I wanted to share this because I am a fellow veteran of past mold wars, but I am happy to report that I have decidedly won the most recent battles.

I "bagged" a LOT of cuttings on Mar. 2 and Mar. 6.  As I write this I have ONE of those still in the ziplock.  It was bagged Mar. 2, and it is a Pastiliere cutting from UCD.  When I checked it yesterday it had FINALLY rooted (one root about 1/2" long so far).

The reason I wanted to post this was to report that of the 45-50 ziplock bags from 3/2 and 3/6 (all with 2 or more cuttings)  I did not lose ONE SINGLE cutting to mold.  Some just didn't root, but it wasn't because of mold.

With these "batches" of cuttings I used Leon's method of preparing, bagging and storing the cuttings.  Here it is (as I understand it and used it):

1. Thoroughly washed (with a brush) the cuttings with dish washing soap and rinsed.
2. Dipped (not soaked) the cuttings in the 10% bleach soln. and allowed to air dry.
3. Used dampened newspaper instead of paper towels to "roll" the cuttings.  Leon said he read somewhere that this paper is heat treated to a very high temperature - killing any living thing.  He also believes the chemicals in newsprint ink further retard the growth of funk.  Also, roots don't grow into newspaper as easily as they do paper towels.
4. Put the cuttings somewhere away from light (I used an empty drawer in an upstairs chest).
5. Unrolled and checked each cutting every other day.  This is critical!  Getting fresh air (IMHO) might be the most significant factor in this.
 
The vast majority of them rooted in the bags.  After 6 weeks or so I gave up on a few that had put on lots of leaf growth but no roots, "planted" them in potting soil, and put them in the shade.  About half of these appear to have rooted now.  I'm not sure why I had left the one Pastiliere cutting bagged because I really had given up on it.  I think in the back of my mind I was wondering if it would EVER begin to grow mold.  I had "re-dampened" the newspaper twice on this one.

Bear in mind that ALL of these cuttings were very healthy and viable.  In other words, ZERO deterioration had begun on any of them at the time I bagged them.  I wish I could say that they were all healthy, stable plants now.  However, I lost a very disappointing percentage of them after moving them from cups of perlite/vermiculite to pots of perlite/soil.  I just don't have the moisture thing at this stage figured out yet.

In any event, there simply can't be a better way to implement the bag method of rooting cuttings.  When I think about how I have fought mold in the past it's nothing short of amazing how well this method worked to avoid the mold problem.

Cheers,

Henry

Henry, I confirm your conclusions, with the Leon's method I haven't had problems with mold. I have the impression that the most important point is the initial washing with dish soap.
I have washed my cuttings covering with dish soap and, gently, under running tap water, I brush the cuttings. I have tried both, with and without 10% bleach solution and I haven't noted any difference. In any event,  the bleach solution doesn't seem to be harmful for rooting, so it can be surer against mold.
It must be taken into account that my trials have been in small quantity, so my conclusions can be wrong.

I did the same in the prep work. Some variations after the cleaning process. I thoroughly wet the newspaper because of the higher heat in the boiler room & to give it higher humidity. Lately I have been  airing the bags or Styro foam containers every 3 to 4 days as I have to drive to this apartment building. I change the wrappings once a week & sometimes theres a kind of odour from the wet newspaper. I rinsed the cuttings when I changed the newspaper wrappings. I prefer using the styro foam boxes where I can make some holes at the bottom to drain out excess water in the newspaper to the plastic bag. I snugged the container into a plastic bag, puffed with air(Jon's idea) and tie with elastic at one end. Bingo, you can tell with moisture in the bag that there is high humidity. Very successful & I may have lost only 2 or 3 cuttings out of more than 50 that I have done. I have to add that I wrapped the cuttings individually. I did wrapped a bunch together & I find molds appearing on  some of them.

Henry, what was your approximate ratio in perlite to soil mix. I have gone to 60/40 and the plants did well. Any less I have lost plants to rot. I also notice Jon's one gallon potting is very high in perlite mix which I think is critical when they come off 100% perlite or perlite/vermiculite mix. I think Jon uses quite large perlite size, larger than the ones I can get at garden centers here.

Jon,

I agree with all your comments.  As you emphasized, washing with dish soap is key.

Paul,

You have probably identified my problem in the potting stage.  My mix is around 50/50 rather than 60/40 (perlite/soil).  Also, as you pointed out, the size of the perlite makes a significant difference.  The current bag I have is marked "coarse", but it is certainly smaller than the last bag of coarse grade perlite I used. 

Anyway, I have quite a few rooted cuttings in cups that I will be moving to pots soon.  I am going to definitely increase the ratio of perlite to soil with I pot them. 

Henry

Such good info still .... bumping this for the newbies this year.

I tried something different this year
I didn't bother to wash or bleach any of the cuttings
I put them into a potting soil mixture that I had around
they are all rooting vary well so far 100% of the sticks have rooted and no sign of mold on any of them
this was just an experiment and it worked for me this time
it seems to me that if the right moisture and temperature surrounds the cutting it will take root
I've tried all other methods they all worked to one degree or another
just my two cents

well from my experience I suspect, maybe you might be keeping them too warm once rooted..
soil in spring is cool if not down right cold.. so once rooted let the soil cool but start giving the leafs a bit of filtered sun, to gain " strength" and warmth from that . I found if the soil is too hot they just burn out.

By using the "new bag method" where the cutting is about 90-95% buried in the rooting medium, mold issue has gone to zero (OK maybe 0.3%). Completely burying the cutting helps keep the moisture in it, and the humidity can then be reduced.

I'm going with Mario on the cuttings. Last year was my first with figs, after a lifetime (like Jon, since diaper era) of other happy gardening. For one batch of cuttings, I was religious about the baggies and the Perlite and so forth, and only a few of those cuttings made it. But I was busy and impatient when another batch of cuttings arrived. The second lot went straight into a very very light seed-starting mix, with about 20% Perlite added (by me), and a hefty scoop of my vermicompost. (Yeah, fanatic gardener with worms in her basement. Go figure.) The second batch, just potted up without roots, did very very well. We had a rainy spring, they got soaked often, and they were in very high humidity.

So now what, y'all? I've got a new batch of scions coming from Jon at Encanto Farms (hurray for Jon!!)  Do I go back to baggies and try to figure out why I did so badly with that last year, or stick with success and just pot up the little devils in my super-starter mix?

Thanks!

Lee
Zone 5 but persevering

PS. One of my first-ever gardening experiences was planted a fig bush in Virginia with my dad when I was a teensy kid, like four years old.

Tough call. I'd be inclined to go with what worked, if I was in your shoes. or maybe do some each way, as a CYA kind of thing. It is hard to argue with success.

Thanks, Jon. I think I'll try both methods. Today I'm heading over to the cemetary to snip some willow branches & make willow-bark rooting hormone. Noplace in town has the commercial stuff except in fig-rotting powder form.