LSU fig varieties

I have 20+ year old LSU Purple that’s bears well and extremely hardy and bears fruit at an early age. Also a southern Brown Turkey going into its 4th year and beginning to bear. I have some other varieties I’m playing around with in 30 gal containers, including LSU Gold, but I just bought it a few months ago.

I don’t have Tiger or the LSU Scott’s Black. Those varieties are pretty hard to find and may require a special order from someone producing them. Local retail nurseries don’t carry them. Durio Nursery in Opelousas has them on his availability list but you’ll need to contact him through Facebook, check his photos and he has a list of varieties available. It’s a part-time thing for him, he’s a full time landscaper by trade.

I understand O’Rouke (Improved Celeste) and Champagne, also developed by Dr O’Rouke with the LSU AgCenter, are good varieties but also special order.

All the LSU AgCenter developed varieties can grow larger than 10 x 10, but you can keep all to 10 x 10 by pruning - figs can be pruned hard during winter with little effect as vast majority of figs are produced on new growth each spring.

Diseases aren’t really an issue. Fig rust is pretty common, and a number of leaves may fall at during late summer/early fall off but they just grow back.

Figs are probably the easiest and most reliable fruit tree to grow in our area.

Thanks for the input!

I keep growing and trying new figs, but the ole Celeste is still hands-down the best tasting. Anyone know one that can compete with it?

Certainly Celeste is the mostly widely grown fig in our area and is probably the standard to which others are compared and most easily obtained at any retail plant nursery in our area along with Brown Turkey, LSU Purple and LSU Gold.

One can’t go wrong by growing Celeste. Dr, O’Rouke, though he didn’t develop Celeste, used it in his fig cross-breeding program in the 50s & 60s because it performed so well in Louisiana. Most, if not all, the LSU AgCenter fig variety releases have Celeste genetics in them.