here they are.



pete

Congrats Pete,

Healthy set of roots.

Bullet you did a wonderful job !

Nice job, how much time had past to form all them roots?


luke

thanks guys.

the air layer was on for 6 weeks. i cut them today, and put them in 1 gal pots. i'll give them two weeks to stabilize then will ship out to two members i made trade with.

pete

Perfec job, mine never look that good, what medium did you use? 

Wow, very impressive! 

Is there a thread detailing how you did that?

edit: found it. :)

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/Kathleen-Black-air-layer.-5832556

barry,

50/50 seedling soil and perlite. i use that for all my cuttings and other things when starting out. then i change to 5:1:1 mix.

gina,

i use lazy method.. get some plastic wrap, put few handful of soil on it, wrap that around the cutting area which i prep (i scrap off the bark to below green layer, then i score the branch number of times). tape top and bottom, and wrap the whole thing in foil. wait a week and check for leak.. wait a month to see progress..

pete

Yay!!!! Congrats 

Nice work Pete and very nice roots.

A picture would answer the following questions very quickly...Can you provide a little more detail revealing what you did? For example, concerning scrape and score, I presume that is similar to girdling the trunk. Did you scrape all the way around the trunk? What did you use? And did you score after scraping? If so, where? Finally, on the picture with the roots, where did your scrape and score the trunk?

I am totally impressed! 

When I used to grow bonsai trees I toyed with the idea of air-layering but chickened out.  Maybe I'll give it a try!!

I'll have to find a tree the owners will let me experiment with lol

JD,

Kathleen's Black grows very fast. i didn't expect the air layer to come out this  big. when i started the air layer, they were both about half the size.

i picked the location where i wanted the roots to come out. then i ran knife up and down about 2 inches scraping the bark. i didn't girdle the trunk, but it's was about the same. i scraped the bark in up and down motion then skip about 1/4 inches and did it again so there are areas with barks in between the scraped area. after doing that, i ran the knife to score the area in diagnal motion. i didn't cut in deep. just enough to go below the bark.

i used my pocket knife that i always carry.

i think the weather helped a lot in this air layer. last year, i did air layer in fall. the root mass wasn't as dense as this year.

after i took the air layer off, i trim the older leaves and left about 3 leaves on top and new branches coming out.

this morning when i was coming out to office, the leaves were already perking up. so it seems the roots are working already.

pete

They look beautiful, and the joy of simple air layering is the absence of worry that the cutting will grow roots without the support of the moma tree.

I've got so many trees promised to friends, and family, I'm going out today and do some air layering on my VdB!

Great post!
Suzi

Thanks Pete.

I want to try your approach. I have never gotten roots as abundant and impressive as those you have shown. This is final jeopardy because I only think I know what you are doing.

I am thinking vertical stripes that are 2" long. The stripes alternate scraped bark and bark with the barked stripes about 1/4" wide. Then you diagonally score those barked stripes. Is that right? I will attach graphic.

JD,

the picture you posted is about what i did. i score the trunk all over, not just the bark area. my though was give more area for the roots to come out, but for whatever reason, i didn't feel like girdling the trunk. i'm sure it will do about the same thing as what i did.

i think the success was more to do with my tree. KB just grows wild. it just wants put out lot of growth. i think that was one of the reason why i was having issue getting figs out of it. too much vegitative growth and not much for the figs.

i was checking RdB other other day and they already have very good set of roots on them, both green and hard cuttings. i think RdB might grow even better than KB. Smith, and Scott's Black are putting out leaves, but no sign of roots. Socorro Black seems to be dead as a door knob. no progress that i can see.

pete

Just walked out to see which branches to air layer, and it's tough to find any without figs!  I guess it's ok if there are figs on there, and in a couple months, the figs should be ripe, so I can eat first, then cut?  Can I air layer a branch with figs on it?

Suzi

suzi,

if you look at the picture of the air layers, one of them has 2 figs on it. i don't think it makes any difference if you have fig on it or not.

pete

Well, I sort of saw one fig, but it was tiny.  Mine are already pretty big.  I was just wondering if it takes more roots to support the fruit.  Hate to lose them before they ripen in August.

Also, with all those legions of roots, do you separate them from their circles prior to planting?

Suzi

very nice pete they will do good...............

So when you remove an air layer even with good roots, should you remove some leaves to reduce stress on the new plant?

i not sure. but i know that my air layer from last year dropped all the leaves. so i just removed some leaves. the two pictured above are doing lot better. i guess with more root mass, there is less chance for leaves dropping.

pete