After some major failures and rotting the roots off half my cuttings, I've revived most of of them and seem to have a system that works pretty well.  I root my plants in sphagnum in a bag, then move them to a mix in a 16 oz cup and onto a heat mat, and when I see 5-6 good thick roots along the side plus a leaf or two, I move them to a lighted chamber (no heat mat in this lighted chamber).  It's working great, but I've noticed that all the developing roots change directions from going down/around the cup on the heat mat to going straight up in the light chamber.  I'm guessing it has a lot to do with the heat generated from the lights.  The result of this is that most of the roots stop when they get to the top.

So the question....does it matter?  Will they be fine if all their root tips are at the soil line when I pot them up?  Has anyone else seen this before?  Other than this little curiosity, they're doing great, so I don't want to mess with what works unless I have reason to believe I'm hurting them in the long run. 

Thanks,
Brett

Automatic root pruning.  

I've had roots do the same.  No issues here.

The only explanation I can think of is that the heat mat drys out the soil- medium from the bottom up , so the roots trying to get the moisture turn towards the top!

It's not a bad thing.  It can be a good thing, actually, if the roots grow up, because they will self prune when they reach the top.  This will encourage more branching, which is better than a bunch of long straight roots.  If they keep going up and out of the soil instead of stopping right when they get to the top then it's probably a bit too humid in there.

Don't know why they have decided to turn upwards, but that really doesn't matter.  As long as they are still producing roots, then they will most likely survive. 

Brett can you explain the spagnum process. What does the moss look like how wet what kind of bag. The usall time in bag. How warm is bag. Is,bag on heat mat .... thanks richie

I had similar problems (mold, rotting) but am now successfully using the sphagnum moss in a bag method. Now I'm afraid to transfer to a cup. What type of potting medium do you use?

Well, I'm glad to hear that it won't matter so much, and may even be advantageous!  So thank you for the replies on that from the experts.

Richie:  As for the setup.  I took a gallon freezer bag and filled it with damp sphagnum.  I used the stuff from lowes, if it matters.  I made sure to ring it out as well as I could prior to putting the figs in it...even using a paper towel or two to soak any extra moisture out of it.  I really stuffed the bags with moss too...not like...crammed tight, but certainly full.  The bags of moss/cuttings then ended up in a closed 18 gallon bin with the heat mat in it, but not directly on the heat mat.  Cuttings started rooting in a week, and some are still rooting (6+ weeks later).  Many of them I actually potted up in perlite, which I then drowned them in and seemingly killed them all, but they are actually re-rooting now in sphagnum!  Tough little guys...

llamalady:  So after having really bad luck with perlite, I switched gears.  When cuttings rooted in the moss (1/2" long roots or so), I moved them to a prewetted (but not soaking...it doesn't take much water!) mix of MG orchid mix (60%), perlite(30%), and seed starting mix (10%) inside a clear plastic 16oz cup with holes in it, and moved them to the heat mat inside an 18 gallon bin/tub.  Of note...I did get some root gnats, but I put a sticky trap in the bin with them, and they aren't really a problem...its good to do this early though, before they multiply.  Once I saw good roots, I took them out of the chamber and moved them to a bin stacked on top of the humidity bin with grow lights. 

Thus far, even with me seemingly "killing" about half the cuttings early on, it's looking like I'll end up with at least an 70-80% success rate.  Truly amazing, because 2-3 weeks ago I thought I'd be lucky to get 20% to survive.

I can post more detailed pictures if anyone would like.

Thank you i bought spanum. Orchard mix pearlite. Vermiculite MG CUTTING MIX ETC ALL UNOPENED SO I CAN TRY ACTUALLY WHAT YOU DID. IF NOT TO MUCH TROUBLE WHEN YOU HAVE TIME IT WOULD BE NICE TO SEE WHAT EVER PICS YOU HAVE. THANKS FOR SHARING. RICHIE

I hate to be a wet blanket but with roots headed up I'd want to check the bottom of the cups to be sure they're not too wet and do it again right after watering.  16 Oz cups are certainly more available, take up less space and are probably cheaper but the cuttings will outgrow them fairly quickly. 

A lot of nurseries will give away their excess pots under 5 gal or so.  A 1 gal pot should be a reasonable compromise between space available and space taken up.  Where are you?  I think zone/state, province or country is even more important than first name  :)

Brett. I did step one have the m in one gallon zips with the moss rung out and used papper towls to finish dryind which worked well. They are in tub with heat mat and lid. Question is how long to keep them in there. When roots first start or can you leave them till well rooted? Thanks. Richie

In my case roots going up through soil and crawling on soil surface happens most often when pots are in high humidity environment say about 70% and high when natural root pruning slows down (or stops) due to moisture availability.