I have never heard of salt being of any benefit to figs.
Most probably, it is the other way around (i.e., bad).

I have never thought this or heard of it. I would be careful to put salt with your fig trees especially if you fertilize them already. Ciao

I would first find out how much sodium chloride is in the Mediterranean soil. It may not be as high as you think.

Interesting book - I was thinking of the excerpt referring to the application of a dilute solution of sea salt (and took out the book to read it) when Leon posted it. Evidently Chico (Frank Bucaro) who was born in Sicily in 1900, and probably died in 1977 in Nevada, had a great deal of practical experience in organic gardening as he raised figs, citrus fruit and many other fruits and vegetables for the market in the Los Angeles, California area for a number of years. I have never tried the method, and would proceed with great caution if I did try it, as an excess of NaCl is quite toxic to most plants. It would be interesting to try, in my opinion, if one had many trees, and one that you didn't mind risking. As you can see from the excerpt, "Chico" emphasizes that he was very cautious in the application of the sea salt, diluting it liberally with water. Al (the master gardener and bonsai enthusiast) had an informative post a couple of years ago on this forum regarding the question. As I recall, he also advocated caution regarding the concept. I would speculate that some of the benefit to the taste of the figs might have accrued from the trace minerals other than NaCl in the sea salt. If one wanted to test that concept, it is possible to purchase trace minerals used in horticulture.

The NaCl is used at the beginning of the harvest, in accurate quantities, in high quality tomatoes to increase the sweetness. Something similar may be obtained using KCl with a less risk.
The same method may be used in figs.

xon, That is really interesting. Do you know how this is accomplished? Is the salt picked up by the plant somehow "binding" water in the plant tissues - keeping it from the fruit?
(If this is the manner it works, we could salt our fig trees before a big rainstorm to keep them from splitting. Just kidding, LOL.)

I do not know how this process works. Your remark is clever, I only thought about the sweetness.
I have a botanist friend and I will ask him about it.

Physiologically speaking, it (salt) can't be good for the tree, even if it does sweeten or alter the flavor of fruit. I suspect this is how it works:

The migration of water into cells across the membrane (osmosis) is driven by the different levels of solutes in the soil solution and in bound water (water inside the cell). When the level of solutes inside the cell water is greater than the level of solutes in the soil solution, water moves osmotically into cells. As the level of solutes in the soil solution becomes more concentrated it becomes increasingly difficult for the plant to absorb water. When the level of solutes on both sides of the cell membrane are the same (isotonicity) there is no net flow of water. When the level of solutes in the soil solution is greater than that in cells, water is actually pulled out of cells causing pressure to drop & the plasma in cells to collapse. This is called plasmolysis - we commonly call it fertilizer burn.

We're concerned with 2 effects of salt in soils. Above, we see that increased levels of salts (they raise EC and the TDS of soils) make it more difficult for plants to absorb water and the nutrients in the water. They also compete with other valuable nutrient ions on colloidal surfaces. In short, salt limits water and nutrient uptake.

Fruits are a powerful sink, so plants will direct even scarce resources to fruit while biomass increases languish. High water levels in fruits & vegetables tend to dilute the biocompounds that add flavor (tomatoes & berries have a much brighter flavor before the rain than after) to fruits. It's the drought stress created by sodic soil that makes the fruit sweeter, but it comes at the cost of reduced growth.That in itself may be perfectly acceptable to most, but stress can quickly combine with other stresses until the organism is growing under severe strain. Strain, if uncorrected, always leads to a bad outcome.

I guess the point I would make is: adding salt to the soil is not something easily undone & you should consider the possible (ill) effects before you decide to go forward with it in the hope it will do nothing other than sweeten fruit. I wouldn't even consider it for containerized trees.

Al

Thanks for the explanation, Al.
I grew up on the gulf coast and I knew that there had to be a catch. I never saw anything that grew better in salt.
Ox

The influence of short-term salinity (day 1–day 2: 50 mol m−3 NaCl, day 3–day 7: 100 mol m−3 NaCl in the nutrient solution) on leaf gas exchange characteristics were studied in two fig clones (Ficus carica L.), whose root mass had been varied in relation to the leaf area. The stomatal conductance was diminished by NaCl in the first week of treatment. NaCl slightly reduced the calculated intercellular partial pressure of CO2. The net photosynthetic rate of plants with many roots was stimulated by NaCl on some days of the first week of treatment, whereas the net assimilation rate of the plants with few roots remained unaltered or decreased by NaCl. Only the assimilation of the salt-treated plants of one clone for some days during the first week of treatment seemed to be influenced by stomatal conductance. Nonstomatal factors were primarily responsible for the changes in CO2 uptake in response to salt and/or root treatment. The water use efficiency increased during several days of the first week of NaCl treatment. Decreased stomatal conductance, increased water use efficiency and stimualtion of the net CO2 assimilation rate appear to enhance salt tolerance during the first few days of salinity

Niagara Fig-

But what does any of that mean from a practical standpoint?

I was told my grand unkle who used to take a hand full of salt onto a bucket of water, and then watering his trees with it, during the fuiting peiriod. his trees were lush and large I then tryed it for myself ofcource.the same uptick in sweetness as he would notice. later finding out fig trees are know for salenity tolerance, i would say trace amounts of seasalt in water ,as a once yearly added tretment was benificial for fruit quallity. when i found this article i thought of My unkle Manard. this was also diccused in a book called ( Chico's organic gardening and natural living, Paperback by Frank Bucaro) his discussion on growing figs organicly.