Culling, removal of superfluous fruit, is similar to deadheading, but diverts resources to remaining fruit rather than to floral or vegetative parts. Many fruit trees benefit from selective culling while fruit is beginning to develop during more productive seasons.

Healthy figs produce two types of fruit. Summer figs emerge with new foliage during spring from stems that grew during the previous summer. They are not so profuse, but are larger and softer than later figs.

A ‘sucker’ is a stem that originates below the graft of a viable tree. Because many grafted cultivars are less vigorous than their own understock, they may easily be overwhelmed by suckers.

Winter is the best season to prune because the trees are dormant. As dormancy ends, growth is concentrated among remaining stems and can be left to complete a year (growing season) of a natural growth and fruit production cycle.