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spring/summer cutting rooting

Greetings to all of you.  This is a great forum!
I am a "newbie" fig enthousiast and full of questions that you probably had when you got the fig bug.
I read about dormant cutting rooting but what about cuttins from growth in April to September .Do you get good results, what is the most effective technique, do you need to use the baggie method, let the bottom callus under refrigeration or in a bag in a warm place.
May be "just stick em in the dirt"?...

Cuttings will root just fine right now - of course, that is, if you use last year's (or older) wood.  Last year I rooted quite a few cuttings well into May here in Mississippi.  I rooted some in cups of vermiculite (inside in a humidity-controlled plastic box), and I rooted some by simply sticking them in a sandy potting soil in pots (with a little powdered rooting hormone).  After potting and watering them I simply put them in the shade.  I did not start any of these in bags, but I'm sure they would root easily that way also.  The rate of success for me with these was much better than with dormant cuttings.  Regarding leaving the cuttings outside in the shade that works just fine here where humidity averages over 90% in the mornings and just under 60% in the afternoons.  However, if you live in a drier climate this obviously won't work for you.  The cuttings need humidity.  I think cuttings will root just about any time, but right now is probably a pretty good time with everything being dialed into growth with the plants.  Good luck.

Henry

Do you remove the leaves first?

Since I send my bagged cuttings to the Boiler room, I had excellent results. I never bothered with callusing(probably better). The boiler room is in a large apartment building -- the boiler fires up for domestic hot water & for heating purposes, thus the constant cycling provides an excellent environment for me to create high humidity for the cuttings. To root becomes easy  but the challenge is to keep the rooted cuttings going until they are ready for 1 gallon pots. Unfortunately I cannot keep the rooted cuttings in the boiler room otherwise it would be great.

Gatormd,

Yeah, I removed the leaves.  On a few I left a couple inches of new green growth still attached to the older wood.  However, in all but one case the new growth withered and dried up.  The cuttings still rooted though.  I would recommend going ahead and removing both leaves AND any new green growth and root only the 1 yr. (or older) wood.  These cuttings were VERY fast to root also.  The caveat to my experience though is that I have since learned this cultivar is an extremely healthy and vigorous variety.  I still think (generally speaking) you should be easily able to root just about any cuttings right now.

Henry

Thanks, Henry.  I'm going to give it a try!

PW


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