Hi

I have lurking since last summer and have a question on when it's ok to ship fig cuttings? I am in Central NY and it is still pretty cold here. I tried rooting cuttings over the winter inside I had bought off Ebay. I thought with my lights and germination mat and since I am a gardener, how hard could it be?

Well all my cuttings died, due to my fault, I had an infestation of fungus gnats, I think from some cheaper soil I bought for winter sowing in. I did not try to root the cuttings in this stuff, it was just for the winter sowing. 

When I finally dumped the cuttings, the bottoms were covered in fungus gnats larvea. I have since taken care of this issue that spread to ALL my houseplants, grrrrrr.

I want to try again and have been watching some auctions on Ebay, but I wasn't sure if it's OK to have cuttings shipped at this time of year?

Yep....you can pretty much root them any time of the year.....

Gnats are terrible. Anyone having problems, or not, should use Gnatrol or the generic when watering or initially when moisture is added. I live in an area where gnats could be a major problem and I am not experiencing any infestation. I have seen very few adults and they bite the dust when I spray with permethrin, both will not harm plants.

Sorry to hear about the loss of your cuttings to fungus gnats.  The cheap soil may not be at fault.  They love damp soil which is why many members use coarse perlite only to get their cuttings established.  I keep compost in a bowl in the kitchen prior to putting it in the heap outside and they surely find that.

Dormant figs are the best for shipping, so while the weather is cold, it's good.  My first year I bought some cuttings in summer.  They all arrived slimy and rotten due to the heat in the delivery trucks.  I fear summer cuttings for that reason.

Welcome to the forum.  If you add your planting zone to your signature line in the control panel (top right side) it will help us help you.

Good luck with the next batch!

Suzi

Welcome to the forum , can any tell us what are the early signs of gnats? thank you

Sorry to hear about the gnat problem.

For the more experienced members:  At what stage the plant becomes immune to fungus gnats?

I don't think a potted tree is ever immune, I had gnats kill a Panachee that broke dormancy after wintering in my garage.

Welcome to the forum.  Now is the perfect time!

Melissa, welcome to the forum and sorry for your issue with gnats. Make sure you use the search function and read up on gnat control.

Thanks all for the tips, I have an open bag of course perlite in the garage, 2cuft, so I think I have enough for rooting, LOl. The first time I did a mix of peat and perlite, but will try a higher %.

Will give it another go. I could buy rooted cuttings, but I keep thinking for the cost I could get more varieties if I just bought cuttings and rooted them myself.

For all my houseplants indoors I have switched out my soil to a mix of Happy Frog and Ocean forest. I washed out all the old soil and replaced, also sprinkled those mosquito bits on the surface and also on my pepper/basil seedlings. Fingers crossed, I haven't seen an adult gnats in over a week from now.

Rafaelissimmo, I am so sorry to hear you lost a tree, cuttings is one thing, but to lose a tree, now that would really upset me.

Welcome.

Knock on wood, but I've never even seen a fungus gnat. I'm pretty sure it comes with the potting soil. I use A 50/50 mix of ProMix HP and Pine Bark Fines. Whatever the cost difference is as compared to losing your cuttings and TIME is well worth it.

I've always thought fungus gnats and fruit flies are the same, but they are not.  Interesting article HERE.

The reason I don't think the gnats come with the sealed bag of potting soil is there is nothing for the larvae to eat in the potting soil.  They eat live roots.  Potting soil is sterile, but to be sure, you could always toast it in the oven or on the BBQ.  Adult gnats can enter your pots through drain holes, lay their eggs and the larvae will hatch, commence feasting on the roots and the leaves will wither.  When they hatch, they will fly around looking for damp soil in which to lay thousands more eggs, and so it goes..........  Best to water with mosquito dunk or gnatrol whenever you water.  An ounce of prevention.

I introduced the gnats into my home unwittingly.  I brought a potted plant from outside into the house.  It was infested, but it was a large tree, and the gnats couldn't kill it.  It didn't take the gnats long to find my baby figs, and the potted plant went back outside and soaked several times in BT.  It was too late for the baby figs.

Suzi

I don't like my cuttings to experience temps below about 28 F.  A lot depends on how dormant they are.  Temps of 20 usually don't affect the viability of a fully dormant cutting but they can for a more tender variety.  Even 28 can harm some varieties, especially if they aren't as dormant as you think they are.  One indicator is sap flow.  It flows freely and is opaque and milky during the growing season.   It gets thinner and less milky as the plant progresses toward dormancy.  The flow from a cut surface also decreases.

Disney nut. Welcome. I live in auburn a half hour from you. You should go to hydro tech on Erie blvd and get coco coir to mix in with the perlite. It holds moisture better than peat. Peat tends to be to dry or too wet. Peat can hold four times its weight in moisture ( to much). And when it dries out it is hard to re moisten. I have tons of plants and cuttings. Pm me back if you need something
Thanks cian

The #1 cause of failure for cuttings is overwatering, fungus gnats are attracted to rot so if they were not in the mix to begin with they are a sign that something is rotting (the base of the cutting, old potting mix, organic fertilizer). They can live and reproduce in pure perlite just fine, and are pests of hydroponic systems as well. Coarse perlite does reduce the chances of overwatering, which is why it works.

After switching to fabric containers I lose cuttings very rarely because they are much harder to overwater. I use alfalfa meal sometimes to fertilize older trees and fungus gnats love it, they leave the nearby cuttings and vegetable seedlings alone though. I raise mantises and the babies seem to appreciate the food source.

Here are my first cuttings of the season.
 
Good luck.

sunset has extra course perlite that is the only thing I get from there.  hydro tech will match any online prices and the coco coir is 1.30 for a small brick and it is three something at sunset.  they also sell beer making stuff. the people at hydro tech are just so much more experienced with everything,  they know what they are talking about.  every time i go into sunset there are different people working in there and they just seem to never know what they are talking about. I was just in there looking for  (Ga3) for making plants hermathidite for breading.  The guy was trying to tell me it does not exists and that what i wanted was some all natural stuff.  When I got home researched it and every report said it was just a myth and does not work. All the stores in ithaca sell it. If you make your own beer my neighbor has a couple hundred hop plants and sells them to local home brewers.  so if you want any fresh hops i can get them for you. If you are ever in the auburn area let me know I will show you my set up and how I root cuttings 

Speaking of disney, I'm going to disney world next week to see some spring training baseball. I love disney world. Anyway, welcome to the forum.

Perlite is NOT a magic bullet.  I lost almost all (I think 3 survived) of these plants to a fungus gnats infestation.  All were healthy.  All were watered (once rooted) with a marinade injector well below the top of growing mix.  It only took two days for them to start failing to the point of no return.




To be sure, I left them in the bin too long.  Many of the cuttings had as much as 3-4" more growth on them.  Regardless of how one roots, proper care is important.  I was able to stop gnats in the second batch of cuttings which were rooting in a slightly modified version of my normal growing mix.

My experience mirrors what others have said.  Gnats are as much a sign of a problem as they are a problem.  Resist the urge to have too much water in your rooting chamber and clean out the debris.

Hi dysneynut,
Welcome to the forum.
If you check your calendar, you'll see that we're almost in Spring.
( let's make the story a tad bit longer ... as always the solution is at the end of the story )
This Sunday while on promenade, I went checking some figtrees that I keep an eye on ... just for fun - Madames do say just to be sure, that I really have the longer :) ...
So I saw some branches on the left side of the way. That side is a free area, and on the right was the garden where the trimmings where done.
I started thinking "How damn piggy people can be !!! " . While looking on the right side, I just thought "there is a bushy figtree here " and saw some yellow (fresh) stumps and I walked away a bit when
in my brain a little light switched on - just on time...
Of course I went backward and in the middle of the crappy branches ... 3 fig tree stems ...
I just needed one, and so I just took one - you guess ... The longer and bigger one and the more branched... Today, I made a 30 cm deep hole outside in the garden and cut the stem in 5 big cuttings and put them in . I made two in the "crossette style" - T shaped .
Future will tell, but I'm almost sure that they will make it.
Because you're in Zone5, I would bury a 2 gallons /10 liters pot in the dirt, and fill the pot with potting mix. And of course put 2 or 3 cuttings per pot .
If you have more cuttings ... give it a try, you'll see it is trouble free .
When Fall comes, you'll unburry the pots for overwintering in a shed ... I suppose ?