I have a few fig trees that are at least 22' tall. Another one is 15' tall. No way I can get to that fruit and I can't get bird netting over that tree. What are the ramifications of trimming off the height? Do you prune it back slowly, like a third each year? Does cutting the tree back impact fruit production? Does any kind of pruning impact fruit production? Thanks - Fig Tree Novice
Now is the time to do it if you want to prune the tree. It may even be a little late if you've had a warm winter. *Very* general rule is after the leaves fall and before the sap starts to flow. Leaves turn color in the fall because the tree is reclaiming nutrients from them to store in the sap and root system. You don't want to lose any of that go juice.
I have seen some fig trees pruned back to the trunk. If you do it at the right time it encourages a lot of first year growth and a heavy breba crop. Some downsides: It seems to encourage suckers and you have to start over from scratch shaping the tree from an ugly stump.
Satellitehead, the last post were very helpful and I have spent more hours trimming back this fig forest than you can imagine. What I have not tackled is the height, due to my own. However, I was told at the garden shop that cutting back the height can make the tree produce less fruit because it puts energy into new limbs but read somewhere online the opposite happens. Just trying to clarify on that point.
I have one tree left to prune, but I am amazed at how wonderful they look. I can stand under them now. About 10-`12' around each side of the trunk, there were more than a hundred tree stalks that were between 2-4' tall. That isn't an exaggeration. I thought these were from fig seeds, but the were from live limbs that were on the ground and had shoots traveling out of them. They were all connected. It was unbelievable.
