Hello everyone. My name is Bob, and I'm new to this forum. It's just fantastic that there are so many fig enthusiasts on here, and some of them so close to where I live!

I tried my hand for the first time at rooting Brown Turkey Fig clippings last fall, on the advice of a farmer who had success by "just sticking the clipping into some dirt, in a pot, and leave it in the basement over winter."  Honestly, that was his exact advice to me.  You can probably figure out how that turned out.

Now I have about a dozen sticks in pots that I've brought out from the basement and exposed to light/heat for about two weeks. Nothing.  No leaves or buds at all.

My question: How can I tell if these clippings are still viable for some of the correct rooting methods discussed on this site?  If so, what methods do you suggest?

Thanks for any advice you can give!

Basically, if they are moldy or look even a little shrivelled, they are done for. You can root a cutting as short as 3" vertically. Shorter than that, bury the whole thing about 1.5" deep and keep damp (of course you can bury longer pieces too). The farmer was not wrong or lying when he told you you can just stick it in a pot, but it is not the most effective way to get cuttings to root. I have done it that way and had success. Just a cpl of days ago I did just that to a bunch of extra cuttings I had stored in the refrigerator since late Feb. After being at room temperature for a few weeks, many had rooted and were sprouting. I took most of them (especially the rooted ones) and sunk them into on of my raised beds and covered them with 60% black shadecloth. I did this with one of my oversized cuttings back on 1 March and the thing is growing nicely. Other than that, there are many threads on this site that offers effective methods of rooting cuttings. Shop around. Good luck!

Sheairs.  A good place to start is one the Figs 4 Fun home page and look under Propagation.  There are several good examples there.  Also in the forum, there are numerous  examples of the good, bad, and ugly + surprises when growing figs.  Good luck. 

First off welcome to the forum.
two weeks is not enough time keep them warm and in filtered light under a tree and wait. Brown turkey is one of the easiest to root. they just need time the dirt in the middle of those pots is still to cold to start rooting.

a lot of cuttings will start to shrivel like a raisin and get a very unnatural deathly looking reddish brown color to them when they're not viable.

Hi Bob, and welcome to the Forum.

What I do is this: Use your thumb nail to carefully scratch a tiny area away from the surface of the cutting.

If you can find some green there is hope, if you can't it's a goner.

Moldy or shiveled is obviously bad news too, but if you can find some green just under the surface of the bark there is hope.

The BT is a good variety to start with though.  To quote Jason from an earlier post: "Brown Turkeys will root in gasoline" (he is being emphatic; don't really try this anyone!).  ;-)

Best wishes.

John

One last rather dangerous way...

Thanks to everyone for their great advice!

After close inspection of a few of the cuttings, I think that they are all pretty much dead.  A few of them were even hollow in the middle (from the bottom-up).

I did keep two cuttings submersed in water -- and even though they have been in the same water since last November, neither show signs of mold or mildew.  But conversely, neither one has any real roots aside from a few root "buds", and no leaves.  I'm going to use one or two of the methods discussed on this forum, and see how I make out. I think the main issue with those two is that they were kept cool, and this made them go dormant (?).

I'll post pictures of before and after in a month or so.

Thanks again!

Bob