[chuckell]

Cuttings started outside(12/10/15) direct potting are waking up!

~nice i like the parafilm direct potting method myself i am getting great results with it~

[Q*]

I did the same thing last year and had great results also. No need to up pot, worry about humidity, heat mats....etc....just set it and forget it!

[chuckell]

~i agree sure has been a winner to me~

[fruitnut]

My first 53 cuttings so far yielding 38 plants. Started two months ago using root riot cubes. Am now trying direct potted in 3x3x9 pots using Pro Mix HP.

[Q*]

Cuttings look great!

[Sarahkt]

Nice job! They've advanced quickly considering it was only 2 months.

[drew51]

I usually use SP Moss and also direct planting. This year the direct planting is working really well! I use my own homemade potting mix, cured for a year. Still experimenting. Interesting observation is that those in a south window did a lot worse than those under florescent lights. Seems low light when direct planting is better. 100% takes under lights, only failures are in south window.

[Q*]

The cuttings i got from Wills cutting sale 9 days ago are breaking bud!!!!

[starch]

Nice! So you are using Promix HP (I have Promix BX and I mix with super coarse Pearlite) and you are leaving it outside? Nice. Are you protecting them at all on cold nights? But as of right now, it looks like we are going to be mid 70s during the day and 40s at night for at least the next week, which will be great for rooting. I think I am going to do some cuttings that way!

[Q*]

I'm using Promix HP and growing it in direct sunlight next to a south facing wall with no protection at night. I order Promix HP on Amazon...havent found a place in Arizona that sells it. I did cuttings last year at the same time the same way and had really good success(90%+). All i do is water it every 3 days. Starch....take advantage of our climate....it makes rooting really easy...no hassles.

[starch]

I love it! I am definitely going to try it!

[WillsC]

Here are mine. These are just the new varieties. I will start cuttings from my plants when these guys root and more to the greenhouse.

[SarinaP]

Uhhhhh... Wow!

[COGardener]

Oh... Oh my!!

I really need to make it to your part of the world for a visit. Very impressive Wills!!!

There is a lot of time invested there, not only in building the cups, but labeling.

[starch]

Holy cow Wills, that's awesome!

[don_sanders]

Amazing!

[smatthew]

So I decided to count the cuttings I have in plastic shoes boxes & coir.... And the result was an even 250. Holy Moly! What am I going to do with that many figs?

[smatthew]

3/4 of an acre.. But that's room for about 150 trees.

[COGardener]

Eat a ton of figs, get fat doing it, lay back and be happy about it!

[BrooklynMatty]

That's a good amount of space, so 250 isn't unreasonable

I agree with Scott.

[starch]

Build a Lincoln Log house out of fig cuttings?

[Q*]

Amazing amount of figs guys!!! Good luck with all of them!!!!!!

[FigSg]

[jmaler]

Nice setup, Wills. Lot of work with the individual cups. How would it work with the size of your operation to control the humidity in the grow room rather than controlling the humidity with cups for each plant? Just seems to be a more efficient way of doing it.

[WillsC]

Jerry,

To be clear I preroot in those cups with the cup on top. It is a one bad apple spoils the barrel strategy. Behind the heater you see in the picture there is a tub partially buried in the ground. That tub is the reservoir for the evaporative cooler and I have ulrasonic foggers in that tub as well. The foggers increase the humidity in the room to 80%+ but that is still not enough for cuttings that push leaves before roots so the top cups are needed until they root at least some.

[jmaler]

Thanks. I get it now.

[DBJohnson]

Checked the cuttings in the rooting boxes with the coir and just flabbergasted that while the coir is moist, the cuttings are a bit shriveled and dessicated...it's like the coir is drying them out.

So...rather than completely lose a bunch of cuttings of some great varieties, I've moved all those cuttings to rooting boxes with sphagnum moss.

Now the waiting begins....again...../sigh.

[WillsC]

Yet the cuttings were still fine? Did you rub the bark on the lower part of the cutting? Any mold?

[DBJohnson]

No signs of mold and cambium layer still showing green (although not as fresh as it was). They looked like they had been sitting in silica packs for a bit...taking the first steps toward "mummy" status.

The coir started off the week throwing off tons of moisture but then seemed to be sucking the moisture from the cuttings (which had been soaked for 6 hours prior to going into the bin). It came in a bagged pre-fluffed and wet. I squeezed as much water from it as I could before loading it into the bins.

I'm sure I'll give coir a chance at a later date, but without the knowledge and experience with it Id rather give these cuttings a good chance to catch and grow.

[Sarahkt]

Well, I've already shared my sad story of how the bags of coir have worked out for me. Most of those cuttings are gone, with a few still lingering on now in ProMix HP. Here's the full ProMix HP side of things. I started rooting the earliest arrivals maybe 7-8 weeks ago other than some Carini Unk. cuttings, and have been cupping new cuttings as they arrive (if I have room) since they seem to do better with less time spent in my fridge. Mix is ProMix HP with dilute MG.

Stage 1. Cuttings start out in 16oz clear cups with holes, wax on top cuts and Parafilm on the exposed areas above soil line. They stay here 2-3 weeks on average until roots and/or leaves appear, sometimes longer for the slower ones. Mold has appeared on a few, but a quick bleach wipe usually resolves the problem quickly. If there are no roots and the leaves are small, I leave them in longer to promote roots. If the leaves get big, I move to stage 2 with just an added humidity cup on top, lightly spritzed with water if the mix's moisture level is ideal and I don't want it to dry out much more than that). A supremely comfortable cat also adds to (or maybe sucks up) the rising heat.

Most of these were prepped within the last two weeks. In addition to figs, there are also a few grapes, blackberry, pomegranate, and blueberry cuttings in there all rooting at their own speed.


Stage 2. After some good roots appear or if there is strong leaf growth, I add an opaque secondary container and move out to heating mats near sliding glass door for light and bottom warmth. House is usually 68-72 degrees F. Most cuttings get moved around 3 weeks, sometimes less or more depending on growth and if I need to make space for new cuttings (duplicate cuttings or lower priority cuttings get moved out sooner). As you can see, if there are many cuttings of a variety (and it's not super precious like Rafed's GN or CdD Blanca/Negra), sometimes I've added two cuttings in one cup to double chances and conserve limited space, and later on gently remove the one that grows more slowly after there's a clear winner.


Stage 3. After roots form a spiderweb across the inner surface of the cup, I feel like it would do fine without the bottom heat and move out to a bookshelf pressed up against and facing the sliding door for maximum sunlight. These are mostly around 6-8 weeks, or younger if they were exceptional growers or wanted to swap out spaces on heating mats.

[Taverna78]

Now tis my response.

[jmaler]

Sarah, looks like you are developing a system that works for you. Great job.

[Sarahkt]

Thanks, Jerry! I think the new heat mats are helping to speed things along a bit. Before I'd just put them on the shelves without the bottom heat.

Though it's actually a bad thing that stage 3 plants are accumulating, I'm running out of bookshelf space!

[jmaler]

Sarah, last season when I put my shoe boxes with cuttings on heating it helped the rooting process greatly. I tried to root 12 this year without the mat and they all failed. Glad you reminded me.

[Taverna78]

I have been trying without mat because of space and my electric meter box disc is spin so fast I can't read it. But what's one more speed of spin back to the mat!

[FigSg]

New batch of cuttings.

[FarmerGreg]

Sarina,
The Marseilles cuttings you sent, one of them is 12-14" tall already, I am afraid to turn my back on it lol. Looking forward to maybe tasting some this summer. Thanks BTW how are the hardy chicago cuttings doing?
Greg

[SarinaP]

I'm so glad! Mine are going crazy too--I've already given away 5 of them to friends and family. The Hardy Chicago cuttings are doing GREAT! I'm going to try to espalier them along with some of my hardier varieties this spring.

[jmaler]

MBVS were easy to root and they grew like a weed here in Texas. My neighbor now has MBVS as well.

[smatthew]

"My neighbor now has MBVS as well" - sounds like a plague, not a tasty fig!

[Levar]

Whew it's been a while. Almost forgot about this place.

Wave hello to two Galicia Negras, one (of 3) Grise de St. Jean, and one Hative de Argentile.

There are two more Grise de st. Jeans but they didn't leaf out yet and I mean, if you want to see a stick in the dirt...

I only used perlite in clear solo cups with holes cut into the bottom. They get placed into either a giant tupperware storage box or in a baking dish-style receptacle with a plastic bag loosely covering it. Very... rustic but it works like a charm.

[DBJohnson]

I'll know in a few hours. I've been on the road for work this week and haven't been home since Monday evening. Hoping to see more roots...maybe some progress on the direct potted cuttings. We'll see.

It seems to me I had better and faster results last summer. Might end up in the future not doing the rioting in the winter and waiting for warmer weather instead.

[Jamie0507]

Ohh nooo! Didn't you just get over "the yuck" after visiting relatives?? That totally stinks Bryant, you need to rest up & get better.. By then you will surely find some nice healthy roots on your cuttings.. Feel better soon my friend

[Sarahkt]

Feel better! If it's a head cold, Emergen-C mixed with orange juice and 12-hour Sudafed will dry that cold right up.

[DBJohnson]

Yeah, I brought the crud back home from Mississippi and the rest of the house got it from me. Unfortunately, that was apparently a different strain and I then caught what they had gotten up here while I was away. What I bought back was almost all in the chest and what they had up here was about 50/50....so from a scientific standpoint it's been interesting to watch them both dance through the house. The head/chest hit me harder because the immune system was already weak and what I brought back hit everyone else harder for the same reason.

Luckily, I think this is almost done. This morning I feel at about 90% for the first time in about a month.

[DBJohnson]

So...I finally (a) got a chance to go check on my cuttings and (b) felt well enough to go to the basement to check my cuttings. The first thing I noticed was the Bryant Dark that woke up has put on tremendous growth. She's now a major object to step around when working the bench. The cuttings I had hopes for due to top growth have made no further changes...which includes still showing no roots. But several other cuttings have taken off with top growth and roots, including the Panache (thanks, Jamie!).

Now, the bad news. The moss boxes are primarily a failure. With the exceptions of Raspberry Latte and Dalmatie, the stays of the cuttings in those boxes were mold, rot, or drying out. The RL and Dal both had roots like a boss, so I potted them up to gallon pots.mold got all of my MBVS, three quarters of the Giant Black German, and half each of the Genovese Nero and Nero 600m. The rest I salvaged what I could--rot cut back to viable wood and restarted; drying out got rehydrating and restarted; and anything showing signs of mold but still looking viable was washed in bleach solution and restarted. I chose to restart these either in coir cups or wrapped and direct potted. Lesson learned that moss boxes and heat mats do not mix...at least not for me. In the same box I found both swamp and desert conditions. This method serve me well back in the summer when ambient room temp was enough...but The heat mets made this melody a complete mess.

So...all in all, it's not too bad. Getting some action on some of the direct potted cuttings, more suggests on the cups method (the one with MG soil), and there's some activity in the bagged cuttings although I didn't survey those this evening.

[SarinaP]

Mine hasn't quite woken up yet, but it seems to be doing fine so far! I'm not using a heating mat of any kind, so my cuttings take a little bit longer. The only ones that I killed for sure were some that I started in November/December. I think I bother them too much so am trying to only look once a week now.

[Sarahkt]

Hurray, glad the Panache cuttings are getting spread around and are rooting well! You'll like this one, it's one of my favorites so far. They're Dave Wilson sourced, if you're interested for your notes.

MBVS hasn't been that difficult to root for me and a few others... they were among the lucky survivors of my first rooting season, so I figured then that they must be particularly determined to root whatever gets done to them! , maybe it's the variability of the batch?

[DBJohnson]

I think it was more about the variability within the bins because I used the heat mats. No worries....I've learned my lesson on that!

[DBJohnson]

And now I have 3-4" of water in the basement. The fun never stops! Pump acquired and about to be running. Replacement sump pump ready for install once I can get to the sump!

[COGardener]

Sounds like a blast!

[DBJohnson]

Oh, it has been! Unfortunately, I'm not sure I have the know-how to replace this, so I might have to get someone in here for that. In the meantime a supplemental submersible pump is in place.

[SarinaP]

Oh no!