Yo, Johnnie; We extend our sympathy--Looks as if we may all get a spell of hurricane-spawned rain.

Now, Herman, please tell us this:
If rain spoils the fruit on trees in the ground, what effect does watering have on potted figs that are fruiting??? Can you spoil the flavor of figs on potted trees by overwatering?
Ox

We are getting the rains from Gustav right nowÂ
I had a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) in an effort to spare my potted figs from splitting I made little tree skirts, out of some old round plastic picnic-tablecloths.

They just like the ones you put around the base of your Christmas Tree (except made out of red and white checkerboard pattern cloth backed plastic ;-))
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Then place around the base of the trunk and covering the pot.

It's working great to shed the excess rain-water, and no signs of splitting what-so-ever.

Now I'm musing if this same thing canÂt be done to in-ground plants as well. How large should the "rain skirt" be, to effectively shed water away from the root zone and prevent splitting??? I'm htinking about 36" to 48" dimater should be enough to evacuate the excess water to outside the root zone. Granted some is going to seep back in, but at a more controlled rate.

And before anybody goes out and tries to patent my idea, I had it first! There is a date/time stamp on this post to back me up. :-)

But feel free to try it and let us know how it works out.
If it works, you can send me a dollar for "royalties".

Hi Ox:You asked me and I will answer you,like this:
If The cultivar is prone to splitting it will split in ground or in the pot,when raining.
Of course Sandsquid method will work well on container fig.
Easy way out:Grow cultivars that do not split.
Wich One:
I will answer you at the end of this season,as I have at least 40 cultivars producing at least a few fruits each,and I can observe them,and tell you.
The problem is that till now none of them spletted because i did not see a rain for a month now.
But I know I will have a chance to see rain, by end of next week,God willing!!!!!

Thanks for the replies, fellows. That answered my question and told me what to to about it too.

Herman, we'll be waiting to see how yours turn out. I have paradiso and Celeste in the ground, kadota and violetta in pots, been wet all summer, and each has figs. About two and a half inches of rain in the past three days, courtesy hurricane Gus.

I forgot to say That i Allready had some splitter in the pastas; Brunswick,Brookleen wht,Marseilles(with yelow interior),Vista Mission,Dark Italian,Megaceleste,Home depot Brn. Turkey,Florea,Wht. ussian,etc.

Funny, I was thinking about the same thing because were are going to get heavy rains here tomorrow. Do you think this is necessary for my figs that aren't ripening yet? I think they have another few weeks to go.

Well, here comes Hanna and there go the rest of my figs. All my other plants really needed the rain so I can't complain too much, but it's frustrating that between Fay and Hanna, this year's fig crop is more or less wiped out, when it was shaping up to be the best season so far. I planted my Brown Turkey about 6 years ago, and last year was the first time it had a decent crop of figs; this year it had about twice as many figs coming.

So Far with a quarter of an inch of rain last night,i see no splitted fruits at all.
It must be because I eliminated most of the offender in past years.
So far so good,but tonight it will be 1 to 2 inches of rain and I will post again after rain.Really a fig like John's that is so frustrating,because of splitting is not worth to have,When there are so many better choices.

Best Regards

Its raining nice and hard now in NJ. I put some plastic tarps on the ground around the base of my trees to limit the amount of water they will get. Let's see what happens. Not sure if it is so critical because my figs haven't started to swell-up and ripen yet.

OK People:I promised to tell you If my fig will split after 2and half inches rain last night and another quarter inch,on last Fryday night.
This Morning I checked all my figs for splitting.
I have about 20 varieties that are swelling and getting ripe now.
I had no major Splitting,on any cultivar.
I had a very Minor Splitting on Black Sicilian from James Robin,but not bad enough to affect the quality of the fig or to permit bugs to get in.
I even ,finally have a Brown Turkey Selection,(out of 6 i had in trial so far),that is swelling now and no splitting at all.
I have no doubt this is a no fault Brown Turkey,because I know the fruit is excellent as I allready had a couple of fruits ,ripe last year.
Here is a picture this MOrning,after all the rain
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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/mirmanherman/BrownTurkeySelectionDSCN0344-1.jpg

Green figs never split--only the figs that were expanding and ripening. Oddly enough, two days after getting about 4 or 5 inches of rain from Hanna I have not seen any figs splitting, except slightly around the eye. But when we got about an inch from Fay, most of my figs split wide open. Go figure.

Johnnie, I can't figure. Having a banner fig year, rain from Fay had no effect. But, day after Hanna my Quanticos looked like someone quartered them with a knife, and my Chicago Hardy also split. Marseilles split just a little. Not splitting at all were Golden Celeste, Celeste, Banana, and my Brown Turkey didn't split but tasted insipid. I live in the DC suburbs, just south of Ft Belvoir.

Black Sicilian continued to split,the next day,so now i know it is not good in my area because of this reason.
I have testimony that it is excellent in other dryer climates.

Now that it's been a few days since the rain, I'm starting to seeing some splitting as the figs continue to ripen, but not nearly to the extent that they did after Fay.

BTW I don't think this is necessarily a reason to stop growing a particular fig if it's good otherwise; this certainly isn't a problem I would expect to have every year, or throughout any one year's harvest season. I got a good crop last year (although a bit smaller) and it's not unusual for any particular cultivar to have an "off" year now and then.

Here are some figs I harvested from my Brown Turkey this morning, showing how some split very little whereas others split wide open: