I finally bought  a thermostat at Home Depot that controls electric baseboard heaters, and wired it to accept a set of female plug ends on one side, and male plug end on the other that gets connected to a standard electrical outlet.  Attached to the female side, which is a set of three female plugs, I have a convection heater, and a cheap humidifier.   The temperature is set to 70 deg, and when it gets below that, whatever is plugged into the female sockets (in my case, the heater and the humidifier) kick in, until it reaches its temperature.  This is no different than a regular furnace thermostat, but it has been modified to accept electrical connections.
So finally my question.  The temperature is pretty steady between 69-71 deg.  The humidity, is at 60-70%.
Is this too high.
Is there a minimum or maximum?
Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks

I don't know that anyone has figured out what is "too little", but if the humidity is, say, 10% or something, the humidity in the air is probably going to be so low it would suck moisture out of the stick and/or your soil.

70% is a great number, that's about what I was running last year inside my clear containers and it seemed to be ideal.  Anything above 90% left me with lots of big-beads of water droplets on the walls of the box, which, if not wiped out, seemed to result in mold on the portion of the cutting above the soil level, around leaf buds and at the tip especially.

I would personally aim for 70%-80%.

Sounds good, but I have never measured my humidity. It is important to change the air from time to time. Fresh air inhibits a lot of mold problems.

I might bump the temp to73ish.

While reading this thread about temp and humidity for cuttings it made me think about my chicken egg incubators, I have one that is homemade from an old fridge ( I have store bought ones that are smaller). In the incubator I can control temp,humidity and air exchange. Do you think it would be worth trying if I set it up at 75% humidity, 75 degress and a small volume of air exchange?. I can keep it dark or light in there. I don't know how many cubic feet the fridge is right off, but its prettt big.I'm just getting started in figs so I don't have many cuttings to just play around with yet..just seeing what you guys think..

Well, it looks like I am on track, I will bump up the temperature to 73 or so and monitor things

Anything new is worthwhile in my opinion. "Why not"?

Grant, jump on it.

Grant, I was thinking the same thing about using incubators.  I raise cockatoos and have a couple incubators in the house.  With the air circulation, I can raise the RH up extremely high (95%+) and have never had a mold issue.  From pip to hatch, it can take cockatoos up to 4-5 days and if you have several in a clutch, that means that the humidity is up there for several weeks at a time if not months. 

I mix 20ccs of Nolvasan to 1 gal of water and wipe the incubator out weekly.  That's it.  Have never had issues with mold on the inside walls or even the hatching chicks.  Good luck and let us know.  I bet the incubators will work great. 

Cathy

Indoor fig propagation methods that utilize a "stable" temperature (in the 70-80 degree F range) work much better (fewer losses & fewer mold issues) than methods which do not control the rooting temperature. Relative Humidity should be from 70 to 95%. You avoid lots of molding problems on cuttings by keeping the rooting temperature stable. That's because you do not cross the dew point which forms uncontrolled moisture on your cuttings that often causes mold. Keep the temperature stable and you WILL NOT SEE mold forming condensation on your cuttings. Because liquid condensation is so pure (zero electrolytes in it) it can actually draw sugars out of the cutting which becomes food for mold. Keep condensation from forming by keeping temperatures stable....no new food...no mold. Cecil mentioned using incubators over a year ago. 

Grant have fun......

Dan

Hi Cathy,  I forgot all about Nolvasan!  I used that when I was raising and showing Yorkies for over 20 years.  It will even combat ringworm (a fungus) when used as a dip on the dogs' coats.

What concentration do you use?  There used to be only one, but then they came out with a second concentration and I don't recall which I used, originally.  Nolvasan is Chlorhexidine and I often used the generic at the same concentration.  I will try that with my cuttings and see what happens.  I'm so glad you mentioned it, thanks.

The Nolvasan I used was mixed at 1 Tablespoon/gal, which is 15cc/gal.  I see you use 20ccs.  How did you arrive at that mixture and again, what concentration is your Nolvasan?

Thanks,

noss

Dan,  We keep our A/C at 74 deg. in the warm weather and the heater about that in the cooler weather.  If I try to root cuttings inside, is it good to drill some vent holes at the bottom of the box container and also in the lid for air circulation like was mentioned in someone else's post?  And also is it good to put a rack to keep the cups off the bottom of the box container?  Do I ever want to see any condensation in that box container at all?

Noss,

I will give you a call sometime this week. It would take too long for me to write all the information that I will give you. It is easier to answer questions over the phone.

Dan

OK.  Thanks, Dan.

noss

Hi Noss,

The concentration on my gallon jug is 2% Chlorhexidine diacetate.
I use the 20cc/gal just to make sure that I have enough to do the job.
I mix up a container of Nolvasan solution to soak my syringes between uses.  When we use the syringes we rinse them before we put them back into the Nolvasan bucket which adds a few drops of water each time they are put back in, ready for the next use.

Please report your results on your cuttings.
Cathy

Hi Cathy,

Thanks for the information. Twenty cc = just six teaspoons.  I love Nolvasan because it doesn't stain things.

noss