Real pollination occurs when the fig is still very green.
Ants go in only when the fig is ripe and sweet, too late.
George (NJ)

Here is a link that might be useful: fig sex

gorgi,

So does that mean that ants still polinate when you say "real pollination"? :) (As opposed to false pollination?) I don't know about everyone else, but ants seem to get into just about everything around here....sweet or not. Seems like a logical assumption that ants could indeed pollinate, even if they aren't as efficient as their winged counterparts. The fig trees I ordered from Ty-Ty (which I am dissapointed in, btw), came with a nice colony of TINY ants that I've never seen before. Obviously, I tried to rid myself of them, but they are hard to get rid of. They have since migrated to some of my other potted fig trees. None of my figs have given me fruit yet, but I notice the ants roaming around the leaves and branches looking....always looking and waiting.

~ Erin

Go learn about something that has to do with
'the birds & the bees' thing...

????

Just FYI...I have seen ants on some of my flowering plants that DO have specs of pollen on them simply because they travel in and out of the flowers. And I recall watching a documentary a few years ago about certain plants relying on ants for pollinization. (Forgive me, but I don't remember what the plants were or WHERE they were located in the world.) While I am not an expert on pollination, I am familiar with the different methods...hummingbirds, bees, wasps, hornets, and ants are all great pollinators.

It just seems logical that there MUST be another factor involved in the pollination of figs since people all over the east and south are reporting "wild" grown fig trees popping up out of nowhere, producing nice figs. The birds that ate them and pooped out the seeds certainly didn't do it while the figs passed through their digestive systems. SOMETHING pollinated them prior to being eaten. The original question is a good one, in my humble opinion.

~ Erin

Sorry for my rather aggressive response, but it has something
to do with age. I do wish that ants pollinate figs. They do not!
If such good news happens, it would be all over CNN,
just like how kerry just bashed out our current great
warriors..

Erin,

Edible figs do not produce any pollen, you must have a caprifig to get pollen. Assuming that ants could do the job, they would have to crawl into a caprifig when the pollen is ripe, then crawl over to your fig trees and crawl into the small, unripe figs, to deliver the pollen. Look at the link above, or the one here for a better understanding of fig reproduction.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sex determination in Ficus carica