Nelson ,you originally wrote
 
Ok to make a long story short been trying to get a hold of some Bebera fig cuttings from Madeira Island for years now and it finally happened Christmas came early this year.

these precious cuttings you have waited for and you forgot about them ?

Um the figs gods are quivering in there leaves !

O Martin my dad nearly snapped today lol. I have 5 of these cuttings these are the ones from my grandfathers tree also Bebera but white variety, I hope they survive will see if I can take the camera too work and snap some pics.

When i did cuttings i would use a spray bottle to dampen the newspaper and then put in baggie and almost close it , i would then blow air in it to seal it. I dont remember the paper drying out so fast though . I used what they call Storage baggies that have a double zip on them, i think the regular baggies are thinner and might let air permeate into them to dry things up im not sure. Course im donkey backwards and never used any soap or bleach on my scion and dont recall mold problems , i just rinsed them real good under lukewarm water for a bit. But thats not normal from what i have read hear.
Anyhoot best luck with your scion and dont let them get dry but dont keep then sopping wet either or they will turn to mush.
Oh if you start to have lots of problems another way is to put them in good potting soil deep with just a little tip sticking out and keep soil a little damp they have a nice chance that way too if all else fails but from my experience it takes longer to root em.

Martin thats what I have been doing too exactly as you explained. The only thing I did wrong was I did not seal the ziplock bag properly ,the cuttings still look healthythank god. I just took a new piece of newspaper sprayed it and wraped them back up will check on then daily now just to be safe. No mold yet either and I only cleaned them with water as well.

Nelson,

If your cuttings don't make it, I can send you cuttings in Jan/Feb. Won't be from your family tree but you will at least have that variety.

Sue

Thanks for the offer Sue. I think I will be OK I hope I have 5 cuttings but they are all new years growth so thats the tricky part.

So today I checked on my 2 Black Beberas and guess what I found yup thats right two roots growing out of the bottom  of each cutting. Green variety is starting to show bumps on only 2 of the 5 cuttings. Need to buy a camera asap to take pics.

Congrets Nelson, looks like you're a new Pop. Yes pictures please.

Oh Gene I started dancing when I seen roots, dont want to get too excited yet this is just phase one of the Joy. I need to pic up a camera just to keep at work to take pics of the progress. Will post pics soon

Congratulations !
Now don't go and break any roots trying to take pictures and ruin everything !   ; )

haha thats funy you say that, The verte cuttings I tossed out well didnt one of them grow some roots that last week and I ripped them when I pulled out the cutting you should of seen my face Pretty sure there was smoke coming out of my ears. Oh Martin these cuttings I was talking to them earlier lol I told them that I would take good care of them but they had to give me a chance, ha thats funny cause thats what I used to tell my ex's but thats another story.

Great News Nelson, they rooted very quickly. I hope they do well for you.

thanks Fatnsassytexan I was actually expecting the white to root first because I was told the Black variety takes longer to root. They are pretty much the same size around 10 Inches the only difference was the cuts the black has a 45 degree cut the white straight all under the same temp. lighting exact same conditions.

Here some pics of My great Grandfathers Fig tree not the best quality tree was cut down to half its size 5 years ago.

Nelson it looks like it needed topping off. It looks very productive according to the second picture and third picture. All I can saw is WOW and I hope your do as well .

Thanks for the nice pic's.

Thanks guys this tree is very productive but when I was there in 2001 was more than double the size my great Uncle nearly killed it 5 years ago by cutting more than half the tree down not sure why he would do that. This year was a very bad year in Madeira for figs because of the rain lots of rain over there and these figs are rippening quite a bit later than usual. Winter climate in madeira is usually between 14-20 degrees celcius but they still go dormant usually in late Nov. early Dec. Sometimes even later depending on the weather.

Thanks for sharing the pictures Nelson.
You say not the best quality tree can you explain please.

Oops my bad what I meant was not the best of quality pics, the figs are tasty.

Nelson, I am soo happy for you, the tree looks very nice in the pics.  I wish you the best with more rooting.  This is a very special tree for you, It wil be the prize in your fig family.  Ciao

Ok so this is my observation so far.

3 of the cuttings 2 black 1 white I started in 60/40 perlite & Soil mix and put them on a heat mat for 7 days then removed them from the mat. After the 12th day I carefully tiped the cups and gently let the mix out very slowly and patiently to observe the cuttings and found that these three all had little roots forming at the bottom cut about 1/2" long on each cutting. I know this is risky business but I have been lucky so far.


The other 4 cuttings all white variety I did the papertowel baggie method and only 1 so far is showing root Initials the other three still look the healthy but no root initials. I have been changing the newspaper about every 2nd 3rd day.

So far no mold problems on any of the cuttings in the baggie one of the cottings in soil had a little mold where one of the figs where taken.

Thats it so far

Ok so today I passed by work to check on the cuttings the two black Variety I can finally see roots through the cups. Thats the only ones with visible roots some of the white variety the buds are starting to break but no visible roots the two longest cuttings of the white have absolutely no root bumps not sure what to do with those two at this point.

Hi Nelson, glad your black ones are rooting. Re: the white ones that are showing no progress, just be patient making sure they don't mold or dry out. They should eventually root. I've had this happen many times when some sticks of the same variety just take longer. Good luck!

Tim

Just what Tim said some take longer than others, heck come to thing of it i had one take 2 and a half months .

Ok so far I have put 5 cuttings into soil & perlite mix 3 of them have visible roots 2 black 1 white. The other two white I put in soil today were starting to root at the bottom cut and had root initials at the two bottom nodes so hopefully by the end of the week I will see visible roots on those as well. This time I made sure the soil was just moist not wet like the other cuttings I did this summer some grew roots quickly but died right after.  Anyone ever use New Zealand Sphagnum instead of the newspaper and is there any benefits to using the NZ Sphagnum ? Luckily I have not had any issues yet with mold.

Oh all cutings in cups I put a cup over for that dome effect.