Back again.
I've been lurking around the forum since I introduced myself here about two months ago. At that time I was happy to have locally purchased a couple fig trees and I thought a *couple* trees would be about the extent of my fig hobby. Wrong. Within a couple days, I was surfing around Ebay and ended up making some purchases on an impulse. I bought some cuttings:

LSU gold from seller figsnstuff
Ronde de Bordeaux from seller treesofjoy
Strawberry verte from seller 06picl

I know the sellers are all members here, and they all did very well for me. All the cuts seemed to my untrained eye to be top quality.

So the next challenge was to get roots & leaves on them. My work schedule is unusual in that I am gone from home 2 weeks a month. The schedule makes caring for cuttings in the ways I read about here not possible. I have some experience rooting other plants like citrus, peppers and even ironwood trees & Texas mountain laurel (very low success % on the last two). I have some homemade hydroponic equipment that is automated that has helped rooting other species, so I decided to try an experiment rooting my fig cuttings with what has worked for me before with other tree types. I am using a flood and drain type hydroponic unit like the one described here:
http://www.hydroponicsonline.com/11plan01.htm
The main reason I am using this is because in the past I've found it can be left unattended for at least a month and does fine. I didn't build this system for the fig cuttings, I've had several systems like this over the last 10 or so years for other projects and just used what I have.

Anyway, I prepped the fig cuttings two different ways as an experiment. Some of them I wrapped in a single layer of parafilm tape on the section of the cutting above the rooting media. Some of them I sprayed with a coating of "anti-stress 2000" on the above media section. Anti-stress 2000 is an anti-transpirant used on food crops. I sealed the top cut on all cuttings with grafting sealer. These treatments are intended to slow down the drying of the above ground section of the cutting while allowing air exchange and any leaves that want to form an easy path. I didn't want to use bags or tupperware for humidity for fear the lack attention in airing out would hurt them. I already have all this stuff on hand because I use it on my citrus trees and for hobby grafting. It isn't something I bought especially for fig cutting rooting.

After prepping them, I put them into the hydro system in small, clear cups full of pumice media. I set the system under a couple 4 foot 2 tube shop lights on a 12-12 schedule and then had to leave them for 2 weeks away at work.

It's 26 days later now, I've been home for almost 2 weeks and it's time for me to pack for my next work trip. I'm going to leave the cuts in the system for the next two weeks I'm away. They are mostly doing good, actually better than I expected at this point. I have them on 1/3 strength hydro fertilizer now. I started with 11 cuttings; 4 RdB, 4 strawberry verte and 3 LSU gold. All of them have leaves and roots now, except one of the RdB sprouted leaves and roots but then the leaves died back. It may be the first loss of this experiment but I haven't given up on it yet. On all the others I can see a bit of growth every day now, so they seem to be doing okay. With other plants, it has been my experience that once cuttings get a little bit of roots and foliage in this system, they explode with growth. It will be interesting to see how my cuttings look when I get home in 2 weeks. I definitely plan to plant them into something else when I get home in two weeks. I'm thinking I'll probably put them directly in homemade 5 gallon "global bucket" type SWC's in preparation for transitioning to the backyard.

Here are some hastily taken pictures from today, 26 days since starting rooting.

Group shot. The 4 Rdb are in front. 3 LSU gold across the middle. 4 Strawberry verte across the back. The one RdB that has died back is on the center foreground. You can see some of them are wrapped in parafilm with leaves busting through. And yes, I like diet Dr. Pepper. LoL


Typical amount of roots. It's been about a week since I first saw roots on the edge of the cups. They mostly look like this now:


3 LSU gold lined up center left. 4 Strawberry verte on right. The one twiggy S.V. on the far right is putting out huge leaves. Weird.

A couple of the RdB. I actually bought 2 cuttings and cut them in half to make 4 short stubby ones. Probably a mistake, I should have left them as two nice cuts instead of 4 midgets.

 
Anyway, that's my little experiment. I love reading about other people's experiments, so this is my current one. Any tips or comments welcome. I'd love to hear some constructive criticism and opinions. I'm new to this fig stuff and learning as I go.

I put in a request for a couple of the rare varieties from the Encanto cutting. If I'm lucky enough to
get some at least I'll have this one attempt for experience before I try something rarer and more difficult to root.

Hey BadaBing!

Very elaborate set-up there with impressive results on your new cuttings. I guess one draw back is that you can only do 11 cuttings at a time. I'm surprized that this system doesn't create a too moist growing medium for new cuttings. Thanks for sharing this novel approach to start fig cuttings. I'm sure that you will keep us all posted on the progress of your cuttings.
When your pump turns on and flushes the system, how long is it on for? And how many times per day?

Thanks for sharing with us.

You have a great start. It's ingenious. Here's my constructive criticism: don't drink so much Dr. Pepper.

Very impressive!  I hope they continue to do well for you.

Are you Ron Popeil? ; )

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing.

Interesting setup , what do you set your pump timer to and are you mixing solution to feed them and curious what is your ph.

Dale - don't worry, I see that it is diet Dr Pepper, so that's OK  : )

bada_bing,

very nice, can't argue with your results.

Looks like they're off to good start. Even if the one RDB doesn't make it, you got better odds of rooting than I did with my first attempt.

Thanks for all the comments.

The pump timer is set up to kick on for 2 minutes every two hours. There is nothing special about the 2 hour cycle, it is because I have a 14 event daily timer and 12 cycles per day is easier to figure out than 14 cycles per day would be. I use General hydro fertilizer and it is now using 2ml-2ml-2ml per gallon, which is about 1/3 strength. For the first 2 weeks I had just pure water in the tank. I use Reverse Osmosis water from the local vending machine because our local tap water is pretty salty and alkaline. Local cost for R.O water is $1 for 5 gallons. It takes 15 gallons to fill it up. The pH after adding fertilizer is about 6.2 ~6.3. I have an aquarium heater that held the water temperature at 83F, but I unplugged it after two weeks. The temperature is about 72~74F now. There is also an aquarium air pump bubbling an air stone in the reservoir. Neither the heater or the air pump are required for the system to work, but I have them so I use them.

I have used this system to grow peppers and tomatoes and to root all kinds of plants that were transitioned into soil. It is pretty effective. For anyone who is interested, hydroponics is a very interesting project and can really supercharge growth compared to soil in a lot of cases. For this experiment with figs, if I can get one good tree of each variety I'll have a success. It is definitely a shot in the dark.

pH is the one question I have about using this set up for figs. I know that figs like more alkaline conditions than most plants, but conventional wisdom for hydroponics is that pH 6 is about ideal and fertilizers are buffered for that. It is going to be interesting to transition from 6.2pH hydroponics into a soil mix with some lime in it to keep the figs happy. I'll probably not mix lime in for the initial transplant and top dress it in later. I don't know, what do you think?

Congratulations!  You already have great varieties and you've done a great job with them.