A Detailed Guide to Fig Planting Techniques and Management Methods

  The cultivation techniques for figs are as follows:

    (1) Cultivation Value
    The fig is also known as the milk fig. Its fruit is soft and sweet, with a distinctive flavor. It is rich in fructose and glucose, which are easily absorbed by the human body, and its content of carotene and vitamin C is also relatively high. It also contains a variety of digestive enzymes that can aid digestion, making it a very good health fruit. At the same time, traditional Chinese medicine holds that the fig fruit is sweet and neutral in nature, with various effects such as stimulating the appetite, moistening the intestines, reducing inflammation, detoxifying, promoting lactation, stopping dysentery, and treating hemorrhoids. There are many folk remedies, often using the branches, leaves, roots, and fruits as medicine. In recent years, experiments on mice have shown that figs also have a certain anti-cancer effect.
    Ripe figs do not keep well for storage and transport, but they can be processed into various products such as preserved fruit, jam, dried fruit, and canned fruit in syrup.
    Figs are easy to propagate and simple to manage, bear fruit early, and have few pests and diseases. Their branches and leaves are smooth and clean, and they have a strong ability to absorb and resist toxic gases such as sulfur dioxide, can eliminate pollution, and purify the air. Their root system is tolerant of relatively heavy salinity and alkalinity (generally up to 0.3%-0.4%). Therefore, in front of and behind homes, around factories and mines, and especially in the vast coastal tidal flat areas, developing fig production has great prospects.

   (2) Main Types and Varieties
    Figs belong to the genus Ficus in the mulberry family, and only one species, the fig (Ficus carica), is cultivated as a fruit tree. According to whether normal fruit set requires pollination and according to flower type, it can be divided into 4 groups or varieties. Most cultivated varieties belong to the common fig group, in which the syconium contains only female flowers and can set fruit parthenocarpically without pollination. According to the fruit ripening and harvest period, it can also be divided into three types: autumn-fruit-only type, summer-fruit-only type, and summer-autumn dual-purpose type.
    The varieties currently planted in China are basically introduced from Europe, America, and Japan. Some original names have been forgotten and have been given different names. Cultivated varieties in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River include Brunswick, Brown Turkey, California Black, Penglai Persimmon, Masui Dauphine, Albania No. 1, Xinyang 88, and Lükang No. 1, among others. In North China, winter temperatures are relatively low, and figs are prone to freezing injury, so attention should be paid to variety adaptability when introducing them.

   (3) Growth and Fruiting Habits
    The fig is a subtropical deciduous shrub or small tree, and under suitable conditions a long-lived one can also grow into a large tree. The fig root system is well developed, drought-resistant and salt-tolerant, and likes aeration while avoiding waterlogging. The branches grow quickly and branch little, with only a few buds at the branch tips extending upward and outward each year. On new shoots, apart from the few basal nodes, most leaf axils can form 2-3 buds, one of which is round and large and is a flower bud. After entering the fruiting stage, except for water sprouts, almost all new shoots in the canopy can become fruiting shoots. Therefore, after planting, it can begin to bear fruit in 2-3 years, and can enter full fruiting in 7-10 years.
    The flower buds further differentiate and develop, becoming the distinctive syconium fruit. The syconium fruit is fleshy and sac-like, with a small opening at the top, closed off by surrounding scales. On the inner wall of the syconium are arranged thousands of small flowers, forming a syconium, so from the outside only the fruit is seen and not the flowers. The small flowers can set fruit parthenocarpically without pollination. The edible part is actually a multiple fruit formed by the enlarged syconium together with the many small fruits enclosed by the syconium.