Finally! After the first stick of SaintJean rotted in a sphag bin although other [cultivar] cuttings in virtually identical sphag bins did great; and the second which did nothing in a perlite tub (later to become a failed graft); the 3rd and final cutting was placed rootless in a pot of barely-moist potting soil (the mulch type) and placed in a lidded bin (slightly cracked open). I thought this would be the least likely to be successful, but having struck out twice, I was desperate. After well over a month, ol' John has finally poked his head out. Thank goodness..I was really upset at the thought of losing them all.  Looks like he might be here to stay! 

I saw HarveyC's SaintJean on ebay a while back and was so jealous. Hat's off, Harvey! This one really was a challenge for me.
 
FYI Plant was taken out to have its picture taken. It usually lives in a clear plastic bin below a fixture of 4 t5 fluorescent tubes at a near constant temp of 75*F--potting soil stays much dryer than most other cultivars I've rooted. In this case, I took cues from others and buried about 3/4 of the cutting..which I think made a big difference. Not sure at which nodes the roots sprouted, because it was potted before root initials were present.

 

Looks good!  Congrats!

Good luck with it!

I'm right behind you with st. Jean getting ready to be cupped. Its supposed to really be a fine fig.

I agree Rick, St Jean isn't easy to get started. I have a Marseilles VS in a 2 gallon pot with first figs on it, that was started at the same time as my St Jeans, which are still in cups. Look about like yours. I'm going to visit Harvey, I have much to learn. Congrats on yours.

Interesting.  This is one of the figs that I was having trouble rooting.  Good luck with it.

I was lucky enough to get one St Jean cutting from Encanto this year and it failed. I did the same spagnum process that was so successful this year with the others. Two of the very few that I lost was the St Jean and of course the single CdD Gris I got.
Oh well,
Enjoy yours Rick

Glad to see I'm not alone. Since this was a "surprise" batch of cuttings for me, really hoping to get it to the point where I can regift cuttings back into the community. (Although air layers might be the real answer.) Best of luck to all. Please feel free to post your fails and successes:  I think it might be useful to come up with "best practices" for specific cultivars at some point. Especially with the hard to root ones.    BTW I lost my single Byadi cutting from Encanto....hurts doesn't it? Felt like a deadbeat dad.

I'm still at the stage where I can't stop myself from overwatering the poor things...I wish I was busy enough to do some nurturing forgetfulness. 

Congrats, Rick.  I find it interesting how some are so challenging for us.  Maltese Falcon has been the toughest for me, for some reason.

I had a bit of an accident this year...I have 4 tables with heat mats on them, each 2' x 4'.  One has some commercial grade heat mats that are more powerful.  One night I thought my propagation room felt warmer than normal but was rushed and didn't investigate.  The next day it was quite toasty and I then discovered the temperature probe for the thermostat that controls the mats for 2 tables had fallen out of the pot and was laying on the concrete floor.  Those powerful mats were very hot!  I put the probe in the pot and it shot up to 105F!  I lost some cuttings that had been on that table, unfortunately.  The probe is now secured with duct tape!  I bring this up because of a very surprising outcome of one of those cuttings.  I had a smallish GM 141 cutting and it had not begun to grow before the "cooking event" yet it continued to look fairly fresh, wrapped in Parafilm.  I waited another 3-4 weeks and nothing was happening.  I finally decide to pull up each cutting and tossed several that looked bad.  The GM 141 still looked fairly fresh, though, even after being stuck for about six weeks.  The bottom of the cutting didn't look too good, though, so I trimmed off about a half inch.  In just a few days leaves were pushing out and in ten days I had roots coming out the bottom of my 8" tall pot.  It makes me how many cuttings that have failed on me that may have had the potential to be rescued by a similar treatment.  I can't really come up with a theory on why this cutting suddenly grew but I was happy it did!

Harvey, there was a thread last year by Suzi I believe that had one of her black pots soaring to some temperature very close to what you mentioned. She had been having trouble with it growing due to heavy FMV. After the heat incident and it being moved it grew like crazy. 

I believe it was Jon who hypothesized it may be a treatment for FMV.

I believe it's pretty well documented that heat will kill FMV, hope it did in the ones I cooked!