Hello Sergio,
I enjoyed your experiment above and I believe in the results that you found that you are correct.
Do you believe that the fig by nature does not need fertilizer to start with? Saluti da Sergio in New Jersey U.S.A.

Hello Sergius!,
(Also my name is Sergio).
True at all. I prepare my cuttings in the mid shade corner of my orchard where soil is poor, rochy, rarely I manure.
I've not done any soil preparation, is only a corner in mid-shade.
Is not necessary to manure in excess, overall in nitrogen that drug the growth and exibites diseases.
Normally the wood of fig is full (if well mature) of starch, that is good internal "food".
Unfortunateky I'm not able to annex photo to the message, but I've uploaded few time ago, three pictures on "photo gallery", here in GW (one caprific and the twoo edible fruits in argument) that you can se in "Most recent".
Bye

The pictures (photo) are
- Maria Rosa fig
- Bucket fig
- Summer fig
S

Sergio
There are some other reasons for using the not-so-heavy prepared soil by those who live in the cold north-east of the continent here. Some are in the 70s and can only or hardly life the 7-gallon pots with light soil to bring them inside in fall and outside in the spring and some more moves in between. I have my very first fig planted in 7-gallon pot with compost only and have to ask for help in moving it but have no problem (yet) with 7-gallon pot filled with prepared soil.
This is in addition to other advanatages that may be and are for prepared soil. I am not questioning your experiment that nature can take care of figs in poor soils under proper conditions. That has been happening for ages.

Hi Sergio,
when i used to work i was talking to my friend he grew up in Italy . We talked about figs and i mentioned my potted plants that i have and mention they were in potting soil and he looked at me funny. He asked why do you waste money on potting soil just use regular dirt with some rocks in it.
Makes good sense but like Ottawan said those pots get very heavy to move around when there are a lot of them.
Best Health
Martin

Hello fig friends,
my personal experience is that by me pushing the fig tree with rich soil, (especially in ground) I got lots of leaves and lost lots of branches due to Winter, a lesson I learned the hard way, you're right the pots would be heavy, happy with figs in New Jersey, Sergio.

Hello Dieseler, (my old fig friend) and Ottawan and Sergius (my new ones!). I understand Ottawan, I fully understand the difficulty of moving the plants in autumn and spring, (although my professional work is that of industrial designer, and I could think of not too expensive technical devices to help a single person to do the job).

For me, instead was a true shock: the weeds "figs," which grow wild in the field and just as a weed, vigorous, powerful, without care, unstoppable, ....brought in a large pot with expensive potting soil with added fertilizer, showed first an amazing progress, but then the excessive growth led thinning of leaves and, later, yellowing of these, diseases, parasites, falling leaves, sufference.
I remember that in nature (all around) figs are everywhere here, (stuck under the railway bridge on the retaining walls of the highways, on pure rubbish dumps, in soil quite inexisting).

Thing like that (in the pot) I had not ever seen.
Have not earned additions targeted of nutrients, insecticides, fungicides, etc...., which served only as a discrete palliatives.
Some shovelful of soil not fertilized (garden soil manured just three wo years ago for growing cabbages, ...and now covered with grass), and there was turning around, everything is back to normal.

As a result I did some research on what is "the soil", and I discovered that the soil with an excess of vegetables (low pH) is very draining, but it does not hold much water, and easily submit the plan to shock water, (abundance and lack of wate)r, easy solved only with particular care.

But the very calcareous soil (pH very high) and above all too acidic (very low pH) does not hold above all the nutrients nitrogen, ... but also not potassium and phosphorus.
So easily in soils with extreme pH is the same as for the water shortages, alternating with excessive and poor in nutrients, with the aggravating circumstance that in soils that hold water if the soil does not bind the fertilizer it remains in the water, at least.
In heavier common soils, near neutral pH (6-8), the water does not evaporate easily (and therefore the water hydrates the soil and the plant, but also retains the nutrients in itself) and the soil holds permanently the nutrients (except of course nitrogen, which is not particularly restrained in any medium). Results: in dry sites the fig tree does do not suffer from thirst, than do not suffer a shortage of food even in very poor soils, and without manure of any kind.

The land surface is composed in (simplified) three types of components.
1) The "vegetal", made so by the remains of leaves, wood, roots, tan, often has low pH (is acid) and hence degrades slowly, acidity limits the bacterial population, which is why it degrades slowly. Holds a lot of water, but being soft, "empty of matter" slightly loses it easily, does not bind nutrients.

2) The part loam (silt) can have all the conditions of pH, usually those of the region where you take (*). Part of the vegetal contains less water, but unlike that keeps it very much, for so long. Conserve so nutrients contained but in water, BUT also the nutrients are absorbed in the grains of soil. May be (may be is relatively poorer in drainage (if are heavy soils).

3) Inert bodies (stones, pebbles, sand grain sizes in all).
They have the pH of the soil where they are, but frequently its influence in the for this is less important.
Obviously not hold water or keep it very short (limestone), obviously we are talking about pebbles, not mountains.
Practically do not retain nutrients. They may have different thermal-water "expansion" from the silt, and very different from the vegetal.

Keep in consideration that simplification with adjectifes and nouns may be is not completely scientific, but gives an idea.

A) Vegetal and inert parts promote drainage (different termal expansion and formation on vacuum clearance of vegetals).

B) Inert and lime promote drainage but lime conserve water (and nutrient!!! Collected, also by vegetal one. For the different expansion thermal-watering are produced near inerts micronchannel that idrate that drain water without dehidrate the lime (conserving so nutrient).

C) Vegetal and lime; lime reduce the vacuum clearance in vegetal, reducing dehidration (conserving water). Vegetables (if very good organic manure - compost) have the quality to stabilize the pH nearer the neutral, (italian: funzione tampone) in English: pad function?

(*) for fig pH (if not extreme) is not a problem.
For my esperience:
Vegetal (compost) 25%, common tuff or clayey thin soil -(field soil) 50-70 %, Inert 15-25% overall in bottom for drainage.
By Sergio

To Dieseler and Ottawan,
The soil must be assessed by dry weight, less weight is simply less quantity of soil (The plant does not listen to the tales...), although it has greater volume.
Make a massive pot, and "empty", it makes no sense.
The soil light, too vegetal, does not retain nutrients, and in time even the water. The water shock, and thermal, are very likely, and being that manure is carried quite only by water....also manure shock...may be.

The administration of nutrients is very difficult, the obvious risk is to provide in excess.
This is absurd, a fig tree in nature takes on a monumental scale, there are no figs "dwarf", there are only figs that have a greater resistance to the poverty of the ground, and therefore remain small.
I NEVER FOUND (and do NOT exist), "SMALL" VARIETIES THAT PLANTED IN FERTILE DEEP GROUND DO NOT BECAME GIANTS.
in a POT if you exceed in fertilization the plant simply assumes the posture to become high 35 feet and wide 45, and even if you do not engage nutritional imbalance is certain short-term crisis.
Ciao, Sergio