So Friday I received my first cuttings and decided to do the bag rooting method. Today I checked out the cuttings and on one of the cuttings had a white fluffy mold/fungus growing at the bottom of the cutting. The paper towels I wrapped them in are slightly dampened. Temperature of them has been ranging between 72 to 75 degrees and they are out of direct sunlight. Any ideas of what could have happened to this cutting and how I should remedy it? Thanks in advance.

cuttings:
 
photo of fungus:

 

Ended up rinsing 4 that looked affected with hydrogen peroxide and then washing them off with water. Put them with new paper towels and new bags and blowing up all the bags with air. Hopefully this works!

 

That's mold.  Did you disinfect (CL, H2O2) at all before bagging?  If not, that might have been helpful.  

I'm not a huge fan of paper towel (though I get that that is what you are trying).  I think it would be better to put the cuttings in sphagnum moss (which seems to be somewhat anti-fungal) or coir. 

Thanks for the reply jrdewhirst. No I didn't, I probably should have, but didn't know until now, as it is my first time. I have sphagnum moss. If any of them develop mold again I can try to root them with that method. What would be the best way using the moss? Do you just wet the moss, squeeze the moisture out and then put the cutting in a clear cup? I have coarse vermiculite and perlite, do you mix any of these when you do it? What about anything like Clonex?

I can tell you what I do, but there are lots of variations. . . .

Yes, dump the moss in a pot of hot water.  Let it soak for a few minutes.  Then squeeze all the water out as well and you can.  Toss the cuttings in a plastic bag, with the moss covering both sides.  Put the closed plastic bags somewhere warm and dark.  Open them every day or two just to admit some oxygen, then reclose.

Many growers wait for the cuttings to show roots.  I don't, because I'm afraid I'll just break off the roots in the transition to cups.  So after 2-3 weeks in moss, I move the cuttings to plastic cups (with drainage holes).  I use a mix roughly 2/3 peat-moss-based growing mix and 1/3 perlite.  That provides good drainage, so it's almost impossible to overwater.  Don't use vermiculite, which stays too soggy for cuttings.  I put the cutting 90% into the mix, with only 1-2 nodes exposed.  Usually I'll put a cover on the cup -- a baggie with a hole cut in a corner for ventilation, fastened by a rubber band -- until either there are good roots showing or the cutting seems moldy.  Keep the cups in the dark until leaves start to sprout, but be advised that leaves can appear without roots as the leaves can use nutrients stored in the cutting.  

Once there are roots, I take off the cover so that the roots can do their work.  At that point, I also start watering more.  When the cup is fairly well full of roots, I'll up-pot it.  You need to do this carefully.  It's easy to break the roots.

i generally don't use hormones.  They do seem to make roots appear sooner, however.

After mold, the biggest risk seems too be that the cuttings sprout leaves without yet sprouting roots.  If that happens, there is a serious risk that the cutting will exhaust its own resources.  The leaves will wither and the cutting die.  I don't know any way to reduce this risk; maybe starting the cuttings in the dark helps.

After the mold, I'd be tempted to at least add some willow bark to the water that I soak the peat moss in...and follow the rest of jrdewhirst's method.  I've rescued cuttings of other things that way.

yea the mold reappeared this morning on 2 of them, so I will try out this method. Where can i get willow bark??? Also should I recut the bottom where the mold growth is occurring? Thanks again guys

Any willow...weeping willow works just as well as any other.  Just throw some bark or even small twigs in the water and soak for at least 5 minutes before soaking the peat moss.

You should probably disinfect before going to moss.  Most growers use diluted bleach or hydrogen peroxide.  Since the cuttings have been started, I'd be inclined to go with the H2O2, which I think would be kinder to living plant tissue.  

FWIW, I have had mold problems even after disinfecting with bleach on cuttings that were poorly lignified (i.e., greenish) and maybe not fully dormant.   

Just to add that many times the mold is not your fault. It is usually the conditions of the cuttings. When I notice mold forming I get it off quickly with a bleach solution. After that I say a long prayer....Lol

You can also try HarveyC's method which worked well for my moldy figs. I just took them out of bag, rinsed the mold off, washed them in cheap rum (not the ideal, but it needed to be done asap), and did everything in the below video.

So I ended up scrubbing the two that still showed mold with a 15% bleach solution, followed by scrubbing with hydrogen peroxide, followed by rinsing with water, followed by spraying with baking soda and water solution.

I couldn't find any willow trees on my way home today.. I ended up wetting the sphagnum moss with boiling water, then squeezing out as much water as I could but it still seems damp. When I put the moss in the gallon ziplocks moisture is showing in the bags? I'll probably dip the bottoms in Clonex before I put them in the moss

Anton - How do you about my love for Rum?! Unfortunately, I don't have any cheap stuff to use. Maybe the Flor 7 :P

 

I wouldn't waste any Ron Zacapa on fig cuttings!

Nor the Don Amario, which I have as well! I used a cheap white. All rum talk aside placing the moldy cuttings into the soil saved them.

It's also the perfect antidote to the pain and stiffness that comes after a day of potting, planting, etc.  

I would add one important thing i noticed this spring.

Try to not cover the ends of the cuttings with the moist paper. the cuttings ends tend to rot.

Also i get much less rot with the paper bag method if the cutting ends are covered with melted wax.

Thanks for all your guys inputs. I ended up treating all of the cuttings and then put them all under Sphagnum Peat Moss in Gallon Ziplocks. I put clonex on 2 of the cuttings, curious to see the differences.