When they are in fruit, fig trees are beautiful, but they can’t exert themselves too much when they are in bloom, because they can’t handle too much pressure.
The blooming of fig trees – when their dark green leaves begin to turn white during this time of year – is something that you might have noticed before and wondered what the reason might be behind.
While the reason for this isn’t that difficult to explain, it’s because fig trees can’t handle being so involved in multiple processes at the same time, such as photosynthesis as well as flower production. The trees have little time to work on anything else while they’re occupied with blooming.
There are a lot of flowering plants in the world that produce flowers, and most of them spend the majority of their time producing seeds that will eventually grow into new plants during the life cycle of an individual flower. The process of producing seeds in order to have a plant produce one each year can take an entire growing season. The process of producing seeds is referred to as seed set.
Fig trees that turn white during an individual bloom season are not necessarily the result of having more seeds on them than normal – rather, they simply are not able to photosynthesize as much during such a period of high energy consumption, and as a result, turn white. In order for fig trees to make food, carbon dioxide (CO2) and water must be taken in. If they are not producing seeds, they will have to consume less CO2.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that there are other factors at play here as well. Because the energy cycle inside of fig trees is closely related to photoperiodism – how light duration directly impacts plant growth – there is also a possibility that there may be some type of feedback involving the energy boost that fig trees need to remain active during the blooming season in order to survive and grow. As a result of changing their leaf color at night, fig trees get more sunlight during the day, which is why they change their leaves. The rate of photosynthesis during the night is so much slower that there is actually a possibility that the plants will not be able to get enough light energy for the purpose of photosynthesis.