My dear friends, I am asking you what you might have learned the hard way when you went to propagate fig trees.
Through the thread that @disc4tw recently started titled “How to start the farm” I discovered that our venerable moderator @fruitnut has quite a bit of experience with figs. I reckon that over the last 16 months I have attempted some 300 to 400 direct rooting cuttings, nothing like what he would accomplish in a year, but I have certainly learned some things that decreased my likelihood of success. I would love to hear the discoveries, sometimes simple, sometimes complex, that you have made through your failures.
One hypothesis that I’ve recently begun considering is the function of water. Whenever I would be working with cuttings I would drop them into a cup or a bucket of water in order to keep them from drying out while I was filling the rooting cups or pots with medium. Recently I was stripping leaves for a very large batch of rootings and my forearms became thoroughly covered in a sticky latex from the sap. Even with a Scotchbrite pad to assist the Dawn Professional liquid dish detergent I was still having difficulty removing that residue from my skin. What if my attempt to keep my cuttings from drying out is actually causing a callus of solidified sap, decreasing my rooting success?
What are your thoughts or experiences on holding your cuttings in water? What other things have you discovered that didn’t work so well?
It’s much easier to start cuttings in winter with dormant wood. Sticks exposed to high humidity sprout roots. There’re many ways to achieve the high humidity. Inserting sticks into damp coco coir works well, for example. Temps around 75-80 F seem to work best.
Green cuttings are more difficult. You should be sure to start with lignified growth, not green shoots. But again the key is high humidity. That can be accomplished in cups or pots. Some people have great success just inserting the sticks into the ground, but I’m sure that results depend on the moisture of the soil.
There are internet resources describing methods in excruciating variety and detail.
I had good luck starting fig cutings (winter before last) in my basement… in moist promix hp, on bottom heat… no light for the first month (while roots developed)… then moved to a sunny window the second month… 5 of 6 success.
Then this spring in early April… i put 3 dormant fig cuttings in a pot outside on the north side of my home (no direct light) for the first month… they were in moist promix hp again… but no bottom heat. It was warm enough naturally for them to root and they did… all 3. I moved them to more sunny location after a month of no sun.
3 of 3 success. This method was very easy, simple, less to do…and worked great.
my strategy that works best so far is plant them too deep, repot them and cut apart the branches with roots growing. Cuttings have also gone easy.
Space in the greenhouse, moving and watering pots is the big challenge for me.
@jrd51, @TNHunter, @DroppingFruit, thank you. However, what I am asking is what will you never do again. What methods have you tried that led to a higher failure rate?
Earlier this year I changed what potting mix I was using for my cuttings. It turned out that it was holding too much water and I had a much higher failure rate. It took me purchasing a moisture meter that @Richard had mentioned for me to discover the disparity in water retention.
In your rooting attempts what have you done that you will avoid in the future?
I propagate cuttings in soil in the winter with parafilm over the exposed cut end. one mistake I made was wrapping the parafilm too far down the stem and a few cuttings developed rot. in the future I’m just going to cover the cut end and the first node.
I did not really have any serious problems with either method… but would stress that it is important to grow some roots before shoots and leaves.
What worked for me was keeping the buds on the fig cuttings in the dark for the first month (while roots started developing)… then slowly and increasingly… give them light that second month.
After two months like that… I had shoots and leaves… and roots below supporting them.
If you allow light to those buds early on… you can easily get shoots and leaves with no roots to support them… failure.
i wont plant figs outside and hope that they make it. That is the main mistake i have made. They need to be 2-3 years old and in a very sheltered spot with supplemental water.
Propagation wise I have been surprised by how easy figs have been so far.
Can agree, second year minimum for planting outside in marginal hardiness zones. And planting out as soon in the spring as possible for optimal root development.
I won’t be attempting to root cuttings inside without fungus gnat management, they wrecked my efforts last year. Keeping rooting cuttings in a different area than my other potted plants is an easy first step.
Don’t try rooting too many fig cuttings unless you’re prepared for some failures. Those with 100% success haven’t tried too many. My success over 7 years with 10,000 plus was at best 60%. So less than 6K saleable plants from 10K cuttings set.
The biggest source of failure was probably keeping the rooting media too wet early on. Or having media that held too much water. I’ve thrown away hundreds if not thousands of rotted or otherwise failed cuttings.
I’ve only done a few dozen cuttings over the last couple years, but I’ve had around 90% success. The main batch that failed was when I started them in a community pot and didn’t wait long enough to separate them and pot them up, so I damaged the tender new roots and they didn’t recover. So maybe don’t use community pots or if you do, wait until they’ve grown a lot before separating them!
One thing to keep in mind is that what works for one person may not work for another. I’ve done direct rooting outside and those that I wrapped in parafilm did really well. Those that did not have parafilm ALL failed and the difference was due to the low ambient humidity we have out here in San Diego.
Those 3 pots outdoors- did you water them regularly or ignore them? Cuttings will rot if I look at them wrong, so I’d worry rain would rot the potted cuttings outdoors.
For indoor rooting, the best watering advice I’ve read was: “pot the cutting in barely moist potting soil. Then go to the drugstore and buy a hypodermic needle. If you get the urge to water your cutting any time in next 6 weeks, jab the needle into your thigh until the urge passes.”
They were located on a bench that is right next to my house on the north side… under the roof overhang area so nornally gets little rain and no direct sun light.
I watered them very little… just enough to keep moist… and a lot less than i wanted too.
After 2-3 weeks… the buds were greening… and i covered them for a couple more weeks with another pot inverted to block even the indirect light they were getting.
I’ve lost a lot of cuttings because they were too dry. They just set there and do nothing. After 6-8 weeks there’s no recovery.
My best method: Root in Pro Mix HP. Wrap the exposed end of cutting with buddy tape. Fully wet the media. Drain out as much water as possible by placing the pots on a water absorbing towel for about 48 hours. Now weight the pots. Keep them at that weight until they root.
So moist not wet and hold that condition. After a while you can forgo the draining and get it right by feel. A cutting in a 4x9 tree pot full of Promix HP should weigh about 800 grams when properly wet.
Some great ideas in this thread – especially weighing the pots.
What do folks think about rooting in either pure pumice or pumice + vermiculite? The idea being that the sterile/non organic media will significantly reduce the rotting problem.
Somebody on the ficus forum mentioned the pumice idea after he had significant failures with rooting some difficult ficus varieties like sycomorus using usual methods. Apparently he now has great success using nearly pure pumice.
These are great things that y’all are contributing. Thank you very much, and please keep sharing your failures.
I use vermiculite in my homemade potting soil mixes but I’ve got no experience in using pumice. I did have 100% failure in my experiment batches of fig cuttings that used solely Optisorb-type of diatomaceous earth oil absorbent pellets. Your mileage may vary.
Yes mine does. I have had about 90% success with DE. I love the stuff! So yeah I got great mileage. Works for me inside or outside. DE though I feel has an even greater value as a soil additive. Pumice works well too.
. It looks like he knows a thing or 2 about rooting fig cuttings! 