Bountiful Figs

‘Reservoir (Unknown)’ (it's fig fruit falls in to the flavor sub-group ‘Sugar Berry’)

In 2018 BobVance bought a rental property, he discovered that it had a ‘large cold hardy’ fig tree in the backyard, that tree was brought from Italy by the father of the former owner of the property, 30-35 years before BobVance bought the property, so sometime between 1983 and 1988. The former owner’s son says that it is his grandpa’s favorite fig, as well as his own favorite fig. The grandpa lives across the street from BobVance’s new rental property. It’s figs are black/purple, and they are larger in size than the figs of ‘Hardy Chicago’. It's fig fruit falls in to the flavor sub-group of ‘Sugar Berry’. Which is not considered a ‘mount etna’ type of flavor, despite this cultivar of fig being very ‘mount etna’ like. For that reason I think that ‘Reservoir’ might just be a hybrid between a ‘mount etna’ type of fig, and a male type of fig.

The former owner and his family don’t have a name for this cultivar, so BobVance named this cultivar ‘Reservoir’ after the road in ‘Connecticut’ that the house, and that the tree is on. The tree/rental house is near the top of a very large hill, the street was named after ‘Reservoir towers’, which are also often located at high elevations.

This cultivar is a very strong grower, it grows like a weed. This cultivar recovers quick from die-back and crops despite die-back. At a few years old a young ‘Reservoir’ clone that was moderately protected was hit by about +10F and, there was quite a lot of die-back, though not to the ground. The cultivar gains cold hardiness over the years. ‘Reservoir’ is nearly as cold hardy as 'Bryant Dark'.

At BobVance’s family home, it is usually about 0f to -4f, yet there were a couple of years with approximately -9f. His new rental property is further south, only a couple of miles from the shore, so he estimates that the tree on his rental property goes down to about 0f most years. The only protection that the fig tree on the rental property was given before it was sold is “each year they put a cardboard box (or cardboard from boxes?) around the base and shove it full of leaves. Then, they put a tarp on top.” This original tree probably has died to the ground a few times over the years, yet it's very cold hardy.

If the figs are picked fully ripe then they are very sweet and tasty. They are a favorite of the birds. The cultivar starts cropping early in to the season, yet it starts to crop later than ‘Ronde De Bordeaux’ does, possibly up to about 12 days later. ‘Reservoir’ has a high production main crop. This cultivar may crop the same year that it’s planted, yet don’t expect the first figs from this tree to be at their best. It’s common for the cuttings of this cultivar to have fruit on them before there are well established roots.

An about 1 1/2 foot tall rooted cutting of ‘Reservoir’ located in ‘Kansas’ was hit by a -12F freeze, the young small tree died back to the ground, yet the following spring it grew back like a weed, to be about 5 feet tall, and it fruited that same year.

Cuttings from this cultivar are generally easy to root, the son of the former owner is also trying to clone his grandfather’s fig tree.