What is your head start date?

EtchedFicus

EtchedFicus

Well-known member
I'm in Virginia 7b. So I'm about 8 weeks out from average last frost date. I was wonder what people's head start date is for those late season varieties. Do you plan on waking up some those in the next few weeks? I only have a few plants in cold storage and only one would be considered late season. Just trying to plan on when I want to bring it out and start waking it up. It's currently in a 1 gallon pot and I'll be putting it in a 5 or 8 depending on how some of my more preferred cuttings are doing.
 
Hi I am in Zone 7b and they are already under lights.. to be honest, mine were sitting in 30 degree garage and never went 100% to sleep. Some started forming figs in complete darkness so I started to wake them up last beginning of Feb.. As we have many late varieties, I want to get a head start in hoping I will be able to get a late variety fig to grow out. Here is my post on this same topic.

NYC_Fignetic

Thread 'Grow Room progress'

Hi I just wanted to share my build out and progress I have made on my figs. I currently have 2 different rooms, 1 for new figs and the other (wood room) is when trees are 1.5-2 months old they go in there. I am using DIY soil, I also use Korean Natural Farming / Jadam. Besides feeding the trees, I Foliage Feed them 1-2 times a week with KNF ( OHN, BRV, CAL, LABS ) I will be incorporating PSB as soon as it is completed. Besides what you see I have 3 totes with Cuttings so this is probably 1/2 of what I will have in the summer. One thing i noticed is using Silica with the cuttings has...
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EtchedFicus said:
I'm in Virginia 7b. So I'm about 8 weeks out from average last frost date. I was wonder what people's head start date is for those late season varieties. Do you plan on waking up some those in the next few weeks? I only have a few plants in cold storage and only one would be considered late season. Just trying to plan on when I want to bring it out and start waking it up. It's currently in a 1 gallon pot and I'll be putting it in a 5 or 8 depending on how some of my more preferred cuttings are doing.
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I try to wake up my older trees at the end of Mar. /early Apr. The year old trees can wait until Mother’s Day.
 
I'm zone 7B too. Last year, I began to move them out 1 month before frost date (ie, mid-March) because I have a large collection and it takes me a while. I didn't shuffle--once they were out, they stayed out no matter what the temperature. My trees are heavily pruned for storage so they were mostly scaffolds and trunks when I moved them out (no tender tips). The hope was the trees would gradually wake up--that sensitive tips wouldn't get hurt because they take a while to form.

Honestly, I'm not sure it was helpful. Overall, my season was about 1 month later than I expected. I can't tell if it was from the heavy 2nd-year pruning or a couple of cold snaps. I didn't have any damage to tender green tips, but I did lose 4 trees to ambrosia beetles for the first time. I think the beetles were attracted to fresh pruning (finished in Spring rather than Winter). Now I know I have to proactively spray for the beetles this year and finish pruning before March. I will probably move them out around the same time depending on the weather predictions.

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It usually ends up being late March or early April, but for me I wake them up as soon as the weather will allow. The thing I need to consider the most is a plan for if the trees get too big while it's still too cold to bring them out. If it stays cold too long it can get pretty crowded in the grow tent or the garage
 
9ah-figlet said:
I'm zone 7B too. Last year, I began to move them out 1 month before frost date (ie, mid-March) because I have a large collection and it takes me a while. I didn't shuffle--once they were out, they stayed out no matter what the temperature. My trees are heavily pruned for storage so they were mostly scaffolds and trunks when I moved them out (no tender tips). The hope was the trees would gradually wake up--that sensitive tips wouldn't get hurt because they take a while to form.

Honestly, I'm not sure it was helpful. Overall, my season was about 1 month later than I expected. I can't tell if it was from the heavy 2nd-year pruning or a couple of cold snaps. I didn't have any damage to tender green tips, but I did lose 4 trees to ambrosia beetles for the first time. I think the beetles were attracted to fresh pruning (finished in Spring rather than Winter). Now I know I have to proactively spray for the beetles this year and finish pruning before March. I will probably move them out around the same time depending on the weather predictions.

View attachment 19167
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I felt like some of my trees were later than they should of been. I think we had a cooler then normal end of August and all of September.
I also had a batch of trees get attacked by Ambrosia beetles, they were all trees that had been left out in the late April cold snap that produced 25 degree temps one day.
 
DCallahan said:
I felt like some of my trees were later than they should of been. I think we had a cooler then normal end of August and all of September.
I also had a batch of trees get attacked by Ambrosia beetles, they were all trees that had been left out in the late April cold snap that produced 25 degree temps one day.
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100% ...... everything was late last year. It was cold here into June
 
9ah-figlet said:
I'm zone 7B too. Last year, I began to move them out 1 month before frost date (ie, mid-March) because I have a large collection and it takes me a while. I didn't shuffle--once they were out, they stayed out no matter what the temperature. My trees are heavily pruned for storage so they were mostly scaffolds and trunks when I moved them out (no tender tips). The hope was the trees would gradually wake up--that sensitive tips wouldn't get hurt because they take a while to form.

Honestly, I'm not sure it was helpful. Overall, my season was about 1 month later than I expected. I can't tell if it was from the heavy 2nd-year pruning or a couple of cold snaps. I didn't have any damage to tender green tips, but I did lose 4 trees to ambrosia beetles for the first time. I think the beetles were attracted to fresh pruning (finished in Spring rather than Winter). Now I know I have to proactively spray for the beetles this year and finish pruning before March. I will probably move them out around the same time depending on the weather predictions.

View attachment 19167
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A beautiful layout, best of luck. A good tip about pruning to avoid ambrosia beetle.
 
I decided to try head starting some of my trees about 3-4 weeks ago. They are just sitting at a south facing window- no special treatment. All of them are budding out nicely with a few having shoots 4-6" long. And the leaves seem to be managing with no supplemental light or heat. (I am treating with Gnatrol/Mosquito Bits.)

But I have run into an odd issue that you can see in the second photo. Many of the new branches are growing in a very weird curled way that is hugging the main whip. I am having to gently shape them outward and have accidentally snapped a few off unfortunately. I am wondering if it has to do with light only coming from one side. Has anyone else had this issue?

(There is also a Mulberry tree tucked in the center back with all the green growth.)
 

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As soon as this nasty ice/ snow melts off and the mud isn't too bad I will start moving things back into the greenhouse and adjusting the fan to heat . This will probably still be at least 10 days away.
 
julie said:
I decided to try head starting some of my trees about 3-4 weeks ago. They are just sitting at a south facing window- no special treatment. All of them are budding out nicely with a few having shoots 4-6" long. And the leaves seem to be managing with no supplemental light or heat. (I am treating with Gnatrol/Mosquito Bits.)

But I have run into an odd issue that you can see in the second photo. Many of the new branches are growing in a very weird curled way that is hugging the main whip. I am having to gently shape them outward and have accidentally snapped a few off unfortunately. I am wondering if it has to do with light only coming from one side. Has anyone else had this issue?

(There is also a Mulberry tree tucked in the center back with all the green growth.)
Click to expand...
I did a few years ago, this is called phototropism, it has to do with apical dominance (auxin) concentrating on one end due to light limitations. Usually turning the plant to have equal light distribution will correct the bending.
 
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