I've got several thick cuttings that I want to root. I've never tried rooting large cuttings. If successful, I imagine they will make nice trees in a short time. They are longer than a gallon zip-bag will allow. How do you guys get yours started?

I was thinking about wrapping the bottom end in damp spaghnum moss and sealing the bag around the cutting with a zip-tie, leaving the top exposed. I could then trickle water in as needed, kind of like with a air layer. What do you think?

I cut em in half and stick them in the baggie in sphagnum, and they root just fine!

Suzi

The nodes are pretty far apart. I hate to try with fewer than the total on the cuttings now.

My limited experience is that thick cutings take longer to root but produce great big trees much faster than small cuttings.  My experience dribbling water into sphagnum moss is that it collects at the bottom and suffocates the base even though none drips out.  I kept an eye on it but didn't realize the moss was acting as a saturated sponge at the bottom while the top was drying out.  I've put mine in a pot big enough to submerge the whole cutting and used dirty perlite and it's worked great.  I watered them most days because there was very little to hold the water.  If only 1/4" is sticking out the top there's no need for a humidity chamber.  I also used dip & grow.

I tried it last spring with Peter's Honey (cuttings about 1.5") by planting them directly into 3gal with mulch. They rooted just fine and developed 2 or 3 fine new trunks each.
The mulch was natural, derived from plant and grass clippings and contained some dirt (sandy), not the commercial with colors added.
Sal

Hey John, this is my first fatcutting. This was a piece of the trunk in which I had an airlayer above it, so after that one was removed, I cut this one. 

this is how I did, as I wanted to save the skinny branches from it.  the lenght was about 25" and the width of it is almost 2 1/2".  I crumbled moist/ barely wet) newspaper and padded around the entire thing. I put a little rooting hormone at the basal 1/2".   the crumbled paper around up to that area where the white powder was, so basal cut was exposed.  I put it inside of a plastic cup, it was loosely inside the cup.  I put the cup with the trunk laying down inside of a plastic tub and put it inside of a black garbage plastic bag- and in my cabinet over the heating vent. In a little over a week it had amazing roots all over. it is thriving now.  the fat ones have a lot more energy and given the right warm and moist (not a lot), each 3  days or so, I opened and gave it a little spray, but did not open all the way... to my surprise it was my quickest and fastest rooting.

be sure it is very clean and have no fly eggs in it, so give it a good washing/soap and dry excess water before you put in chambers.


the pictures of it is in my posting named Black Friday Fat and Rooted... I could not repost the link for you to see.

To try to root long thick cuttings, I throw some damp sphagnum pear into a plastic shopping bag, stick the cuttings in that, wrap a rubber band around the bag and cuttings then put the bag in a flower pot for support. I then take another plastic shopping bag and put that over the exposed tops of the cuttings and secure the lower end of the bag  to the flower pot with another rubber band. In that way both tops and bottoms received moisture.

Just get a horizontal plastic container like a the ones for wallpaper and put the damp spagnum moss in the bottom cover with seran
wrap and let it go. root it horizontally or you can just push it in the ground and let nature take over.. Chris beat with a brick about thirty into the garden like this 2 inches by 18 inches and almost everyone grew to become nice trees.. I Tease him saying he threatened them with another beating if they didnt grow

I just rooted an alma cutting that had to be an inch thick if not bigger, i treated it the same way I do any other cutting, ,,, dip n grow , then into wrap in damp spagnum moss that has been wrung out  wrapped in a paper towel  then into a freezer bag then into a container with a grow lamp shining on it, more for heat than anything else , in 10 days the roots were growing through the paper towels. I used this method with about 15 other variety of cuttings that I got from a VERY generous forum member and every cutting except one looked like the trees from the movie "lord of the rings"  as they walked on their roots. I haven't given up on the last cutting either, she's just being a tad stubborn. 

A cutting is a cutting is a cutting. They all need the same conditions, just different size containers, etc. Size does not change the rooting process.



The two bags in the middle were 1-2" cuttings, wrapped in damp newspaper and put in the plastic-bag-greenhouse in my upstairs. They rooted fine, same as short pencil-sized cuttings.

i'm rooting some really thick cuttings this winter.. but i'm seeing something i haven't before. it has what looks like white crumb all over the cutting. no they are not mold. it looks like when the root first come out, but there are so many of these that it's making mess everytime i'm check on the roots.

flakey white stuff. i had that on cuttings i rooted in the areoponic mist system. i have had better luck with thickr cuttings.

Thanks, everyone. I'm going to try several variations to see what works best for me. I appreciate the input.

I've used plastic sweater boxes and sphagnum similar to what Al mentioned with great results. 

I make a bed of pre-moistened, and then squeezed out, sphagnum. Lay the cuttings on that and cover them with either damp newspaper or more sphagnum. Both work just fine but I found that using the newspaper made it easier to pull back and check on the progress. I also keep the lid on to keep moisture in.

Jon's way is tried and proven as well.

I'm sure others mentioned above will work just fine too. Guess it depends a bit on preference as well as a few other factors such as how many you're rooting at once, etc. 

This post couldn't be more timely.  I just received some rather thick (~1-2 inches) cuttings today and was wondering how to approach the rooting.  I have my answers thanks to all of you.

It's a cutting, and you want it to grow roots. Size makes no difference. It's a cutting and you want it to grow roots. Same rule apply.

size matters not, young padawn.

My neighbor was cutting down his fig tree and I asked him if I could have some cuttings. He gave me as many as I would take. Then he said "here take this branch, you can grow a fig tree quicker with a bigger branch."
I thought to myself...ok... so I dipped the end in honey and stuck it in manure. I lifted it out of the manure about a month ago and it had roots growing, I was sure it was dead. We'll see what happens I guess.

Sized doesn't matter. They root just like smaller cuttings.

honey and manure? Interesting!

Can anyone share any insights on using honey. I tried it on a few BT and Celeste cuttigns very recently since its pretty standard practice with blueberries (the only plant before figs I have rooted). On the special cuttings I didn't use honey though. My thinking is honey would be a too acidic for figs but you never know until you try. I also had some fungus gnats on one cutting and honey seems to be a pretty good anti-fungal.