I put a bunch of my LSU Purple cuttings in a bin with orchid moss a few days ago.

They have (had) mold on the ends (root side) !!!!!!  I cut it off and I cut off any other mold I could see.  I unpacked the bin while checking each cutting and cutting off any mold. 

I AM NOT HAPPY!!!!:(:(:(

I really wanted them to root easily..............I know, so do all of you!  lol

I dried the moss off with paper towel by squeezing the moss with the towel, re-fluffed the moss, add the cuttings back.

I will check in a few more days, if it happens again, I will try Mai technique with my own spin.  I might to that with other cuttings I still have.

I am not sure where this fig journey is taking me since my life has changed in a way I did not foresee 4 years ago, so the plans I had 4 years ago have changed also.   I am having fun and enjoying the friendships of fellow fig lovers so that's good enough for me. 

  Jo-Ann, you've been at this for several years, so I am probably preaching to the choir, but just a little friendly advice from personal experience; use the next couple days to really research the different rooting methods that everyone is using today.  There are a lot of them out there now, and everyone needs to find a system that works for them.  It might be wise to try several different methods with your remaining cuttings to find a method that is reliable for you.

   I have nothing against Mai's technique, as it appears to work for her...  yet, I have seen good people with advanced horticulture degrees have every cutting that they tried rot in the bag.   Along that same vein, using coir has been disastrous for some, yet it is my go-to system, as I have not lost a single cutting to mold or rot...  but when I used an Aeroponic cloner, I lost 31 of 32 cuttings.   We each have to find what really works for us.

  Best of luck to you,

     Blue

Totally agree with Blue! JoAnn don't give up or let this little speedbump get to you.. Dabble in all the methods & find what works best for you.. Put on your mad scientist hat and HAVE FUN EXPERIMENTING!!!! Muah haha!!! Lol sorry, my inner evil scientist took over for a second there! Okay.. So like Blue I have also had great luck with coir, whether it is in a bag or box the stuff is amazing for me.. Initially had bad luck with Spag moss so after I lost a few cuttings in a bag of it, I put the bag off to the side in a drawer and forgot it for over 2 months.. One day after over 90% success in coir I had 1 cutting that looked to have the beginnings of mold on it.. I wanted to separate it from the others & all I had close by was that old bag of SM in the drawer.. Figured "why not??," dropped it in & forgot about it for over a week. By the time I remembered & checked on it, MONSTER ROOTS had already taken over that old bag of SM.. I must have simply had the moss too wet initially & all it needed was time to dry out some.. Okay A LOT! Lol!

So the moral of the long winded story is DON'T GIVE UP!! And no matter what, keep having fun with it.. PS The mad scientist laugh should be used often while conducting your fig rooting experiments.. It is ESSENTIAL to your success!!! MUAH HA HAAAAAAA!!!! Lol! Best of luck to you!

I agree with Blue and Jamie but I also want to add that sometimes, the ends of cuttings can get reaaaallly nasty-looking; they look almost water-logged and as if they've spoiled. But then the cutting roots and grows perfectly well. (Not that this was your concern, but just a heads up to anyone who has never seen this before.)

I live in a very humid part of the world and for me, 100% perlite in a solo cup has been very good for me. I put them in a large, well-ventilated tupperware container and stick them in my shed with the doors open. I spritz them with water every so often and make sure they get a lot of natural light. 

Jo Ann: I had some cuttings go moldy AND mushy. Keeping a good moisture balance is key. If you have cuttings inside a bin try take off the lid often or, try keeping it slightly open always. I started with figs last September. At one point I had 20 cuttings start to mold. It worried me to have paid for so many only to lose them to mold. I just kept swithcing strategies. If mold was present too often with moss, I switched to perlite. Some cuttings did well in moss and others did not. I have literally tried every single method! I recommend having a little bit of all the materials in hand so you can switch when needed at least until you get to a good place where you feel you have good control. Every method requires control of either moisture, ph level & light. Charlielikestofish suggested I get a moisture/ph/light meeter & that was a great suggestion!

As a newbie, I felt the need to see roots so i tried the perlite in a cup method. After trying so hard for months, I am finally ok with cuttings going directly into soil.

Someone here said, if all else fails, wash off the mold with peroxide and start over. You can even put them back in the fridge until you are ready to take it up again. I have a good number of one nodes that now have roots so just keep trying. You will have a rooted cutting soon!

I also would suggest using coconut coir. I have orchids so I had sphagnum moss on hand and tried using it-- mold city :( Next time I repot my orchids I will use chucks of coconut coir. You can try a quick 10% bleach rinse to remove the mold from the cuttings.

Thanks for the pep talk!!  When I first started a few years ago I tried the sp moss - YUK!!  it was very messy.  I switched to orchid moss and the results  were amazing!!

I think the moss was to wet despite squeezing the crap out of it, that's why I went through it with a paper towel.  Funds are really tight right now that's another reason to use the orchid moss, I  have it! 

Glenn's sister is coming today to see him for his birthday (tomorrow) and staying till Tuesday - so I'm cooking and entertaining a bit.  He is still in the nursing home and I anticipate he will be there for quite some time, I am bringing dinner to the home and a few friends are coming also.

Back to figs - here are a few pictures from 3 years ago when I had great results with rooting cuttings with orchid moss. I think I started the cuttings right before Christmas of 2012, the first picture is Jan 5, the 2nd is was on the 14th and the 3rd was Feb 5.

The results were great that's why I am trying this again.  Next will be moss in a bag/plastic wrap and see how that works.  I have plenty of cuttings from my tree that are a bit smaller so I will work those also.


   

I tried moss 4 or 5  times ALWAYS mold deluxe. I even tried the same brand that worked for others, mold, mold, mold. Coconut coir for me works very well. I barely dampen it with water and hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup HP to a quart of water. Some rinse their coconut coir which for me would make it WAY too wet. Best rooting year I've ever had. Different things work for different people. Sometimes a little mold appears so I spritz it with a little water\HP

I am newbie knowing not very much, only failing,  Some cuttings just like mold by itself, I might kill them by cleaning them too much.
I clean them using

- Clean/brush with warm water - mold in 1 day
- hand soap wash and brush - mold in 2 days
- potassium sorbate  (5 times wine strength ) -- mold in 2 days
- 10% bleach wash and air dry -- mold in 3 days
- clean mold area using Q-tip with Hydrogen peroxide - mold in 3 days
- clean mold area using Q-tips with rubbing alcohol - mold in 6 days with much smaller mold

I didn't do any cleaning this year

I just rinse the mold or scrape it if need be. I just try the next method until something works. I lost a few but then again i had cut my cuttings in half. Now i have like 6 & 5 Chicago Hardy and...lots of doubles!

Is it just me or no one can write new topics?

KK, It is good to hear that you have good results, So far, I have good results putting them in perlite in bag or cup, no roots yet but some tips become green with no mold on some clean cuttings,  I put 50% cuttings back to fridge to reset its BIOS clock, I will try again after 1 or 2 weeks, I am hoping that I can get 30% cuttings rooted.

Beside mold problem, I find that I make a big mistake by overheated, I put cuttings near television Box, When television on, temperature raised from 70F to 90 to 110F 

There are couple factor for rooting, humidity and temperature, in order to root them properly,  I keep an eye on them using Cheap meter this time.

Anyway, good luck for everyone, if your method work, just keep it that way.
 

No one can write a new topic!

Try coco coir and maybe a new location.  I kept getting mold when I tried rooting in the basement.  Once I moved everything upstairs to the main floor, mold was gone.  The room temp/humidity could be contributing to the mold development.  Good luck!

JoAnn, I'm glad you're disinfecting them and moving on but if there was mold then everything that was exposed to that mold should be disinfected or thrown out.  The moss should be thrown out because you'll never be able to disinfect every nook & cranny.  The bin and lid and anything else in there has to be disinfected or the mold spores will grow from those surfaces.

Best of luck!

Jamie0507, in a word - - GENIUS!!  I can't believe I didn't think of doing it to the moss!!

JoAnn...just found this "lasagna rooting" method on youtube and it looks promising. Simple, quick, and you get a lot of extra plants from the looks of it. And, the ingredients to make the "lasagna" are inexpensive too!

Jo-Ann, I can understand your frustration. Everyone is right about experimenting around until you find something that works for you.

I hope this info is helpful for you. I started out with such great luck last year with:

• Fresh cuttings dipped in Rootech rooting hormone. Dip and Grow 15x didn't seem to work at all.
• Top wrapped in Buddy tape
• Put directly into cups with 50/50 perilite/coir rooting medium
• Given bottom heat with a thermostat controlled heat mat
• Watering with bottled water

 Then around late March to April, nothing was rooting. Even a few rooted/sprouted cuttings had roots that turned brown and died. Everything was molding. I think the problem was:

• The Rootech hormone becomes toxic once it ages after being open a few weeks.  
• The cuttings were older, had been sitting somewhere for a while
• I didn’t pre-moisten the perilite/cour but watered it after the cutting was in the cup until water came out the bottom to flush it. The rooting medium then was too wet and compact.

This year I’ve experimented with the cuttings in moist paper towels and sphagnum moss boxes but found there was around 50% molding with some bought cuttings, even when treating the cuttings with: antibacterial soap, Physan 20, Oxidate 2.0, and/or 10% bleach, soaking in water. At least there is one cutting that roots out of two, except for a few varieties that seem hopeless. Fresh cuttings off my dormant trees still rooted at around 80-90%.

 I’m going back to what worked for me last year with the cuttings now showing green sprouts but no roots, except:

• Pre-watering the rooting medium until it’s just moist and lightly putting it around the cutting to avoid soil compression. Very light watering only when dry.
• Pre-treating all the cuttings with Physan 20.
• I lost the Buddy tape over the summer, so won't be using that.
• The Rootech gets thrown away after four weeks.
• The heating mat will only be used if a cup looks too wet for some reason and needs to dry.

I believe that the longer you root figs, the more you realize that simple is better. It doesn't need to be stressful. I root smaller cuttings in coir, in small plastic containers, that I put in a dresser drawer, and check for roots every few days. Once rooted, into container with ProMix.
 
Most larger cuttings, even so-called difficult to root varieties, I plant in 1 gallon pots of ProMix, water thoroughly, set in a sheltered spot, and wait. If the top has been cut, I seal it with paraffin. I also wrap the above soil section with parafilm. This rarely fails, if you have good, viable cuttings.
 
I don't use bleach, rooting hormones, or anything else. I just keep it simple. Figs are tough. Last February, I even dug a trench in the shade, near my compost pile, and tossed in a bunch of leftover cuttings. 2 months later, all were rooted and growing. I never even watered them.

I notice nobody has recommended much in the way of anti-mold or antifungal measures. Many people here have reported good results from Phytosan, which is easily available. I myself use the King of antifungals, Chinosol, which will only be affordable if you really have some house money to play with. Neither can guarantee no mold ever, especially since you may be working a too humid environment, and that can lead to mold or rot. Make sure to aerate your environment once or twice a day if you can. I open my chamber 2x a day. Don't overwater. Also, orchid moss is not the same as sphagnum, which does have antifungal properties when properly wrung out, as does Coir. I have good success rooting in 90% perlite 10% coir in cups.