Anyone rooting cuttings in moist wood shavings? I hadn't thought of it until I went to a nursery and all their dormant bare root plants are in moist wood shavings. Things like figs, berries, apples, plums and others. I bought some berries and nice roots all over them. Of course they were probably all rooted before placing in the shavings for sale, but might be worth a try in place of peat moss.

I think they are using wood shavings because those plants are intended to be put in the ground right away. Wood tends to rot fast and changes radically as it does. It is also a breeding ground for tree pathogens, Yikes!

As wood shavings decompose, they use soil nutrients fast, specially nitrogen.

Like Brent said, they are meant to be put in the ground. I, personally, would shy away from it and stick with proven media.

I tried mulching my garden with sawdust once. Everything turned yellow, it's such a nitrogen sink. I expect chips or shavings are the same only not as drastic. I run wood through the compost pile before it goes on the plant now.

Figfinatic,
Tried it , it didn't work.
The wood shavings will support large colonies of fungi that will destroy the rooting cuttings.
Since I always have pine wood shavings on hand for animal bedding material, it was an easy test to perform while testing all the other proven methods. If you want to test it out anyway, I recommend heat sterilization of the wood shavings.

BTW, the used pine shavings are used as mulch around my garden, the soiled shavings are added to the compost piles. For mulch an initial  layer of composted organic matter or leaves ( 1 - 2 inches deep, which gets colonized with earthworms) below the shavings mulch will allow for the slow decomposition without robbing nutrients from the soil below.