To chip bud a fig now, later, or just root the cutting?

So I bought some fig cuttings recently and 1 of them was a single Sodus Sicilian cutting. I probably shouldn’t have bought that one since it was expensive and I know that it is notoriously difficult to root but I just couldn’t help myself! It is a 9 inch long cutting with 4 buds on it. It is a dark green color and about as thick as a pencil.

I was planning on trying to get it to root but realized that I do have an LSU Champagne tree in a 3 or 5 gallon pot. My thinking is that I could take a single bud from it to graft onto a side branch of the Champagne. That way, if the rest of the cutting doesn’t root, I will have a potential graft to salvage it.

It is getting colder now in west PA so the Champagne tree has just started to lose leaves. Temps will be getting into the low 20’s at night in a few days so I will be putting my potted plants in the garage soon. I’m thinking this might not be the best time to chip bud if the tree would need to be active to heal the graft. I could maybe cut a small portion of the cutting with a single bud and keep it wrapped in parafilm in the fridge until spring arrives and then graft with it.

So what do you think about those options? Graft now? Save bud until spring and then graft? Forget grafting and just try to root the full cutting? Save the full cutting to graft with in the spring? Other option?
Thanks!

I wouldn’t worry about it too much, as long as it is lignified/woody it should store fine in the fridge until spring, people used to say MBVS was hard to root, I’ve rooted hundreds and didn’t notice a difference. If you still want to divide your eggs so to speak you can chip bud it onto another cutting and callus it in moss/coco/pine bark inside. You can also graft a root onto the cutting, or a bud onto a root and callus it the same way if you can get a root from one of your other trees.

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Wow, I had no idea you could do stuff like that.



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The only thing with roots is the bark is thicker.

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That’s some very cool stuff there Brent.
How good has your success rate been with ‘stenting’ fig cuttings, I.e. grafting and rooting at the same time? This year I might do that a lot more than just rooting. Seems like a standard process with roses and citrus.

You know I think the first time I have done any amount of stenting was this past spring, I had trouble with rooting cuttings that had cold damage so I grafted a bunch of them onto some cuttings I had lost the label for but were in better shape. So I don’t feel like the results would be accurate since success was low across the board, I think it might have helped…

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This is amazing! I would have never guessed this is possible. I’ve got to give it a shot next year. Thank you for sharing.

I’m a little late to the party here, but I just HAD to tell you (Brent) how awesome those grafts are!!! I have mostly been using those omega grafting tools to do my grafts (cheating) and in some cases they are wonderful. But in a lot of cases they aren’t. You clearly have some great knife skills. Whenever I do “free-handed” graft cuts like those I always butcher it. I even bought an expensive grafting knife, only to discover that the problem is the user and not the tool! ha. Anyway, nice job. I hope to see more of your healed in grafts in the future.

Thanks Kevin, I do have some experience with green wood carving. Here’s one of the first spoons I carved, but still the best one ever. It took at least 12 hours to finish but I was 100x better with knives when it was done. Made from crab apple and almost as thin as a metal spoon, I only use it for watermelons.

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It’s lovely. I doubt I have the patience or eye for that kind of quality and grace. You have to admire the innovative handle, too.

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