Ha ha ha. I almost misspelled that Rute Prooning. Anyway, does anyone like to prune or comb out and prune roots when they go from a 1gal to a 2-3 gal container on year old figs from cuttings? I have considered it. I'm using the old tried and true system of waiting until I see roots sticking out of the bottom of the pot (drain holes). I was wondering if anyone prunes the roots at this stage. I would answer: depends on the roots. If a plant has an abundance of roots and has the potential to girdle early, I think I may comb out the outer roots and prune them like in bonsai. I just wanted to float the idea out there.

Leaf pruning:
does anyone practice leaf pruning on first year cuttings, or even trees. Often my thicker cuttings seem confused initially and attempt to produce a full sized leaf. I am considering cutting away all but the last leaves closest to the growing bud to relieve the water burden on the little ones and maybe to promote growth on older plants. Any one have any experienced in this area?

Neither one is practiced for a newly rooted plant or a plant getting up-potted from 1g to 2-10g pot. Bottom line is, never to mess around with the roots of a young plant (less than one year old) if you would like it to survive. 

I've never heard of leaf pruning.  I would think that the plant will regulate itself and drop leaves it can't support.  Have seen that happen many times.  Root pruning is necessary on older plants in pots, only because when roots in pots grow, they have nowhere to go but around in circles.  Eventually these tangled roots compete with each other for water and nutrients, and start to constrict flow.  Leaves don't do anything like that.

I root prune fig plant after its in its final pot size and is need of it.

I do both with no ill effects. 

Root Pruning: I've root pruned trees as young as seven months old.  When I was growing in containers, I would completely bare-root a tree when going to a larger container.  It is okay if you pot up without bare-rooting in the short-term, but eventually it will need to be done.  For the past few years, I have been putting my rooted cuttings into the ground.  I have an area set aside for propagating trees.  When they are dormant at the end of the year, they trees get moved (roots are cut) to a more permanent location.

If one thinks about it, at one point, the tree had no roots... when it was a cutting.  It used stored energy to push out new roots.  The same thing is true with a dormant tree.  The difference is the tree already has converted the tissue below the root flare into a root zone so it is ready to root back out.

Leaf Pruning: I do not do this as a normal practice, but I did remove the leaves that block water from getting into a the containers.  Again, this is not so necessary now that I am growing in the ground, but I still will do this on the more bushy trees with low growing leaves.

~james

I only leaf prune if the leaf is blocking a branch I want to develop so I do it to let more sun into it or if there is diesease/pests on it that are too sever to reclaim.

Thanks tremendously guys. Leaf pruning was recommended by a grower for cuttings. The grower seemed to really recommend pruning away almost all the leaves from a newly rooted cutting for the first year, or cutting each mature leaf in half. They also suggested growing the cutting in heavy shade for that year until the first dormancy. Their theory was that the cutting needed to focus all of it's energy on roots alone and leaf pruning helped relieve the water burden on the plant. I very much appreciate all of your advice.