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Need help with cuttings starting to droop

First year doing cuttings I used root riot and I had like 90% success so far, once there were massive root coming out of cubes I moved to 1gal pots about a week to ten days ago, each pot is covered with empty soda bottles for mini green house, I've been slowly adding holes to bottles plus have been removing bottles every day for a bit, I'm up to 3 hrs a day in 1 hr increments, also I started yesterday putting in direct sun for 45 minutes per day set on timer, I noticed yesterday and today on the CdDG cuttings I'm getting saggy wet looking leaves very soft mushy almost, where did I go wrong, and it's only on like 4 of the 10 on one cutting half the leaves fell off they keep NSA folded upward and inward and blackened on perimeter and fell off today, up until now I thought I had this in the bag! But apparently not please help what should I do, oh yeah they are also being kept on window sills all day and get a nice amount of light all day
Thanks
Justin

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I've had leaves falling off of cuttings and it's most likely there isn't enough uptake of water for quickly growing leaves i.e. the roots are developing slower than the leaves.

They don't need direct sun until they are actively growing. Move them back into the indirect light. Lower humidity as you are trying to do. With root riot the difficult period is right where your at. Get them growing and you'll have it made.

I don't think you want those in full sun,they're too young.You definitely
don't want them taking full sun with a bottle over them.The bottle is to
retain moisture,by placing them in the sun you are creating a greenhouse
effect.It's best to move them slowly through increasing gradients of light.

Rooting is the easy part,getting them stable in #1's is where most are lost.
It's much more important to maintain turgor pressure at this point in stable
filtered light.Subjecting them to wild temp swings is a recipe for disaster.




Thanks for the video Paul. It explains things really well. I always had some idea of how it worked, but never explained like this.

I have lost 3 cuttings after the leafs started wilting, the roots looked like they were dying when I looked at them out of the containers... It was at the same stage as yours, and each time it seemed they started wilting after I put them too close to the window on an extra hot and bright day...
I think it was a combo of the roots being to wet, the soil being to compacted, and the plants getting to hot.

I posted about a no hardening off method I used in my hot dry climate in a different forum. It has worked for me and perhaps it might work for you. At least for the 13 cuttings I started this year not one has wilted, not even when it's 90s and very low humidity. For those interested please pm me for a link. I won't post links to a different site.

If a cutting wilts and has enough water, it might have too much water, or changed temperature too much.  I haven't had much luck once it gets to that point (unlike too little water, which is easily solved and the cutting usually bounces right back).

I currently use no humidity at all and this simplifies things a lot for me.  I keep the temperature about 76 degrees and I rarely lose a cutting (maybe 3-4 out of 60 or so this year).

The cutting could be starting to rot. Dial down the moisture...

I've had cuttings do that, drop all leaves but still come back, others died and when I inspected the cuttings, the portion below the soil line was all mushy.  

I had the same problem with a new starting mix I was trying, they developed nice little leaves for a week then drooped. Pulling them out of the mix revealed the bottom 1 inch on each cutting was rotted. I washed the cutting trimmed the rot back to green cutting and replanted in my old mix. I will see what happens but some are developing new buds. The new mix held too much moisture. Had I done any thing else and they would be a lost cause by now. If you think you have rot pull them out of the planting and trim it off while you still have healthy portions to attempt to reroot. FWIW!

If you give them some water and it is still droop with humidity cover, it is highly likely weak roots/rot roots problem.
This area easy to root, but very easy to rot as well, if it is rotted, you might need to trim them away.
Roots at node area are better.

[Fig_rooting_bottom_123]  problem.

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