I got this response from a commercial fig grower. I am going to try to train several of my trees to one main trunk as he suggests.

Howard

Yes we prune the trees during the dormancy period. We can do it yearly depending on the amount of growth and variety, as some varieties are more vigorous and need to be pruned to keep them from getting too long and weak. We train the trees to have one main trunk with 3 primary limbs; this is the strongest way to grow figs as they have such soft wood and break easily. Figs trees need to be pushed, this is one of the major reasons we prune because they will just grow and be vegetative. Now let�s say you have a limb that is a few feet long, you need to prune it 16 inches above where it started�this is the optimum length to build and strengthen your trees.