Can you show the whole plant?

H'mm, I've never root pruned anything. Anything special I should know? Or just shorten the roots?

floral, there's nothing much to show. The arms of the basic "Y" shape just meet about a foot down, then there's another foot of single trunk.

I looked at 6 or 7 You tube fig pruning videos today, and they told me nothing. Just a lot of blathering. Showing me these beautifully branched trees and saying how it was necessary. None addressed the problem I've always had with this one: that after I cut, after a pause of a month or 2 to think about it, it just sends up a new leader, and the nodes lower down don't branch out.

I the plant still dormant? If not, wait until late fall or early spring to root prune or prune branches. JMO

linnea56, here are a few pictures that might give you a sense how it's done, mind you we all do it differently

On the left you see fig tree in container that i want to up pot in container that is next to it.

It's been in that container for 2 seasons and I want to cut some roots off then plant it in the little larger container.

This is what the rootball looked like after I pulled it out from old container.

Here is the rootball after I cut off 3 inches from bottom and plus 3 inches of each side.

There its done, I added some soil on the bottom and ofcourse on sides.

If you want to encourage branching there are many ways how its done too.

I like to do it by pinching at 6 leaf.

This is an another tree ⤵️

After every 6th leaf I cut off apical (terminal) bud, I repeat that every season.

If your tree just started to break dormency you can still root prune, you might set it back a little but it will not kill the tree.

Hope that helps 🤔

I was just interested in the length of trunk below the fork. You say it's about a foot. If you want a short bushy tree I'd cut it back to the base of the two branches, just above the fork. I have a standard fig which was trained by allowing the trunk to grow to four feet and then heading it off hard. After that every branch has been headed back to produce the lollypop shape I wanted for this particular plant. Cutting off the tips won't do it. You have to go further back.

I agree with floral_uk

to cut it low leaving 4 or so nodes.

It's already broken dormancy. Just started budding out. Someone had told me to prune as soon as the leaf buds swelled, so that was what I was watching for.

Looks like I need to prune this back HARD. I assume no figs for this year then. Last year for the first time it had 2: but they developed so late that neither had a chance to develop and ripen. Once I brought the tree in in mid-October once it turned cold, they gradually shrivelled and dropped off.

bluemoonlight, your pictures are very helpful. Thank you.

Figs main crop fruit is on new wood. Breba crop on last year’s wood. A fig like desert king will only give a breba so if you always prune it back you will have very little figs.

linnea56 where are you located ?

If it's too private, then what growing zone are you.

Do you fertilize that fig tree ?

What kindof fertilizer are you using ?