Has anyone ever tried to root in Soil Moist Crystals?  I know you can root in water, but I hear that those roots are not really the best.  Soil moist hydrated with liquid fertilizer should work, right?  I would want it on the dry side, but still moist.  After roots develop the crystals should just fall off when its time to up pot.  Well that's the theory.  I'll have to give it a shot this winter.  Any thoughts?  let me know.  

It would certainly be interesting to know how that works out.

Wow! Cool idea, please post your updates.

Figs should root in any medium if there is a good balance of heat and humidity, even in pebbles. It should work!

I am gonna have to try this, I have a ton of the pearls... and it would be sooo pretty!!!

I doubt I would ever discover that it was the best method, but would be fun to experiment.

Here we go.  This is about 6 or 8 teaspoons of Soil Moist granuals. The included scoop is just shy of 1 teaspoon.  Man, does this stuff soak up A LOT of water.  It also dries your fingers out if you handle it. I was stirring it with my finger.

This is a fresh unknown cutting that I clipped today and dipped in dip-n-grow.  We'll see in a couple of weeks how it's doing.  I'll keep everyone posted.
 

I see three possible outcomes.
1. It stays too wet and rots/molds before it roots
2. It sucks the moisture out of the cutting, because it's so good at absorbing moisture.
3. It works as intended and grows awesome roots.

I'm not holding my breath..

I've done the same with a few different cutting that I had a lot of, I used the colored pearls and it certainly adds a bit of color to my trays...

its probably something that you would want to mix with soil. If it dried out you finger you can bet that the roots would be dehydrated.

Is that the stuff they use in diapers?

I think this idea is a figtastic epiphany.

Sodium polyacrylate is what they use in diapers.  Sodium polyacrylamide is what they use in soil moist.  The soil moist works on the principle of water adsorption for the plant (surface area water), not absorption like sodium polyacrylate (diapers).  The experiment is interesting. I often wondered if it would work.  Please post the results.  I think as long as there is pore space between the beads, it would have a chance to be successful.

I am going to try this in march when I start my cuttings. I will hydrate the crysts in 1 container and once fully saturated take scoops of the crystals and pat them "dry" with a paper towel so there isn't too much water. I will fill up deli containers or something with holes in the bottom and cover with a humidity dome. Once I see rooting (1/4-1/2"). I'll transfer to soil. At least that's the theory. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Lol.

Aaron,

I am going to have one of my students do this very same experiment. She is going to try to root fig cuttings in soil moist vs rock wool vs perlite over a few months. I'll let you know the results.

Fantastic. My wife is a middle school science teacher. It would be great for her students as well. I would have one of them be root riot cubes. I hear they are great. I also hear rock wool is too dense to root through. FYI

So far with the pearls it seems to be working great, it is helpful that the pearls start to shrink when the water getting low but they stay slightly moist and keep the cutting moist. With a glance I can see if they need a little water added....

Okay, they were pretty and way too wet!! Even though there was no standing liquid the pearls kept the cutting very wet and promoted a white mold I haven't had before. So I have to call this a fail for me.  I have a neighbor that uses it under peat and dirt  for her Pitcher Plant garden, so it has it's uses this just isn't one.

Thanks for the report GR. undaunted I will try my hand at it this spring. Maybe a mix of soil moist and pearlite. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Lol!!!

I have layerd the crystals with soil and had lotsa luck doing it that way. Never tried just crystals though.

I forgot about that cutting above. Its been 19 days. I just checked on it. No roots at all. Bottom 1.5 inches dark with moisture because it was in contact with the soil moist, which has not dried up much at all.

After this much time, I expected to find mold, but there's no sign of any. I left the cutting in the box, but moved it away from the soil moist.

There was no condensation on the lid of the box. My feeling is that it holds water too well and doesn't let the humidity rise.

The ambient temperatur where i root them is about 70F to 74F.