We have two Black Madeira fig trees and two Figo Preto fig trees and, after growing them for many years they appear to be the same variety to us (and the same as Violeta, the official formal name). In this video we show all four trees. I also don't believe in there being different strains of Black Madeira but won't get more into that. Our most vigorous tree is created in 2012 by grafting a cutting onto Brown Turkey. It grows very well for us and is very productive despite being pruned very heavily for cuttings every winter.

Some people have commented that Black Madeira is late, some say unproductive, some say it has very hard skin with one person in Arizona commenting today that it's rough like sandpaper. We sure don't get as hot as Arizona but have longer days and do get pretty hot (up to 103F a couple of weeks ago) but our nights are cool. Our weather during summer is almost always clear sunny days with low humidity (23% today when we reached 98F) and evenings are usually in the low 60s (55F68F has been our nighttime lows for the past month).

Pruning heavily has typically delayed crop timing and reduced fruit size for us but we have been picking fruits from this tree since about July 21st and fruits are of good size. Some who grow this variety say the fruits have very tough skins. I consider them to be moderately thick but not really anything I consider a problem, the skins are what I would call "chewy".

Our orchard nutrition focuses mostly on nitrogen early in the year and reduced amounts later through August and increased potassium levels from Late May through August and maybe early September. We hope that our experiences may help you grow better fruits yourself!