I just found a LSU Purple and LSU Gold fig online. So you can cross that off the list. Hope the variety ends up being what it says it is. And James, I'm still interested in your LSU purple sucker. It'll give me something to compare against to make sure I was given the right variety. I'm trying to use the LSU purple as root stock for my mom's yard, since it is mostly sand. And I hear LSU Purple is nematode resistant.

Early watering of trees before a night time freeze ABSOLUTELY does give some protection in a "dry" climate or in any area of the country, for that matter, during a period with a low outside relative humidity. I would do exactly what Jose did to INTENTIONALLY increase the relative humidity around my little in ground trees. Water vapor is by far the largest green house gas that we have....man made or other wise....(Al Gore and his Global Warming crowd & our news Media would prefer that you not know this science fact). By increasing the water vapor in the areas around these trees, you WILL effectively trap some of the ground's "radiation" heat around those trees. What is trapped by this added water vapor is some of radiation heat that is quickly lost to the atmosphere after the sun goes down. Ever notice how hot a desert is in the daytime......and then how cold it is at night???? This large variation in temperature occurs simply because there is no humidity (water vapor) in the desert air. If there was some water vapor in the air, the daytime and night time temperatures wouldn't swing as much. If you could somehow increase the relative humidity of the desert air, it simply would not get as cold at night.....nor as hot during the daytime. I do agree, however, that there is also some good benefits to watering at the time of coldest temperature (closer to sunrise)....due to the latent heat of fusion effects that occur right at the freeing point (melting point) of water as it starts to change from the liquid phase (water) to the solid phase (ice). Too, it is because of this same latent effect that provides protection to fruit trees that have ice already on the branches. Keep the water sprinklers on even when you see ice (or frost) on the leaves and branches and this latent heat will keep the temperature from dropping below 32 deg. F.........that is a warm enough temperature to save a lot of trees from severe damage. Too, if somehow you can't prevent plain ole frost from forming on your trees (which can easily occur at temperatures as high as 40 deg F in my area)..........get at them with a sprinkler or hose pipe as soon as you see it and you WILL PREVENT some damage. I can get these kinds of "surprise" frosts in my area once in a while when the weather man was a bit off with his forecast..... Dan

My 2 Zumwalt figs put on about 5 feet of growth and branched nicely (I used Herman's pinching technique) last year. This spring I had a few breba on one while it was in the garage but they promptly fell off when I put it outside. Currently I believe I have figs forming on this years growth on the fig that didn't have the breba. With your Zumwalt in the arrid South West and mine in the cool North East we should have some good data point this fall. I look forward to comparing notes.

Herman, Thanks for your comments. This little darling, Col de Dame, is only 18 inches high. I just looked at it. It still has 2 figs. One is large and almost ripe. The other is smaller and probably won't ripen as it is getting quite cold, specially at night. It had a total of about a dozen or more figs. We had a record hot summer but NO rain. The lack of rain delayed the ripening of all the trees inspite of constant watering. They were really stressed for moisture. Once it got cooler and we got some rain those that had figs on the branches for months finally started to ripen and they tasted better than those that did ripen earlier. A young Beall was a great producer, those that ripened during late summer tasted awful. I picked a couple a few days ago and they were delicious. It still has 10 more good size ones starting to color. I also noticed the the figs that have ripened now in the cold have tough but very sweet skins. It will be fun to see what the weather brings us next year. Peg