For me its too early to tell with pastillere or santa cruz dark.

My Pastillere dropped all but 1 fruit last season , which also was its first season producing so i give more chance.
If i recall correctly another grower overseas chimed in that his did well in regards to fruit drop.

My Santa Cruz Dark fist season producing main crop fruit started to drop main crop but suddenly stopped dropping them and rest ripened fully. Results much more ripened than dropped.
Also my UcDavis SCD propagated by me is not a San Pedro type fig as reported in past by some websites.

Time will tell how they do in near future.

Martin
Member- Garden Web, Figs4Fun, Friends of The Fig Society

Couldn't outside factors play a role in this? For example...if you have an early producing fig in a northern climate...mightn't it drop fruit if hit with a late frost? Or if it didn't get enough heat or water or nutrients? Or if stressed in some other manner? Or if there isn't enough heat in a particular season for a particular cultivar? I mean...the outside variables affecting fruit drop could be endless....

Well these varieties were dropping for me.
Ray Givan,on his site"Ray' Figs", write down that for him,in 1998,when they had a long lasting heat wave in Georgia,the following cultivars,totally dropped their fruits resulting in total harvest loss:
Alma,Celeste,Hunt,Kadota,Marseilles white,and Tena.
On the other hand in the same climatic conditions,Brown Turkey,Hardy Chicago,Conadria,Nero,and Sal figfruitted close to normal,without dropping.
Why:Because it is more than climatic conditions,it is a lack of total parthenocarpy ,and the cultivars that drop figs are only partially parthenocarpic.
In other words only partially self fertille.
On the other hand juvenile age makes Celeste drop more in the first year of life and less once it get older and established.
Dropping or not Celeste is a cultivar of epiqure,and needs to be in everyone backyard.

Martin, hopefully I will know this year whether Santa Cruz Dark is a San Pedro fig. Last year was the first year year it fruited and I had 3 main crop figs, one drop and the other 2 ripen but was tasteless. I can't remember whether I pinched all the brebas off.

I searched this forum for past posts and found a few more varieties. Here's the list so far....

-Celeste
-Pastilliere
-Santa Cruz Dark
-Alma (in high heat)
-Hunt (in high heat)
-Kadota (in high heat)
-Marseilles white (in high heat)
-Tena (in high heat)
-Blue Celeste
-Brooklyn White
-Atreano
-Conadria
-Excel

Any thoughts? I have Atreano and haven't had any fruit drop, then again its being pampered in my greenhouse.

Paulley mine ripened late in August here breba fell early as expected then main came out some fell at first then they started to fully swell and ripen. I have the pictures. ; )
Mine were sweet but had a funny after taste of sweetness that i did not care for.
But that just my taste buds as others might go google over them.
Perhaps next season taste may or may not improve i give a it a chance.
Martin

I wanted to mention Paully that UcDavis now list santa cruz dark as common type.
A nursery in Canada still list it as san pedro.
Martin

I forgotten to mention ,Melanzana, from Italian fig trees,drops very bad in my experienceand burjasotte grise,Dr Leon Deprest told me has this problem.
I also had experience with Kadota dropping fruits just like Ray Givan said,but for a different reason.
Kadota was dropping fruits in cold Sommer here in NJ,after keeping some fruits on for many month without getting ripe.
Finally they will shrink,and fell out without ever ripe.
The TOTALLY PARTHENOCARPIC CULTIVARS that never DROPS FRUIT,maintain such a strong bond between fruit peduncle and tree that can't easy be broken off not even when the fruit is ripe.
Fruit just refuse to detache from tree.
As For Atreano,it never drops ,main crop,wich makesit parthenocarpic(self fertil on main crop at least).
Many cultivars are only parthenocarpic on one crop only:
Ex
Desert King-(breba)
Marseilles vs blk-Main crop
Having one crop drop ispecially breba crop,is not a fault,
All good main crop fig do that.

I agree with Herman2, anyone who tastes a good Celeste fig will try to grow this wonderful cultivar. As far as Pastillier, mine dropped all of its figs this year. They would come close to ripening and then fall off. However, I am like Martin and not yet ready to declare it a dropper.

I have a nice Boujorsotte Gris tree "in the ground" and its figs do not fall like Leon's and Gene's. My concern is with its productivity. Other cultivars of similar tree size produce lots of figs.

Now on the other hand, you almost need a chain saw to remove White Triana figs from the tree. These never fall off.

Dan

So, Dan, does that mean the White Trianas are REALLY PARTHENOCARPIC?

Aren't Celeste Parthenocopic totally? They just don't like high heat and dry weather?

Definitely people should have at least one Celeste because they are so delicious.

This is a good thread about dropping fruit. Thanks for starting it, WF.

noss

Martin, I have pictures somewhere of Santa Cruz Dark. I can't remember whether breba drop on its own or I pinched them to opt for growth. It had good growth last season, growing from 12" to possibly 3ft. Regarding Melanzana, my tree came from a friend here & it did not drop any figs. My Melanzana is 3 plus ft tall, grown in pot. It ripens like in 2nd or 3rd week of Oct. I believe tree came from Adriano.

Well ,Paully:I was talking about a specific M.,as you know there are more strains of M.
And yes,thow there is some nonparthenocarpy,in the cultivars that drops,yet it manifest more readily,when the cultivar does not like the climate.
When climate is ideal for the cultivar,it does not drop any fruits,as is the case of Celeste.
Some people report drops with good care,other report it never drops,without any care.

Changing temperatures can definitely cause some figs to drop. I have a LSU Scott's Yellow that I am studying. This tree produces very good tasting breba figs in early June in my area. Last year my tree produced three crops of figs. The third crop appeared all along the inner branches (old wood) of the tree. Hundreds of figs were on this tree only inches apart. As soon as cooler weather arrived ALL of the nearly ripe figs fell to the ground. I will soon know if those figs that fell last year would have been the breba figs for this year. I believe that those would have been breba figs for a tree that was grown in a northern climate.

I also believe that soil type can affect fig dropping on some "in ground" culivars. Too early to say for sure.

Noss,

Both Celeste and White Triana do not need fertilization. The reason White Trians holds on so tight is because of its stem. That stem holds on tight to the tree branch. Not all figs "stems" hold so tightly to the tree. On some cultivars, the stem will release itself from the tree as soos as the fig ripens.

Dan

Anyone with fig trees to perform great, then after a F4-5 tornado drop its fruit. Brown Turkey has been doing it since April 27,2011 (summer of). Alabama zone 7b. Tree is about 8 years old.Any suggestions for a CURE . Quince bush doing just opposite... Small fruit that dries up on bush. Both are now in full sun, whereas before it was mostly 5 hours morning sun. Have enjoyed the above comments, going to try a Celeste.....Joseph