Baby fig tree advice please?

[iknowimcoming]

I bought this fig tree in early spring and it seems to be growing well but I'm not sure about the smaller shoot coming from the bottom of the trunk - should it be cut off to promote the main stem or left? Any input welcome - tia

Fig trees are often bushy with several trunks, I'd leave it as it is.

Yes leave it, that's how they grow in the earth. More like a shrub than a tree, I suppose you could shape it when it's bigger.

I've got one that has self seeded, I'm not quite sure whether to prune it as its figs are very small and there are hardly any.

Leave it. The figs grow at the last 6 inches of the branches, the more branches, the more figs.

ppeatfruit Self seeded? That's impressive, especially if you're in the UK, as the ones we grow here are ones that don't need the fig wasp to pollinate before developing fruit.

Of course, if it is self seeded, then it's come from a variety that develops seed, therefore it comes from a variety which needs pollination, which is a problem in the UK because we don't have the fig wasp.

I've got one that came from a cutting given to me by a friend in the Algarve. I've had it for about 10 years, every year it develops figs, but they never get beyond walnut size. I've come to the conclusion that it needs the fig wasp, so I'm planning to ditch it and get my pot back. Haven't yet managed to bring myself round to doing it.

All this is to say - I don't think pruning will make any difference to fig size. My fruiting fig doesn't have bigger figs in years where there are fewer figs.

Great - thanks all!

Mere We are in mid west Fr. ! The odd thing about it is that down the road from us there is a wonderful huge fruitful fig tree. A few years ago I tried to grow a couple of potted ones with no luck at all. This one has chosen it's place in semi shade, it has plenty of leaves and one or 2 fruits last year,( I removed them because I read that it's necessary to get good fruit the next year) which hasn't been the case, do they need feeding ?

If they’re in a container, I would have thought they’d need feeding, even though you constrain the roots to persuade them to fruit rather than produce leafy growth. Try tomato fertiliser. Mine are in the ground and I don’t feed

Maybe that's why the ones I bought didn't do well, I did plant them out though. I'll try my coffee dregs\nettle mix \rain water feed on the self seeded one.

I have a 4 yo fig tree in a small pot. It was languishing and not doing much in the first two years. Last year I watched a YouTube video someone had put up showing the difference in growth between their figs which were next to a compost heap (do feeding off it) and not near one / the compost one was considerably bigger. So I concluded that they do need feeding and potted mine up with a generous amount of manure. The next year it put of loads of growth and gave me my first fig.

I do remove the shoot right at the base, because my eventual plan is for it to be trained up and over a window on my back wall, so I want to restrict it to one or two main stems and allow it to beach out higher up. Currently it has one 'trunk' which branches into three higher up, and those branches also branch out. My parents have a huge and productive fig (in the se uk) which is trained in this way.

At the size your fig is, you are unlikely to get any fruit, maybe one if you're lucky. So at the moment it depends on what eventual shape you want it, as to whether you remove that stem. I don't think you'll do any harm either way.

Omg, so many typos - hope the gist of my post is clear