I would like to thank Rafed for mentioning about the rooting cubes, otherwise I would of not known about it. I bought some and figured I'd give it a try. Well, I think they're the best thing since sliced bread! I got a surprise cutting from Suzi and didn't want to chance losing it and now it's rooted and a bud is swelling on it. YEAH SUCCESS!

I'm using it for all my cuttings and having a very good success rate. So far a few sent roots shooting out within days and others are starting to follow. I bought the trays to hold the cubes in and put that into a clear plastic tote with the lid on since some are tall. I let it get fresh air for an hour each day then the lid goes back on. No heating pad seems necessary. I have the tote up off the floor so there isn't a cold draft on it. If the cubes start to dry out I pull each one out and spray a mist on each side, this I only had to do once since the cubes hold enough moisture while at the same time they let enough air in.
I couldn't get the same brand as Rafed did (Root Riot), the one I got is called (Rapid Rooter). The guy at the hydroponics store said it's the same thing just a different name.
If anyone is having trouble rooting cuttings this would definitely improve your success rate. Looks like it will be about 100%.

I bought some of these and I was thinking of returning them.  Now I guess I'll keep them and try them out.

Mine have been in these for a week and while no signs of roots yet the buds are swelling all the way around. I find it odd that some of the cuttings absorb water much faster than others do. So I squirt the lighter colored cubes (drier cubes) with water daily and recover. I keep the vents on the cover completely closed and air I out once a day while checking for moisture.

I bought some Root Riot cubes , clonex rooting gel and some clonex rooting concintrate to add to water on Amazon. I also bought a cple taller humidity domes with ajustable vents to go over the cube tray .I bought the domes at Manards for $3.99.

Havn't tried them yet .

So should I take the cuttings that I recently put in newspaper and baggies out and try this?  

I use root riot along with a dome and light and heating pad. So far so good. Good enough I guess as I bought a second one and I'll use it for veggie seeds as well. I am getting some fungus issues so will start using "actinate" as a spray. Will compare this system with pre sterilized (microwave) Sp. moss in plastic containers in the dark and heated, as I'm setting 75 cuttings today. 
Will be interesting (to me anyway) to see the results.

I originally bought a pack of 50 and thought that would be enough to try. Now that I tried them I like them so much that I'm going to get another pack of 50. I have some cuttings wrapped in paper towels until I get to the store to buy more cubes.
The cuttings that didn't show roots but are growing leaves are rooting. The reason I know this is because I pulled back the cube where the cutting went in and you can see roots, they just didn't protrude through the sides yet. So all is good, it will be just a matter of time until the roots show through the sides.
I didn't use any rooting gel because the cubes have a bacteria which promote root growth and it seems to be working great.

keep us informed Vince, Michael, and Tony .

 I will try theses cubes on a  cpl of  Celest cuttings a friend gave me off of his grandmothers tree she planted 60+ years ago in zone 6 . As soon as it warms up a bit or i can find a reasnobly priced heat matt.

What size cuttings are you putting in them? How big are the cubes? They seem small...

Just a suggestion,

don't go crazy stocking up on these inappropriate sized rooting cubes.

In a month or two,
there will be a professional designed rooting system available,
specifically designed and sized to propagate fig cuttings.

System has been used for many years for tree propagation,
and has recently been modified and tested extensively for ficus carica.

I BOUGHT THE ROOT RIOT cubses on Amazon , the $3.99 domes at Manards are 7" high with two ajustable vents .they fit most standard 11"x21" starter trays witch vary abit in size . Menards is a chain like Lowes or HomeDepo .

Those Fig tree spacific rooting cubes sound very interesting HungryJack ? keep us informed ,thanks !

My story and my 2 cents...

Rafed's post came at a very opportune time for me.  I had planned on grafting most of the cuttings I had received.  Also grafting was going to become my preferred method of dealing with cuttings.  After I had split the long/branched ones, there were 22 varieties/88 cuttings.  I was out in the field in late January and noticed many of the limbs I had planned on grafting onto were damaged by the cold, and I had a problem.  I used the last of the sphagnum moss last year, so I was faced with buying another bail of it to root cuttings in.  Instead of moss (and Rockwool which I have used before), I purchased one of these kits. 

I set 50 cutting into the tray on 02.04.2013.  The cuttings ranged in diameter from 1/8th" D to over 1/2" D and from about 3" long to over 8" long.  I had 30 cuttings (15 varieties X 2 of about the same size) which I mirrored on either side of the tray.  One side I used the rooting hormone that came with the kit, the other side I did not.  The other 20 slots I used the rooting hormone except on 4 which I received already dipped.  Here is what it looked like when I was done.



Instead of buying the humidity dome, I used a clear 18 gallon tote as my "greenhouse" then set the tote near a south facing window.  The position of the tote in the window gives it sun in the morning through about 1pm to warm up the interior, then light from the sky until about 6 as the sun starts going down.  This was my M.O. with SM in zip top bags.  Every other day, I "water" the cubes with a spray bottle with the nozzle set on a fine mist.  I spray 10 times above the cuttings and 2-3 times into the top (the tote is upside down so the tray sits on the lid).  I did this until the 02.12 when I started traveling, then my niece took over for me, but wasn't as diligent as I was about watering.

I returned from my trip last Thursday (02.21) and checked my cuttings.  Four had rooted.  Three of the four are 'Lattarola' (2 with hormone / 1 without) which had rooted profusely.  Every night since then, when I checked I have found 4 more cuttings with roots.  Here is the current state (taken 02.25):



The 'Votato' in front (and a few others you can see) have some mold issues, but I do not blame that on the Root Riot or my system.  It may become a subject for a new thread.  Now my observations / thoughts / responses to things mentioned above:

• Thus far, my results have been encouraging enough for me to consider buying another tray and not worrying about grafting the remaining cuttings.
• I do not think this is a replacement for anything other than putting cuttings in a baggie with sphagnum moss for root development.  As such, the cubes are not too small. 
• There is a slight bit of inconsistency in the cubes as far as moisture retention. I've had been two (out of the 50) that I have had to mist with the sprayer away from the rest of the tray.  Someone mentioned in one of the threads how nicely the color of the cube changes as it begins to dry out.
• To HungryJack's comment: I am not sure I would wait for a system "specifically designed" for anything.  I would assume due to it's specialized nature it would be significant more costly.  For 20 bucks, many of us have achieved similar results in different parts of the country.  It seems as more of us are trying this system and any problems will begin to flush out.  However (with my n=1) I haven't found this system to be wanting in any way.

James thanks for the updated info and photos .
Keep it coming.

The cubes are 1 1/2 square and are 2 inches in length. I find that it is plenty long enough to do what is intended. I cut the cuttings down to 2 or 3 nodes depending on what they look like to begin with. Doing it the other way with a cutting 6 to 10 inches long in sphagnum seems to take longer for me. Sometimes the roots would be tangled in the moss and intertwined with other roots and I would end up with broken roots by the time I tried undoing things. With the cubes there is no messing around doing that anymore.
 Size wise there isn't much difference whether you start with a 3 inch cutting or 7 inch cutting. In time it will still be grow to be a nice tree. In the picture the difference between the two, which isn't much. The short one was a 3 1/2 inch cutting started in the cubes and the other a 7 inch cutting started in moss. There's not much difference between them. Everybody has their own way of doing things but for me this really works out great. I was a little hesitant to try it at first but now...... I wish I would tried it sooner.
Cost isn't outrageous either.  There are 3 trays,
first tray holds the cubes (which is sort of flimsy)
second tray that holds the cube tray and lets excess water go through
third tray for the bottom which holds the other two and catches the excess water.
Total cost for 3 trays $7.
The cubes were $17 for 50 cubes or $26 for 98 cubes.
It cost me a total with 6% tax  $25.44

Thanks Tonycm, Austin and James. I just ordered me some Riot Root cubes.

Noss, who did you order from? I couldn't find any locally either and ordered from Greners.

Thanks nice to hear about your results. Do you have any issues with fungus gnats with these cubes? I'd like to root some herbs, veggies and maybe a few fig cuttings in those.

I don't have a problem with gnats in general, so I can't comment about that.  After I mist with water, I leave the top off for a many minutes (no specific time... take it off, do a few things, then close it up.  Besides the mold issue I mentioned (and I am 100% convinced it is not this system), everything has been very easy and clean.  To top it off, I didn't have to clean all the sphagnum moss off every surface in the bathroom when I was done.  Five of the cuttings are going into containers tonight, if the wind dies down.  Our sustained winds are 25-30mph and gusts are stronger than that.  The fence has already blown away.

I haven't seen any gnats in the tote with the cubes. Hope I didn't speak too soon :-o

My cuttings are doing well with the rooting cubes. No gnats, but I haven't had a problem with them overall so far (knock on wood).
I also tossed in my veggy seeds into the mix. This is a little baby romanesco broccoli. Isn't it the cutest?

Thanks for the tip

I also want to thank Rafed for suggesting the Root Riot system!  I first tried it on my mission fig to figure out what I was doing and to work out any kinks (my last name should be "Murphy" as in "Murphy's Law")... and I now have roots on some of my test cuttings!  (I've attached a picture of me holding the Mission fig below.)

I'm testing other rooting methods also - e.g. moss in shoebox, moss in baggie, paper towel in baggie - but the Root Riot is the first with roots.  Since I'm new at this, I have a couple of questions:

Some of the cuttings are developing leaves but not roots (see pics).  I know that if it starts to develop fruits that the fruit should be pruned off, but right now (with no fruit) should I prune the leaves off or leave them alone?  Are the leaves stealing energy from the roots, as the fruit does, or are they fine and I shouldn't worry about it?

Keep the leaves on. Sometimes you get leaves first and sometimes you get roots first. It's like a box of chocolates, ya never know what you're gonna get!

JR, with the cubes you can't always see it but a lot of times roots are growing, it's just that they haven't made their way thru the sides of the cubes yet.
Yes you are correct about cutting off any figs that are trying to grow. It does sap the energy out of the cutting.
Looks like you're having good luck with the cubes too!

hungryjack,  your point is taken.  I suppose what I should have said is specialized tools are usually more expensive given the smaller audience they appeal to.  Also, they tend to be limited in use, as well.

Here are some pictures of some of my larger cuttings.  As I mentioned, I am not using the humidity dome.