Figs are wonderfully tolerant of heavy pruning. You can mold them into what ever you want, but I would do it when dormant. Al

Thank you, Al I'll wait until next winter to prune.

You can pinch all year. Wait until 5 - 6 leaves per branch appear, then pinch the center bud. This will force branching and more branches mean more figs.

I have over 20 fig trees, and do this all the time. You can get some pretty fat leaf clusters this way, but it works.

Suzi

Suzi, this sounds like a good thing to do when I get these figs down to a lower level. They just shot up so quickly that I missed the growth spur last summer and are now way too tall.

Westelle, pinch the growth tip now. You will have many branches bearing figs, and you can cut the entire thing back when dormant to the size you want. Why not have the most figs you can this year?

Here is how low you can go when a tree is dormant:

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We had to move this potted tree whose roots had grown into the ground. It was a monster! We root pruned and topped pruned. VDB is it's variety AKA Violette De Bordeaux.

I worried it would not live. And this spring...

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It's a 5 year old tree, always in a pot, now in ground. Hard to control a fig. They are like 10 year old boys! No stopping them!

Suzi

There are two types of fig growers in this world -- those that pinch and those that don't. I don't. Pinching is more of a cold region tactic to get the tree to ripen the current figs quickly before frost. I can harvest figs up until frost, which can be as late as Nov/Dec. Pinch the branch and you just lost whatever new figs might be set on that branch that season.

Black Jack brebas, picture taken in February: