How to Grow Figs with High Yield? A Complete Guide to High-Yield Cultivation Techniques

Fig, also known as honey fruit, moon fruit, Wenxian fruit, milk fruit, and sun-reflecting fruit. The fruit is used as medicine (the roots and leaves are also used medicinally), and it has the effects of strengthening the stomach and clearing the intestines, reducing swelling and detoxifying, and moistening the lungs and relieving cough. It mainly treats cough and asthma, sore and swollen throat, enteritis, dysentery, constipation, hemorrhoids, and other conditions. Modern pharmacological studies show that figs have significant therapeutic effects on liver cancer, malignant lymphoma, breast cancer, cervical cancer, bladder cancer, esophageal cancer, stomach cancer, skin cancer, and many other cancers. At the same time, figs are also a nutritious health food. They are cultivated in all southern provinces of China.

Morphological characteristics: It is a deciduous shrub or tree of the Moraceae family, 3-9 m tall, with milky sap in the stems. The leaves are alternate, thickly membranous, broadly ovate or oblong, with obtuse tips, heart-shaped bases, and wavy margins, and short hairs on the underside. The flowers are unisexual, hidden inside the receptacle, and the receptacle is solitary in the leaf axils, forming a syconium. The flowering period is relatively long, and it can bloom in spring, summer, and autumn; it is dioecious.

I. Growth Habits

Figs prefer a warm, humid environment with ample sunlight. They have low requirements for soil, but loam with deep soil layers, loose fertility, and rich organic matter is best. They can be cultivated on barren hills and wild ridges, by riversides and roadsides, around houses, and along field edges.

II. Land Preparation and Fertilization

Choose a field with high terrain and good drainage, and plow and harrow it carefully. While preparing the land, apply sufficient base fertilizer: 3000 kg of farmyard manure, 20 kg of urea, and 50 kg of phosphate and potassium fertilizer per mu. Then make raised beds 1.3 m wide.

III. Planting

Figs are mainly propagated by cuttings, and can also be propagated by division. Spring before sprouting is the best time. 1. Cutting propagation: Select 2-year-old, robust, pest- and disease-free branches and cut them into 30 cm cuttings, with the lower ends cut into ear-shaped slanted surfaces. Dip them quickly in a 200 PPM indoleacetic acid (IAA) solution, then immediately insert them into the prepared bed surface. Row spacing x plant spacing is 15 x 10 cm. Water to preserve soil moisture and promote survival. It is even better to propagate them in a small arched shed. 2. Division propagation: Figs often sprout root suckers around the root crown. Before spring sprouting, dig out these suckers with their roots and transplant them elsewhere. 3. Transplanting: Set fig seedlings on the prepared bed surface at a row spacing x plant spacing of 2 x 2 m. Water to preserve soil moisture and promote survival.

IV. Field Management

After figs survive, attention should be paid to cultivating and weeding. Water during dry weather and drain promptly during rainy weather. Every winter, dig holes and apply 3000 kg of farmyard manure, 20 kg of urea, and 10 kg of phosphate and potassium fertilizer.

V. Pest and Disease Control

Figs have relatively few pests and diseases. If any are found, conventional methods can be used for timely control.

VI. Harvesting and Processing

Figs generally bloom and bear fruit 2—3 years after planting. After autumn, when the fruit turns from green to yellow but is not yet fully ripe, pick them in batches. After drying in the sun or by artificial heat, they can be sold as medicine.