*Edited Jan 30,'10*  Pictures Below Added*

Today I put some of the fig seedlings (sown about Oct. 30 and repotted into the 4" pots on Dec. 12) and some cuttings that I had potted around Dec. 20 into a large tub and bottom watered them with a dilute solution of Shultz Bloom Food (10-54-10).

So I decided to take some pictures and share them here.

The first picture is an overhead of them, with the various "unkown" cuttings on the right. On the lower left of the picture the two larger seedlings are ones that I had repotted out of the germinating tray about 2 or 3 weeks earlier than the rest of the seedlings. Also in this picture you can see one of the smaller seedlings with a plant tag in its pot bottom center of seedlings). This is my favorite right now because it had three cotyledons (seed leaves) instead of the usual two.

The second picture is a close up of that "tricot" plant. Its first pair of true leaves tried to copy the three seed leaves, by having one of them be a double leaf off the same leaf stem. After the first two at the same node true leaves fig seedlings seem to go to a single leaf per node, and this one has too.

The third is a close up of the two seedlings that had about 2 weeks head start on the others. These have started to grow quickly now! These seedlings are from seeds from a Panache fig growing in the wasp area of California, part of a very large collection that includes a number of persistent caprifig plants.

The last two are close ups of cuttings from three different "unkown" plants I found in my area.


I'll try to post some more pictures of the other cuttings I have started soon. Hope you enjoy the pics!


*I added some current pictures. Three are of the largest seedlings, to show how much they have grown in 24 days.
 One of the pictures shows three different sizes, and another picture shows the one that had three cotyledons (The one that has a double leaf in the lower center of picture).

Hi Tom,
lots of little guys there !
Be careful on the watering as you may well know at this stage and thanks for sharing those pictures as they are nice to see and helps me forget about the snow coming my way well at least for a few minutes.  ; )

I edited the posting, and added pictures of some seedlings 24 days after the first pictures posted.

Hey nice little seedings you got there. I only have one that is around 7 inches tall now took this picture a month ago it now has 3 true fig leaves now its a seedling of Balca from the anatolian fig seeds I bought on ebay.




Same seedling picture taken today with phone

Tom,
those look nice , your gonna some nice plants for the spring !
Nelson when they grow into plants do they need pollination ?

Martin the odds are against me, the possibilities of it being a caprifig or needing pollination are allot higher than it being a common fig. I have a few more seedlings that just germinated some I will use as rootstocks for grafting experiments others I will be trialing and see what happens see if they are caprifigs or Smyrna type or common. You never know unless you try I guess Jon has modivated me with his collection of seedlings.

I understand now what you meen.
Gotta hand it to Jon he has been the fig flu carrier infecting many folks.
He has one that grew as a seedling on his property i think i remember but forget what that 1 was called though it looked nice just cant remember the name.

Seedlings are fun, as long as you don't get carried away, and have reasonable expectations.

I agree Jon, I dont have high expections with the seedlings its just for fun and see what the end result will be. Some edible figs would be a nice treat though.

Martin:  At least one from Jon's collection that was a seedling he grew he named "Raspberry Latte".

I got a Raspberry Latte from Jon, even though I don't know how cold hardy it will be. I may have to keep it in a pot.

Nelson: Thanks for sharing the pictures of your seedling. I still
have quite a few seeds from the Panache fig if you or anyone wants to try some more. It would be fun to see what other areas and luck do with seeds off of the same tree.

I know that not all of the 25 seedlings I have will turn out to be actual fruit producing, and tolerant of our winters. It may be that none of them will. But it is fun watching them grow, and thinking that while some of the figs we grow may have started as seeds hundreds or even thousands of years ago, these seedlings are brand new. I also know that it could take five years or even more maybe to determine what each plant will do. I have read that this time can be shortened by grafting part of the seedling onto an older plant. I plan to try this and see how long it takes to see if it makes figs. I will let everyone on this forum know as I go along.

Can I ask a general question (to anyone)?

Scroll up to the first post and look at the fourth picture.

I consider this to be an "acceptable" level of root-browning.  Do others agree?

One of the things that's been bugging me lately is that nobody explains "how brown" your roots can be before you need to be worried that they are dying.  I don't know how to explain it in words, only with pictures.

Those roots look healthy to me, and show a slight tint of brown, but are still puffy like a healthy root.  Rotting brown would be darker and more uniform, with some shrivelling.

This is my experience, but I am not a professional.  I think it could be something to visit in this thread, since we have a good picture of roots with some browning.

Jason Hi,
i have had roots similar to that color and then plant went south as roots kept getting darker and then mushy when i took it out.
Looking at that picture carefully i noticed the potting mix just looks wet in that area only where roots are . If it were my plant i would worry because of that situation.
You ask whats an acceptable level of browning to me and only me that would be the limit what you see in that picture.
From more recent pictures in thread it looks like it is going to be ok which is good.
For me i when i was rooting scion it occured to me its easier to put the mix in bowl first and wet it and get your hands into it like your mixing a meatloaf in a bowl then put that in cup with the scion showing roots (gently) and not water it till you transplant it to gallon pot if the soil was to dry at that point if it was still moist i did not water it.
Thats just me Jason only everyone has there ways but in short ficus carica are easy to root i have found thruout the years and 1 does not need to be a rocket scientist to root em. Oh the things i rooted back in the early 70s  ; )

Some of you might be interested in the seedlings I started back in October of 2009. I planted them in a row during the summer of 2010, and after being frozen to the ground they all grew back from the roots and are around 4 feet tall. I have them in a bed about 20' long with 2rows. They might all be caprifigs, or smyrna figs or late ripening figs or not very good common figs, but I am still having fun growing them. I may use the roots of the  undesirables to make some multi variety grafted trees.

The first picture the seeding bed is on the left with some potted named variety figs on the right. The second picture has the seedling bed in the middle, and you can see both in ground and potted seeds to the left and right of it.

They look great.  Sometimes it's fun to plant something, not knowing exactly what to expect.  Thanks for the pics.