What is the optimum amount or root growth to have for potting?

I built an aeroponics cloner and I am wondering when I should remove the cuttings and pot them up.  This is where I am at now.  It seems like I could probably pot it up, but would I ensure better success if I wait longer?

Thanks,
Dan

 

Dan. I would pot them up all at different stages of root development and mark the pots of which is which. Seems if you ket tgem get extreme amount of roots and pot them up carfully and not damage their roors that you would get a huge jump start. Good work dan. Richie from louisiana

Dan,

How long were those in the cloner?

My cloner (posting pictures soon) has been running since Friday with 40 some-odd cuttings.  Have space to cut more holes, but only ordered 50 cups/inserts.

Are you treating/heating/doing anything special with the water?


Andrew

Thanks, maybe I will pot up a couple of the most vigorous this weekend.

The cuttings have been in the cloner about 3 weeks, but they spent about a month in plastic baggies with damp paper towels prior to that, so it is really hard for me to say how effective the cloner is.  The cuttings were not really kept at an optimum rooting temperature when they were in the baggies.  My house only has wood heat, and I am often too lazy to build a fire.  The first week in the cloner the temperature was also too cold.  I would go out once a day and swap out some of the water with water warmed on the stove.  Then I figured out I could just insulate the 5 gallon bucket reservoir with some fiberglass insulation I had laying around.  You can see it in the picture I posted.  The pump is drawing 11 watts from the wall and with the proper insulation it is pretty easy to keep the temperature at 75 degrees F where I have it now.  Things really started to take off almost as soon as I was keeping the temperature around 75 degrees, though it may have been coincidence.


Originally I had planned to make a thermoelectric temperature controlled cloner, and I have the parts, but I got lazy and in a hurry to get the cuttings going.  I plan to finish the temperature control before spring when I may need to actually cool the reservoir rather than just heat it.

Also, I have three varieties in the cloner.  The picture is representative of the most advanced.  All the CDDN have rooted and have similar growth to that shown.  The CDDG is mostly doing nothing with one or two cuttings showing initials now.  I also have some Adriatic JH that are a combination of doing nothing and just getting small roots now.  The point is that the rooting times seem to be very variety specific.

It seems to take some time to get the roots to start, but once they do you can see a big change every day!

I use a tiny bit of chlorine in the water.  I am talking a drop or Clorox every few days.  I test the water with my pool test kit to make sure the chlorine level is not getting too high.  I keep the levels below 0.5 ppm and more like 0.25 ppm or below most of the time.  I have read this is enough to keep anything nasty from growing and weak enough to not harm the cuttings.  Also, as you can see the cloner is black so as to not let light into the reservoir.  Again, I read this is important to prevent algae growth.

Good luck with your cuttings and cloner.

Dan

I wouldn't hesitate to pot that up.  I want at least a few roots around 1.5 inches long before I pot up.  I'd also increase the 'off' time for your mist.  You can see how the roots near the stem are brown.  I'd put money on too much water being held there.

I've up-potted several with much less root development than that. You should be good to go. 

Thanks guys!

I am running the pump 24/7 with no timer.  I thought I read somewhere that the roots turning brown was a sign of root maturity, and that they would be less brittle.  I guess you are right it could also be a sign of root rot.  I will try and find where I read bit about brown indicating maturity.  In any case, the brown roots are still growing like crazy.  I won't get a chance to pot anything up until this weekend.  I will post another picture pre potting.

I do have another question though.  The shorter white roots are very brittle and break easily.  "ask me how I know" but the really long fuzzy ones are pretty darn flexible.  I was thinking of going straight into gallon pots.  Should I trim the really long roots to fit or just wind them around in the pot.  The only rooting I have done previously was just sticking the cuttings in potting soil and using a zip lock bag as a humidity tent.  I have had good success doing this with some wild plumbs.  However I tried this with a red cedar and only one out of about 25 cuttings took!

OT, I friend of mine has a really wonderful unidentified avocado he has been trying to propagate.  I am going to take a swing at it in the cloner once I get all these figs potted up.

Dan

I pot my cuttings as soon as they show the first sign of a root popping out I then over saturate the soil and they just grow with no problem at all.

I'm w smungung. I've never used a cloner, but when I use sphagnum or coir I pot up as soon as roots are 1/4-1/2" long. All I need to see is 1 root that size. I can feel even those breaking (sometimes) as I pot them up, but I know the cutting is ready to push more and take off. I'm over 90% with 400+ cuttings last year. Carefully pot those up now. 1 gallon or "trade gallon" (3/4 gallon) would be perfect. I grow mine bushy so I use 3 cuttings per pot. Don't bother trimming the roots, the plant will Fig-ure it out.

Great thread everyone for us nervous new parents of fig cuttings! Question for you ADelmanto, you say you grow them "bushy" with 3cuttings in a pot. Do you leave them together as they grow up? What to you create that's desirable for you with 3 vs 1 in a pot? Plant health, production, etc. thx ;-).

Hi danw,
Those roots are a bit too long to make it easy to pot the cutting. I would fear to break them or twist them and break the other roots.
What I would do, is shorten the longer ones, keep the cutting in the cloner for a week more, and if still looking fine, pot it then with all roots at the same length.
Normally, this should induce root branching - one root splitting into 3 or 4.
The decision is yours, of course :)

Thanks everyone,

I guess I am over thinking this.  But I had fun building the cloner!  Maybe it will be of more use with hard to root plants or softer cuttings like tomatoes, that would just disintegrate if you stuck them in a baggie.

Dan

That is plenty of root to pot the cutting up.  It ought to do fine.

I have my EZ Cloner 64 running now. Your cuttings are fine so don't rush into potting them up if you don't want. Just use this time wisely and get all your potting supplies together. Last year my cuttings rooted in 3 weeks and looked like yours in the photo. I wasn't ready so I left a few in until I was. As long as the cutting is being fed, take you time.

I have some of mine ready to pot up too but hey....it's Christmas! So, they will stay in until after Christmas. Nice job on those cuttings BTW! Keep up the good work!

Thanks Dennis, the first time I ever heard of an aeroponics cloner was in one of your posts.  So in a way, your good work is responsible for these cuttings success, so thanks for that!

Even though you said don't use a 5 gallon bucket, the first thing I did was go shopping for a 5 gallon bucket.  I wanted to start small and I have been known to be a very contrary person "at least according to my wife".  Right now my shed must be much colder than where you keep your cloner because over heating is the least of my worries.  I will add cooling when the weather is warmer.  I know cooling seems overly complicated when a larger reservoir would accomplish the same thing, but I like to tinker, so what the heck.  Also the temperature controller will pull double duty as a fermentation temperature controller.  Who knew a fig hobby could feed a beer and cider hobby .... err addiction.

Dan

I am no expert but I potted all my figs with ~1cm roots and they all lived. Those seem ready!

I would never cut young roots.  You make an opening for infection that way.  If you put the plants in a gallon  pot, the next logical step, you'll have plenty of room.  Many large nurseries give away their used 1 gal pots so they're easy to come by  :)

Also my up potted plants seem to do better with longer ( > 1.5 inch), more mature roots, but that's dependent on a lot of factors that will differ from person to person and site to site.

OK I potted up the CdDN today.  There was a lot of root growth in the last week.  The first photo is the same cutting in the photo at the beginning of the thread.

I used new 1 gallon pots.  They were 48 cents each at a local nursery.  I don't want risk some disease killing these cuttings.  I have lost some grafted apple onto new rootstock that way.  The pots are cheap compared to the cuttings and time spent.

The large browner roots were very resilient and able to bend just fine.  Out at the tips where they are still white I had some breakage.  There was a lot of roots to stuff in the pot.  I made a mound of potting soil and then draped the roots down the sides.  Then carefully sprinkled more potting soil to cover the roots and stabilize the cutting.  Then I finished filling the pots and finally watered them in.

It is funny how different the CdDN and CdDG are in terms of rooting speed.  The Adriatic JH seems about the same as the CdCG.

Thanks for all the bravery to remove them from the womb and bring them into the world.

Dan
 

      

Did the cuttings get sun, on the top part? Or was it all in darkness? I just cut about 40 cuttings of my Swiss fig tree, washed them with a small amount of beach and water waiting for them to total dryness, and wrap them up with saran wrap, keeping them air tie in the frig. Found since this type fig is the most cold hardy, and a large fruit, I can't clone it like the other ones. So I'm willing to try cloning other ways You're using an air bubbler? and no sun, what is the room temp at?

If you look at the first picture in this thread you can see the top of the cloner behind the roots.  The top two thirds of the cuttings are outside in the air and light.  The bottom third of the cuttings are inside and get sprayed with water.

The cloner is in a closed shed with a window and the inside of the shed is painted white.  It is fairly bright during the day, but the cuttings never receive any direct sun.

The room is not heated and I would guess the temperature has ranged from 40 degrees to about 55 or 60 degrees Fahrenheit during the rooting process.

The water temperature is about 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

I think that the air temperature outside the cloner being rather cool has kept very much vegetative growth from occurring.  While the warm water has encouraged lots of root growth.

The cloner does not have an air bubbler.  I have thought about adding one, but it seems to be working fine without one.  I think the splashing water entraps enough air to keep the water oxygenated.

There is just a small submersible pump inside that feeds water to 9 mini sprayer heads.  The sprayer heads sit a few inches under the bottom of the cuttings.

I can take some pictures of the inside if you want.

Also, check out this thread
http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/clone-your-cuttings-never-see-gnats-7023364?highlight=cloner&trail=50

What an informative post.  I purchased the components and plan to start a science project with my son after the holidays.  I was having trouble understanding how the cuttings were doing so well in 50 degree temps until Dan explained the 75 degree water.  That gives me hope this might be successful in the basement over the CT winter.

When discussing at which point to pot, from what I have seen on Youtube, the aeroponic plants do better than potted plants.  I saw something that showed tomato plants having the biggest gains from the cloner once they were farther developed.  This makes me think the longer you can keep them in the cloner, the better off they will be.  Does anyone have real-world experience with keeping plants in cloners for a prolonged period?  I guess they call it root-2-fruit.

Cant wait to try it out.  Just need some plants!

Good luck with your cloner experiments.  Many people use a cheap aquarium heater to keep the water at the correct temperature during the cold weather.

Just be aware that when the water temperature starts warming up, you can start growing other undesirable stuff in the cloner water.  I control it with a very small amount of chlorine.  Be very careful because too much will kill your cuttings "or so I have read"

This cloner business is probably over complicated.  I am reading about some very simple methods going straight into potting soil in plastic bags with people having great success.  But I am having fun, and that is what it's all about.  Well that and eating awesome tasting figs!!