It is late in the season, so I took all of my leftover cuttings, which were now 10 months old (don't ask) and of which most were still good. "Bad" ones were discarded.

It was finally cool enough, or so I thought (we have been hitting 80F on some days, but so far so good), so i could take the shade cloth off the top of my greenhouse (gets too hot in the summer, otherwise).

The plan was to keep it warm, which often causes the cuttings to break dormancy and grow leaves before roots. My thought was to allow good light levels through the double-wall translucent plastic without actual direct sun. The hope was that the new leaves would begin to put energy back into the cuttings to help push rooting, and overcome the finite amount of stored energy in the cutting that may have been disproportionately used for leaves rather than roots.

So far this seems to be working, after 3 weeks or so. The leaves are lusher, darker and more numerous and robust than on cuttings not in high light levels and many are starting to to push good roots. There have been little if any leaf drop on the cuttings, like the first leaves sometimes/often do. They seem stronger and healthier than cuttings rooted in low light. There is a ways to go with this experiment, and it won't be definitive, but the preliminary results are encouraging.

If this continues to progress as hoped it will probably mean that growing cuttings under grow lights would be an improvement in our rooting techniques.

Setting milestone!  Good job and thanks for sharing.

Sounds quite interesting Jon.  I do my rooting of cuttings in the light, with the amount of indirection decided by how much green they have (and increase the dosage of sunlight as they get roots).  I've never tried any of those "dark" starting techniques that are described on the site, but I'd been wondering if I ought to.  But you've got hundreds of times more experience than I, so it's quite interesting to hear your comparison of the techniques in your experience.  Quite interesting news... keep us all posted.
 
Mike   central NY state, zone 5

Great work Jon, i grow my cutting in the dark for 2 weeks on top the stand up freezer so it gets heat from the condinser. my greenhouse is far to cold in the late fall and early winter so my bananas, citrus, miracle fruit, and pepino melon come in, the grow lights come up, and i start fooling around with rooting cuttings, areoponics, and plant tissue culture. hard core propagation mode. after 2 weeks the cuttings move under the grow lights in the bathroom for higher humidity from the shower. i got around 80 to 90 % rooting. 100% on pepino propigation. every new test or method is a breakthough. keep it up. and i can sastain about 800 plants during winter in the right pots. nothing much but a great hobby.

Dave

Observation, and a good measure of science thrown in = better results. 

Hope you can come to some reproducible conclusions, and alternative methods of rooting, that can be exploited by all of us.


No textbooks has this latest information.  The FIG4FUN FORUM is our textbook!

Good work Jon....

Frank

so far, i have been lucky. if the cuttings had leaves but no root, i just put them into cups. sooner or later they all rooted. but i haven't let them in the sun. i was afraid light and heat will dry up the cuttings. i'll have to give this a shot. indirect sun light.

Jon,
   Will try this technique immediately.  Wife bought me a little cutting she had in a glass of water. One nice leaf...no roots.  Potted it up and put it in a semi shady part of the dining room table. Keeping fingers crossed.  Thanks for the "new" idea.
               

I did this last year.  I had a much cooler environment than Jon's.  I was not convinced it helped.  I had lots with leaves and no roots for months.  Eventually most like that died.

I'm happy when anything on a cutting shows signs of growth. Regardless if it's visible roots through the mix, or the slightest swelling/greening of a bud, into better light it goes. And by 'light' I mean under ordinary florescent shop lights, or very filtered natural sunlight near windows, depending on the time of year.

But it can be tricky - if there are leaves without roots (and you don't have a greenhouse), I find it necessary to keep the humidity up for obvious reasons (no roots). But if you keep it too enclosed for that higher humidity, the temps can get too high and you run the risk of mold. For me, when the temps get to the mid 70sF, I try to prevent it from going too much higher. This can be very difficult if the weather does not cooperate and you don't have AC.

I love seeing leaves form - it allows the plant to begin photosynthesis so there will be more energy (carbs) for roots to form. Such cuttings don't always make it of course, but I'd rather have the leaves than nothing. With leaves I at least know I have a chance for something. The cuttings that just sit there forever doing nothing are the ones that are frustrating.

The danger with shoots forming before roots is that you can run into carbohydrate shunting which is when the shoot takes all the energy from the cutting and not enough for the roots which could lead to death, I think Jon's worked well because he had warm temperatures that were not too cold or hot to stress the cuttings, if the roots stay warm and the buds or shoots are slightly cooler, (someone else had pointed this out to potentially solving the problem.) especially if it cools down at night, then sugars can be better redirected to the roots.

one of my Socorro Black put out good roots, but didn't put on a leaf until right before the temp drop. i like roots.. but seeing leaf coming out is more fun. 

Hmm, I keep all my rooting cuttings under light, in a cup if soil. My temps are around 85 degrees. I get close to 95% success rate. I do use rooting hormone and and then beneficial soil bacteria.

I love the leaves too!  But not a fan of the yellow/white shoots that develop in the dark while rooting.  Amazing how they go green in the double cup system.  But what I don't like is when their green leaves go black from too much moisture.  I really try hard to introduce air into that top cup, but now and then, I have to hit it with Physan 20, and leave the lid off for a day or two.

Suzi

I am also rooting cuttings in my greenhouse. I think the filtered light plus humidity is helping them grow faster and stronger.

I have been considering how to do my rooting project this winter.  Thank you Jon, and the rest of you for your thoughts.  I can see at least one change to my plan for this year.

I've never rooted figs in complete darkness.  Sometimes in my shadehouse in the summer, sometimes in the greenhouse, but I do them in my shop under a grow light when I don't have a lot at once that I'm doing.

Here are some that I started on November 21 (photo taken that day).  They are in a tub (now has a lid on it) and the tub is sitting on a propagation mat set to 85F.  Has worked very well in the past.

I have my cuttings in a rubbermaid tub with lid similar to Harvey's there. I have it sitting about an inch above the floor register and currently have a blanket over most of it to keep it dark. I have a thermometer inside and the temperature is always between 70 & 80 (depending on how much the furnace has to run on a given day). Works great for heat and humidity. I have a couple VdB and Colasanti Dark cuttings that have rooted already and now are under grow lights after being repotted. I'm using a 60/40 perlite vermiculite mix to root.

Tyler

I'm so friggin dark ages! 

I just root in damp (not wet) sphagnum moss in a baggie, and when the roots pop out all white and pretty, I cup them up in peat and perlite on the bottom, an another cup with air holes on top, cover the bottom with foil, and there they go!  One or two of you might be the lucky recipient of extra rare cuttings I have that are rocking in their double cups.

Suzi

From last year:

Low light (2-3 hrs.) on left, high light (6+ hrs) on right and bottom. Started outside in the spring.