Strangler fig fruit drops - once or twice a year?

6 years ago

I have a large group of strangler figs (ficus) that drops millions of small figs the size of pistachio nuts in May-June each year. The figs make such a mess and so difficult to manage that I do an aggressive pruning of the branches in May each year to get it away from roof (for hurricanes) and the clay brick deck.

This has worked reasonably well for the last two years.

However, for some unknown reasons, after I did the pruning in May, it it now dropping fruits again, in late July early August. How is this possible? Don't they bloom and bear fruits just once a year? How can it suddenly have a second wave of these fruits?

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Comments (3)

tropicbreezent
6 years ago
I have a number of strangler ficus of different species. Some are reluctant to fruit, others are far more liberal. But they can get out of synch with their regular cycles. Weather might do it, or perhaps they were too early into their fruiting phase when you pruned them and they decided to finish the job. Hard to say sometimes.
Miami Cuse
Original Author
6 years ago
Interesting. It may be weather indeed.

Last year after I purchased this property, it started dropping fruits (the small figs) in May. After one week of dropping at a rate of several dozens a minute, initially it was dropping red hard figs and I was able to sweep them up, after a week it started to drop dark burgundy soft figs that burst on contact with the deck, it stained the bricks and sweeping no longer works, and it dropped a ton into the fish pond and partially turned that into wine in a few days. I called a tree service and did some pruning, and it did not fruit anymore that year.

This year I did the same around May, and cut the branches back from the deck and pond. Then in mid June it stopped the fruit dropping. Now it's early August it's starting again.

HOWEVER, I noticed something else, about thirty feet from this Strangler fig is a Beauty Leaf tree, and it drops green round fruits in April, same as last year. It finished dropping in May, and I never trimmed that tree. It also started to drop fruits again in mid July, for the second time this year.

I don't quite understand. Both trees dropped fruits once last year, and did it twice (so far) this year. The strangler fig I pruned, the beauty leaf tree I did not. I wonder if it's the weather that encouraged them to bear fruits twice, a few months apart.
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tropicbreezent
6 years ago
Probably is weather related. Although the Beauty Leaf Tree (Calophyllum inophyllum) does normally flower twice a year here. Some of my Ficus produce a lot of fruit, but that attracts a lot of birds over a long period. Fortunately fallen fruit don't become a problem, except for one small above ground pond. But the fruit of that Ficus isn't dark coloured so I just fish out the floaters.