Hello,
My statement on the "baggie method" simply means that they did not mention (from what I could tell) any use of their bagged cuttings to promote initial root growth. I am sure most of us use plastic bags to store our cuttings in the refrigerator (with a slightly damp paper towel or newspaper inside).
The "baggie method" that has been discussed on the forums is a way to generate initial roots - cuttings wrapped a bit in slightly moist newspaper, kept in a 70 - 80 deg F location under not so bright lights and check for mold.
So that is the difference. Bags for storage, bags for root generation. Someone else will need to answer the question about amino acids and protein. I am rusty on that topic.
Ottawan - You are correct. This paper is about maintaining cutting vitality prior to starting the rooting process. Since they addressed waxing the cuttings, I thought it would fit in with the topic. The paper did not have any extensive discussion on why the various methods worked well or not so well, except that the 'control' failed due to lack of moisture, which is obvious.
I’ll try not to get carried to far on this topic, but I have two other interesting research papers that are unfortunately not on line. I would highly recommend two publications that contain a wealth of information. These will be found only in special science libraries but could probably be borrowed through a library loan.
The ISHS I and II International Symposim on Fig from 1998 and 2003. These are from ISHS Acta Horticulturae publications #480 and #605. There are two papers in volume 605 that come from researchers at the University in Lavras, Brazil.
The first paper is ‘Rooting of Fig (Ficus carica L) Cuttings: Cutting Time and IBA by N.N.J. Chalfun et al. I’ll try to be suscinct and brief. In this experiment cuttings were taken at 15 day intervals between April and August. One group was treated with IBA (indolebutyric acid - a root promoter) and the other group of cuttings for each of the dates was not. They were planted in a 3:2 ratio of soil and sand. The best results came from the early cuttings taken on April 15 - %92 rooted without IBA and %100 rooted with IBA. This decreased over time - for example, cuttings taken on July 30 and not treated had a %37 rate and with IBA %55 rooting success. Obviously the early cuttings were taken closer to the period after dormancy had set in. One other factor was evaluated and that was the above soil vegetative growth - there was greater leafing and budding later in the season which is dependent on heat and was absent earlier in the season. Humidity as a factor was not discussed.
The second paper is, Factors Affecting on Rooting of FIgs (Ficus Carica L) Cuttings by L.E. C Antunes, et al. In this experiment they evalated three factors - stratification period, amount of IBA and soil used. They took dormant 8” cuttings for this experiment. They found that a combination of no stratification time, a sand soil mix 1:1 and an IBA concentration of 100 mg/l got %100 success in rooting. After a 15 day stratification period, this was reduced to %91. They made note that how well a cutting is stored affects this rate of success. Factors such as attack from pathogens damage stored cuttings over time.
They did not discuss factors such as improved cold storage methods, humidity. So that is it in a nutshell. More details are discussed in the papers, but due to time and space limitations I thought that the basic successful principals would be most interesting. If you have a method that works, stick with it. Otherwise, there might be something interesting to consider from these research papers.
Ingevald