Fig trees leaves are starting to turn yellow around here so dormancy is coming soon . I don't want to take my cuttings to soon from area trees. Killing frost about a month off and temps go up and down quite frequently so short of keeping cuttings in fridge for 4-5 months what  low temp is a sign to go get em before the freeze out. All trees around here are un-protected and die back to the ground, so I want to get some before that happens . All are close and I have marked some limbs to cut that I know was actively growing this year. All cuttings will be new wood growth as all old wood is dead from die back to ground. plan to grow some in Pearlite over the winter but just don't want to get them to soon. I know you can keep them for a while in fridge but 4-5 months seems a long time? OK or not.

Also I have a friend who has 1 fig tree that's a bush and he would like to make it into a single trunk type. He goes to Louisiana and sees trees there that are tree like for sure and was wondering how come his never gets like them. I told him its  because of out zone and he never protects it from freezing back. He never prunes it or fertilizes it and it is 8-10 years old. Any other suggestions I can give him. I told him to prune it back to a single stem before it freezes back and winterize it and next spring fertilize it and see what happens. Right or wrong or are we stuck with fig bushes. West tn is our zone 7A or 6A I believe about 100 miles north of Memphis Tn. 60 miles N of Jackson Tn.

Take cuttings in dormancy before deep freeze. Wash and clean and let them dry out; then individually wrap them airtight in plastic 'Cling wrap'. Put them in a shoebox size container to store in the fridge.
I have rooted mine even a year later after such storage but I am sure you will not want to wait that long. Good luck.

Hi tnsigger,
Among all the root shoots did you spot some that had their own roots ? I would pull those out and pot them, and put them in the garage for the winter.

You can train any fig tree to the single trunk shape, just keep removing all the new sprouts.
But, I would keep at least 4 trunks per tree, to accommodate for the winter killing .
I'm doing that too in Zone7.
Zone7 is the limit for in ground fig trees.