I'd love to see you do some without the wax to see if it's really necessary. 

Bob, the rooting medium is about 50% old TGA Super Soil and 50% fresh worm castings.  When I say "old", the bag of TGA SS was already a couple years old when my friend got a good buy on it.  It smelled badly septic to me.  I let it sit in the garage with the top open for nearly a year.  It lost the septic smell in that time.  I have no idea the nutrient content of it.

"So you have a magic wand!"... LOL actually it is a modified sprayer wand, extended with a length of copper tubing to help reach places, that was once part of a distilling apparatus so it may be magic or think it is...

"I'd love to see you do some without the wax to see if it's really necessary."... Ok consider it done next.  The theory in dipping mushroom log ends and sealing inoculation points is it supposedly sterilizes and prevents moisture loss.  Food grade cheese wax is used for a couple of reasons, one it is food grade and two it is softer than standard paraffin.  Doesn't get brittle and crack, etc.   I will get started on them right away. 

Charlie, you do seem to own that magic wand for sure. Great progress and thanks for the update.

Thanks Otmani.

Pretty sure the bright room floor is maxed out.  Think we will rest for awhile on adding stuff.  Ten Celeste single nodes were added with no wax for Bob's curiosity, along with a variety of others that were waxed since I know it works and didn't want to risk them.  

 

I'd like you to wax 5 of them and leave 5 without.  Other wise we wont know if it was the cuttings being strong or weak.

Wax on, Wax off.  All the cars.

If the Celestes are all duds we won't know if it's the wax off that did them in or they were just weak cuttings.  Same if they all root.  I'm not the dictator I seem to be, I just want to have a fair shot at evaluating the necessity of the wax  :)  They're your cuttings so you get to decide.

I know Bob can't be referring to cuttings you got from me....

Well if they all root it would make sense to me they don't need it. It's just the way the first one was done so it stuck. I would really be glad if they don't need it.  From current experience in my particular situation, I would say the greatest danger is of them drying out.  If one watering was missed, it would be over for most all of them.  Un-waxed would dry out quicker as a guess.

No worries Gloria your cuttings are safe...for now...bwahahaha! :) 

Sunday update of a few budding/leafing varieties...

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the looks of it, by next Sunday there will be many more varieties added to this.  Just tiny swelling buds for the most part.  Some look the exact same as the day they were started.

This method is most definitely a "patience required".   They are doing just like Unk Lake Spur, popping out a leaf or two then stalling.  They should start to increase by this time next week or so.  Need more roots I guess.

One leaf dropped on one of the Atreano while getting watered.  Also notice one of them has deformed leaves while the others look normal.  FMV?

Charlie,
I would start to build a Green house Nursery if I were you ASAP.
Those babies will grow fast and , so, your house will be taken over by them, LOL
You are doing a great job, thank you for sharing all the pictorials.

Charlie, that is just awesome!

Every post you put up seems to increase my excitement about my single node cuttings, while simultaneously making it harder wait for the one month mark to come around. 

Thank you for sharing Charlie.

Thanks for the nice comments folks.  :)

There is a definite pattern emerging.  Cuttings made from "mostly green" wood are doing better.  Fact, some bowls with green cuttings done on 11/16/14 are already swelling buds.  

Older wood cuttings do not seem to be doing anything and some, after some prodding around in the mix inspection, reveal dead looking wood, no roots, nothing.

It's ok, all experimental.  Those feeble looking ones will continue to get watered as the rest.  They just may be late bloomers lol. 

Nice job, keep it up.

Charlie. Nice thread. I experimented a few seasons ago with a bunch of one-noders. I was new and it didn't go so well :-/ . I had a bunch take offwell but fizzled quickly. I"m not very good at keeping good records over any length of time. I get bored too quickly. Looks like you're off to a much better start.

Have to agree with you on your suggestion on cutting diameter. In my opinion, larger diameter cuttings will have more energy reserves to draw from.

Great experiment. Keep us posted.

 

Great progress, Charlie & thanks for the ongoing update.

Thanks for posting up the pictures and your progress. Your dedication is very inspiring.

Thanks, Charlie, for keeping us all updated.  Great experiment, with excellent results!  I'm going to give it a try next time, myself.  Looks like you've got this down to an art, congratulations!  Keep us all posted!

Here's a cutting comparison...

 

The bottom one is the better selection for this method, so far.  Most every green wood cutting is showing life while a few brown wood are but mostly not.  Not counting them as duds yet as I was surprised by a brown wood LSU Gold this morning with a swelling bud.

I'm sure ya'll remember the cutting of Atreano which was removed to inspect root growth in post #58 on 11/22 right?  It had no green bud at the time but look!

 

Didn't really expect this one to survive the removal and handling.  A couple of the roots were broken off during the process. These guys must be tougher than we think sometimes.

There is a new factor in play which may alter the whole experiment.  Ceiling fan quit working.  We'll see how it goes.  On warm days it will get quite hot in the room but the soil surface of the bowls is not as dry when I get home from work with no air directly hitting them. Perhaps they liked the air, wet/dry cycle?  I don't know.    

 

Looks like you can't keep a good fig down.  Looks like a green snake head poking out from under that one cutting lol.  Bottom layer of single nodes in the sterilite container starting to disrupt the upper layer.  

 

Looks like you have a busy day ahead of you floating out the cuttings from the sterilite container.  Fantastic as always, keep up the good work. 

Are you going to try traditional rooting methods with the brown cuttings our just give them more time in the soil?