Hello Dan,

I'm sure sorry you are having this problem.

Where do you live? What kind of trees are they?

Vivian

Jajada:You have Calymirna figs,that need polination,in order to get a crop.
You have to go to a fig Farm,and ask the owner to tell you exactly when to hang in your trees,Branches with male fruits containing the fig wasp,and all other little secrets of growing Calymirna type figs that need polination.
You can't be a farmer overnight but you can learn.
If it was me.
I will get rid of all trees that rerquire polination,and grow,parthenocarpic figs such as Mission,Atreano,Barnisotte,Lindhurst wht,wich will be super duper figs in Ca,and do not need polination,so you can rest easy and enjoy your fruits.
I am sure is not the drought,that makes them fall out,so watering will not help.
Old trees,can take drought,without adverce problems,only young trees needs,watering when drought occure.
I am talking figs under 5 years old,are considered young,plants.

Jajada,

Most times I agree with herman, but this time i differ. You can still plant the Sequoia and Sierra trees that dont require pollination. They are good for fresh and dried consumption. (I have 6, slow growers so far). My plan if I were you would be to get the wasps for the next 5 years, until your replacement trees can take the place of your Calimyrna trees.

If you are manually dragging a 400 ft hose, what are you hooking it up to? If it was me, I'd put in a simple drip system. Dripworks.com would have what you need. I have a small vineyard, and friends that have huge vineyards over acres, and most have a drip system. My fig in a container is on the drip system, and it is young. It averages 110 degrees in summer here, so it loves water!!

There must be a way to protect your fruit. Where I live, there are huge date orchards, and the farmers cover each bunch with bags from mid July till they are ripe. I found out, it's not to protect from birds. It's to protect from summer rain!!

I'm thinking maybe you should make some chicken wire tubes that would slip over each branch, allowing the sun to get to the fruit, but keeping the critters out! You could cover each tube with bird netting, and use them year after year. You'd just need to figure out a way to block the ends (maybe tie the bird netting to the branch), to prevent any critter from going up the branch and inside of the tube.

6 acres is a lot of land, so maybe you have room for a vineyard? You could sell table grapes at the farmers market as a sidebar to your figs, or you could grow rows of fig trees in containers, and construct a greenhouse type cover with chicken wire and bendable pvc pipe. So like an arched thing.

I wish you the best, and hope you find a solution!
Suzi

Fig loves water and I have to water my potted fig trees everyday or they will become wilted. Maybe you can prune the trees smaller and tie the branches closer to the center so you can net them to prevent birds and squirrels from getting the fruits. With super hot weather they require more watering. Invest in a sprinkler system or some type of automatic watering because whatever you plant in the future will require watering and having to drag the hose everyday is just too tiring and time consuming.

Good luck.

ch3rri, It's true, they do love water! Mine is on the vineyard drip system. It was on the citrus drippers (once every 3 days), but it wilted there too. Now it gets water morning and evening, and it's really very happy!

thanks for all the replies. I am in Central California by the way where we see 100+ degree weather most of July/August.
So, let me get this clear...... even though I have big beautiful figs that appear to ripen and they even get just a little bit sweet before they fall off or get eaten by critters or just turn brown and leathery..... I could still be needing wasps for pollination? This seems really odd as I thought pollination would be needed to even get a fruit(?)
Perhaps I should add that last year I was able to pick a couple which were definitely ripe, sweet and yummy.

I WILL TAKE SOME PICTURES TODAY, PLEASE RETURN TO SEE THEM, I PRESUME THEY MAY HELP IN THE DIAGNOSIS AND MAY HELP IDENTIFY THE VARIETIES WE HAVE. THANKS SOOOO MUCH,

DAN

Where are your pictures? We have waited for 2 days. But, it is what it is. Not sure you have the energy or the focus to protect your crop. It can be protected if you are willing to do so. Or, on the flip side, get a job at your local garbage pick up... Come'on!! Make it work!!

Suzi

If squirrels are a problem, you can fabricate or buy a sheet metal ring that fits around the trunk and prevents them from climbing. It's not pretty but effective. Example here about half way down the page.

Dan, I owe you an apology! I think I was very impatient to see your pictures! I'm sorry :-)

Sprouts honor, what a great idea for squirrels!! We don't have them here, but I will remember that just in case!!

Suzi

This is what I do to irrigate, instead of dragging hoses.

I use the black irrigation line. 500 feet of it is just over $30 at the big box store. It also comes in 800 ft and 1000 ft coils. I buy the garden hose connectors for each end. They just push on. They come with caps so you can close off the end of the line.

Then I lay the tubing around ( on top of the ground) to all the trees and use a battery powered drill to drill a very small hole in the hoses, 2 on each side of the tree. Make the hole go all the way through so the tube will drain and not contain hot water.

If the holes are quite small, you can water about 20 trees on one line. I set small rocks on top of the holes so the water goes downward instead of spraying all over.

I gather all the ends of the separate lines into one place and attach them to the cheap 4 way turn valves (under $10) made for garden hoses. Then a garden hose goes from the faucet to the turn valve.

Turn the water on, run it for about 4 hours. Go out and turn the valves to send water to the next line.

You can buy a timer for the faucet so you don't have to be there to turn the water off. If you work, you can do one line of trees each morning, or evening. Turn it on, go to work, and the timer turns it off.

Very cheap to do, very easy to install, and it will save you hours of work.

Thanks for posting the irrigation info. I still drag hoses for about half of my trees. What you described sounds like a chep and easy fix.

Dave

I agree, not so much for figs, but for my little grapevine cuttings. JD is freaking about putting in a new drip system on the other side of the house, but this seems like an easy fix. He's so anal, though, not sure it's high tech enough for him. He is big into 1/2 gal per hour emitters!! This sounds so easy, even I could do it!! LOL!!

Suzi

I have a couple of questions though. What size drill bit, and do you use a pressure reducer? My pressure is 60 psi.

Hi all, Thanks ever so much for everyone chiming in. I have posted a new thread with the pictures, finally, sorry for the delay. The direct link to the new post is:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fig/msg0717262615008.html

Thanks again,
Dan (jajada)