Some cuttings I start the 'normal' way: wrap in damp paper towel, bag, then move to cup in humidity bin when roots appear.  But some cuttings I'm starting by just sticking them directly into the gravel growbed in my high tunnel aquaponics system (the growbed serves as a filter for a 1,000 gallon fish tank). 

I put the first cutting (Hardy Chicago) into the gravel about 6 weeks ago, the rest went in about 2 weeks ago.  During most of that time, the water in the system has been cold, usually around 55-60F, so growth has been really limited.  Over the last few days the weather has been nice, though, so the water temp has crept up into the low 70's and the cuttings look to be off to the races.  During this warm spell I've moved the 'normal' cupped cuttings from the humidity bin in the house out into the growbed alongside the others.

Here are the varieties pictured, in order:

Italian Honey
Black Greek
Panache
VdB
a dozen Green Ischias
Salce
Celeste
Conadria
Hardy Chicago - bagged/binned
Hardy Chicago - stuck in gravel from get-go
Hardy Chicago - comparing both methods
(note - all those HC's were started at the same time)

It's going to be fun watching these plants explode in new growth in the coming weeks :)

In the background of the Panache pic you can see a cup with a withered cutting.  That's a Black Greek that had leaves but no roots when I brought it out of the humidity bin into the relatively intense lighting in the greenhouse.  Predictably, it fried in hours.  The cuttings that had roots were able to support their green growth without too much trouble.

Will that withered Black Greek eventually grow roots and try greening up again, or is it probably toast?

Are you concerned with the roots digging themselves deep?
Those are some happy figs, congratulations.

I don't mind if the roots go deep.  When the time comes to move the plants, they can be pried out of the loose gravel fairly easily.

Last summer I took a skinny green cutting from my LSU Purple plant and stuck it in the gravel growbed to see if it would take, and it did.  After a couple of months it was big and in the way, so I pried it out and buried the crown outside about 1.5' deep.  I recently checked on that plant, and even though we've had multiple cold spells that have gotten down to -10F, the stems are still pliable and seemingly alive down near the soil.  I'm wondering if those stems will leaf out in the spring.  I'm also wondering if it still has a bunch of viable nodes on the 1.5' of buried stems/trunks, and if so whether they'll send up shoots in the spring. 

I don't get it.. wait a min.. we kill them with overwatering, you have them soaking in water, right? what am I missing, these look really good.. keep it up...

it's like that chinese person who was rooting the figs in the fish tank. fish poop and waste is high in nitrogen. gives good growth. 

even better.. you are providing air. i would definitely like to see the results. 

i have a gold fish for almost 8 years now. this poor thing has a bubble tube.. do you think I can shove some cutting in there with it?  Those growbeds sound wonderful. 

check this out :)

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/show_single_post?pid=1274284864&postcount=1

fresh cutting doesn't response well to full strength fertilizer. but at lower, it seems to stimulate growth. i water my cuttings with very weak MG fert. 

Hello,

What kind of gravel do you use in your grow beds? It looks like a small river rock to me. The expanded clay pellet is pricey and all the gravel around me is limestone so i would have an uphill battle with pH. I have wanted to try aquaponics for a while but other hobbies like figs have got in the way.
Thanks,

Mike

Thanks for sharing your photos of green things growing in the winter!

Here are some pics from about 10 days ago of the Hardy Chicago from the 2nd-to-last pic in the original post.  The figs that were starting to swell and color in the pics below have since ripened and been eaten.  They were great :)

 

Excellent work once again James. CH looks very very healthy for this time of the year. Thanks for sharing the results. By the way did the black Greek survive?

Awesome, thanks for the update James! By the way I just got done wrapping my four yearlings but only with some landscaping fabric and clear plastic. My first time wrapping them! It got too cold too quick this year! It was 22 this morning ,felt in the low teens with the wind and only went up to 32. Not normal for this area!

A great thread.  My thumbs up!  Do you have composting worms in your gravels also?

Thanks for the nice comments :)

Yes, there are lots of red wiggler composting worms in the gravel.  Many, many thousands!  It's interesting that since the water is aerated, the worms live underwater.  They come up and lounge around (and find love) on the surface at night, but they spend most of their time in the gravel underwater.

That is a very healthy system.