figs start to droop downward. If yours droop early, the eye is protected. If the eye is still pointing up at the sky when the rain comes, the rain settles on the most sensitive part of the fruit, and it splits almost every time.
Shape matters in one more way: a swelling fig expands outward and down toward the eye, so a fig that's already wide and flat can expand until it splits. When the eye points down, you may see cracking down the sides instead, usually a much better trade-off.
The Wrong Shape: Italian 258, Black Madeira, and Little Ruby
Italian 258 splits so often because a lot of its figs ripen with the bottom pointing straight up in the air, and it's flat. Rain hits that eye and the fig splits. It's a shame, because when you get them perfect, it's right up there with the best-tasting figs, and it tastes great underripe.
Black Madeira might be very tasty, but how many don't split so you actually get to enjoy them? Its shape and an eye that often points to the sky are its biggest flaw. There have been seasons here when I only harvested 10% of the crop in good condition. If you're in a humid area, Colonel Littman's Black Cross is more elongated, ripens about 10 days earlier, and has much better split resistance. More in my Black Madeira review.
Little Ruby is the complete opposite of what we want in shape. A lot of the fruits hang straight up in the air, the eye is typically open, and the skin acts like a sponge. Rain and bugs get in and spoil the interior, so I don't recommend it for its shape. What saves it is an incredibly short hang time of only 2 to 3 days, so it can ripen between rain events. More on that trade-off in my Little Ruby review.
Round Figs: Ronde de Bordeaux
Ronde de Bordeaux literally means "round of Bordeaux," and because the figs are round, they do tend to split, and you might only harvest about 50% at peak quality. I still grow it because it tastes great picked a little early and ripens a week ahead of other main crops. In the ground, my tree's stems and necks are a bit longer. Read my Ronde de Bordeaux review or see the Ronde de Bordeaux tree.
When a Long Stem Rescues a Round Fig
Shape isn't the whole story. Stem length and neck length are critical, because they decide the angle the fig hangs at. Verdino del Nord (VR) is typically round, but its stem is long enough to help it hang the right way. Campaniere is spherical too, but in the ground its stem is usually long enough that it hangs at the right angle. Once established in the ground, it rarely splits.
White Marseilles has a very long stem, although the fruit is quite round, and Bakio is spherical but hangs the way it should on a long stem. Condit's monograph describes Hunt as a seedling bred in Georgia before 1929 with the objective of "producing a fig having a long stalk which would allow the fruit to hang downward, so that water from rain or dew would drain away from the eye."
Fruit Size: Why Fewer Figs Can Mean More Splitting
In humid climates, smaller figs are generally better. They contain less water that needs to evaporate, and bigger figs tend to expand too much outward and split too far. That's why fruit set matters: if a tree doesn't set enough fruit, the fruits it does set get larger, and you'll see more of that fast expansion and more splitting.
Pruning changes size, too. Figs on suckers or on vigorous growth after a hard pruning are bigger, more watered down, and split more often. Prune too little, and some varieties, like the Adriatics, get shorter stems and necks and split at the eye. More in the role of plant hormones in fig tree pruning and my Adriatic fig review.
In the Ground vs. in a Pot: Shape Can Change
When you compare the same variety in the ground and in a container, the in-ground tree typically produces figs with a much better shape: longer necks, longer stems, and fruit that hangs at a better angle.
I believe it's energy: a bigger root system sends more of it into the fruit. Dall'Oso is the most shocking example I have. I grew it in a pot for years, and since I planted it in the ground, the stem length, the neck length, and everything about it look ridiculously different.
That's why I planted Martinenca Blanca in the ground as a bit of a leap of faith. The shape isn't perfect, but the stem and neck length are there.
A bigger root crown also handles excess water better. Drowning a fig tree is a lot easier in a container, and the quality can drop substantially.
There are exceptions. LSU Tiger and Longue d'Aout were great in pots, but in the ground the figs got too big, split, and attracted tons of fruit flies; Tiger's bottom got flatter, and LSU Hollier behaves similarly. Here's my full comparison of fig trees in pots vs. the ground.
The Skin: Waterproof Jacket or Sponge?
It's not only about whether a fig can shed water. It's about whether the skin absorbs water at all, and some varieties absorb it like crazy.
Celeste is the classic waterproof jacket. In the case of Black Celeste especially, water hits the skin and slides right off without ever absorbing. With its teardrop shape and short hang time, Celeste is nearly indestructible. More in my Celeste fig guide.
Smith is a great example of the skin and the hang working together. Its fruits are closer to oblate, but as they ripen, the neck isn't very sturdy, so they hang down well, and after days of rain I've watched them shed the water. It's less prone to splitting despite its flatter shape. More in my Smith fig review.
Verdino del Nord has exceptional skin quality that prevents water absorption, and Vagabond resists cracking and splitting even in rainy periods, likely because of its skin. On the other side, Little Ruby's skin acts like a sponge.
Holes From Critters and Insects
Splits and cracks aren't the only way into a fig. Critters and insects create holes, and once there's a hole, the inside is exposed. There's a whole lot of solutions:
Nets: For birds and critters, and insect netting for flies.
Chicken wire: A ring of chicken wire around the tree keeps out groundhogs and most animals that can't climb.
Inside-out duct tape or Tanglefoot: Wrapped around the trunk, sticky side out, it stops crawling insects before they reach the fruit.
Clean up: Get split, fermenting, or fallen figs off the tree and ground right away so fruit flies can't complete their life cycle.
Here's my guide to fig tree pests and diseases.
My Shape Bias: The Split-Resistant Fig Varieties I Look For
When I'm choosing a new variety, unless there's something very special about it, I'm very wary of figs with the wrong shape and very bullish on figs with the best shape.
You can make a great preliminary judgment from shape alone, even on a young fig. Out of all the fig varieties I've ever seen, Moro de Caneva has the best shape. It's picture perfect: oval, with a long stem that makes it hang the right way.
Even my Celeste still points a little toward the sky while swelling; Moro de Caneva is already pointing all the way down. My money is on Moro de Caneva as probably the most split-resistant fig I have, and that's why I value it so highly. Figs that don't split don't spoil, so you harvest them at a higher quality more consistently.
It's also sold as Moro de Caneva (Nerino) and Moro de Caneva (Szivarski). Read more in Moro de Caneva: as good as it gets for split resistance.
Here are the other varieties in my yard with the shape I'm looking for:
Verdolino: Essentially the green-skinned Moro de Caneva. Its relative Salam Piacentino (Fico Salame) has an even more protected eye. See my Verdolino review.
Montalcino Rosso: The red-skinned version.
Nerucciolo d'Elba: Long stem, teardrop shape; one of my best for splitting, bar none.
Verdone (Nikky): Oval shape.
The Celeste types: Celeste, Black Celeste, Texas Peach, and Violette Marseilles, plus the Celeste-like Vagabond.
The LSU figs: LSU Hollier, LSU Tiger, and LSU Champagne have Celeste parentage (see the in-ground caveat above).
Hivernenca and its relatives: Hivernenca is elongated and oval-like, and I planted the very similar Verdal Longue for its shape. Lampeira 1 is a lot like the Coll de Damas. See my Hivernenca review.
The Coll de Damas and De la Roca: Types like Coll de Dama Negra, Grise, and Mutante have the right shape, and De la Roca is very similar. See my De la Roca review.
Molla Vermella and Joualle Noire: Elongated pyriform figs, grouped as synonyms on my site. See my Molla Vermella review.
Rosso di Goni: Pretty good elongated fruits.
Medieval Yvoire: An extremely long neck.
The Dalmatie types: Dalmatie is ovoidal and rarely splits badly, and Gayet, a Dalmatie type, is oval and slender. See my Dalmatie review.
Salato: A local Italian fig with good split resistance.
For the full picture, see standout fig varieties with superior shape.
Rain, Climate, and Hang Time
If you get more than about 25 inches of rain a year, you should be choosing fig varieties that are more elongated in shape.
That covers the Northeast for sure, the Mid-Atlantic, the South, Louisiana, Hawaii, and South Florida. Philadelphia averages about 40 inches. It's no accident that so many of my best figs come from northern Italy and France, where people selected varieties that did better in the rainy fall.
For my picks by region, see the top 5 fig varieties for Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore & DC and the top 5 fig varieties for Richmond, Charlotte, Atlanta, Nashville & Houston. My complete list is the best fig varieties for humid climates.
Hang Time and the Susceptibility Window
Split resistance isn't the only factor. The hang time, or what I call the susceptibility window, is how many days a fig is soft and vulnerable before you pick it. The average is about 6 to 7 days here; ideally you want around 4, so you can pick before the rain and resume right after.
That's how Little Ruby gets away with the wrong shape, and why Celeste, with a window of 1 to 2 days, is as good as it gets. Ideally, you want a short hang time and a long stem and an elongated shape. More in fig varieties with a short hang time and what to look for when choosing a fig variety for humid climates.
Pick Before the Rain
When days of rain are coming, no variety gets through unscathed. I watch the forecast, and if a fig is soft and roughly 60 to 70% ripe, I pick it before the rain. Green, hard figs are fine. Moro de Caneva is my favorite to harvest early: cut them open and put them in the fridge, and they intensify. After the rain, throw out anything split or fermenting.
How to Prevent Figs From Splitting: My Checklist
You can't stop the rain, but you can stack the odds in your favor.
Choose the right variety. Elongated figs with long stems and necks, a closed eye, water-shedding skin, and a short hang time.
Water consistently. The same amount every day; no flood after a dry spell.
Don't overfeed nitrogen. Especially in humid places, and stop feeding container trees once the fruit has formed.
Plant in the ground when you can. Established trees usually grow figs with longer necks and stems.
Get good fruit set. Too few figs means bigger figs that split more. Avoid hard pruning.
Pick before the rain. Get soft, nearly ripe figs off the tree before a multi-day rain.
Clean up split fruit. Remove split and fermenting figs right away.
Protect from critters. Nets, chicken wire, and inside-out duct tape or Tanglefoot around the trunk.
