I had been checking out Encanto's website and it looks like their method of air layering does not involve sealing the air layer container with plastic wrap. It looks like an open top and bottom with the bottle or whatever covered in foil. Looks like something you just need to water every other day.

Anyone in the northeast tried this method? I like the fact that it seems to be a way to prevent over and under watering.

Can't speak for the northeast, but it certainly works fine in Tucson.

http://figs4fun.com/More_Info_Air_Layering.html

Ken,

Does it still take 5 weeks roughly? How often do you water it?

Here in the midwest i do it all the time . Top of water bottle open and bottom had hole for stem and leak out like a drain hole.

Recently did large airlayer with 1 gallon pot on main trunk near top of tree as it was getting to tall, black 1g pot with top all open and hole in bottom for main trunk.

Anything basically works once something moist comes in contact with the wood.
As a note i dont cut nor scrape bark of tree .

Thanks Martin. Will make sure to not score the bark on this one. 

A question for you Martin, how long from start to finish on average before you cut it off from the mother tree?

I've just done a couple that way, although I did girdle the tree. The last one took about four weeks, although another one started at the same time still needs at least another week.

Slingha im not syaing dont score bark all im saying is i do not .

They root different some root faster than others some slower, that 1 gallon jolly tiger airlayer had the gallon pot filled with roots in 5 weeks its in part sun now in 3 gallon pot.

Martin, If it doesn't work it doesn't work. I like trying different methods, especially ones that can make my life easier.

Perhaps here in old threads, I've read of someone using a vegetable peeler to make a slice or two, not necessarily girdling the tree. And another who used a bit of sandpaper around a few nodes to rough up the outside somewhat.

It sounds as if anything will work.

I've just sliced a water bottle in half and, time permitting, will set one up today for practice. :)

The principles are these.

1) The rooting media in the air layer needs to stay moist.

This can be accomplished in several ways. 1) sealing the rooting media tight to reduce mixture loss, or 2) adding water from time to time. Different ways of accomplishing the same goals.

Figs are easier to root than many other things, so what you can get away with when air-layering figs may not work with other things.

Quite often, with any air-layer, you need to add water to the rooting medium. Having the top open makes this easier, but also requires adding water more frequently.

2) Stripping off the bark below the air-layer is critical/necessary
when air-layering some plants, but not so much in figs.

The purpose of removing the bark is to interrupt the flow of energy from the leaves down to the roots, and redirect it to making new roots for the air-layer. Some plants, such as figs, root more readily than other things, and will generally still develop roots even if not stripped.
Many people will have seen a low hanging branch touch the soil and begin to root, without removing the bark.  Same idea.

I developed the bottle method because I really didn't like the bag or plastic wrap technique - it was just kind of cumbersome and I wanted something simpler and easier (lazier?).

Use a smooth sided bottle as this will make removal from the bottle easier. And they are reusable.

Time varies with variety. I still find that Black Madeira takes longer to root, even when air-layering than most others. You can peel back the foil and check on it every so often, and then re-cover. No need to remove until the bottle is filled with roots.

The advantage over regular cuttings is that the root development is driven by the photosynthetic energy produced by the leaves, not stored energy in the cuttings.

Thanks for the info Jon.

Truth be told the tree im trying to air layer is an unnamed italian fig that "came over on a boat 50 years ago" and is grown in ground in zone 6a.

I really dont want to lose the tree so im figuring that leaving the bark is a good idea so if the air layer doesnt take, I can at least take the bottle off and keep the tree intact. If I girdle it, and it doest take the tree is toast.

Gina,

The tree is "y" shaped and maybe 6 feet tall but has the branch size of a 3 foot tall tree. Very whippy.  All of the growth is in the top 6 inches on both sides of the "y". There are a few small leaves way down at the bottom, so I guess that would. 

See Below......A picture is worth a thousand words. Im going to try and air layer one of the "y"s

Slingha you can get long strong stake and hammer it into ground next to pot and attach airlayer up high on tree left branch and tie to stake otherwise the branch will not support it if thats your intentions.

But come dormancy you may want to prune tree cause it has apical dominance from the looks of it.
I would prune a foot or 2 above that Y and it will branch out more and look nice.

Here's the after

Looks good.

Five weeks is probably about average, but I don't pay close attention. I'm not very scientific about it--I've done a half 2-liter bottle (essentially a pot) situated so the irrigation hits it. It runs an hour a day, so the excess just runs through the pot and waters the main plant, just as it would if there were no air layer. In my yard it's virtually impossible to over-water anything in the ground, because the soil drains so quickly.

Other times I've semi-sealed the air layer and just added water if it looked like it might be getting dry. I'm currently doing one down at the base of a multi-trunked Black Mission where no sun hits it. It's in a clear plastic container with a lid, so I check it every week or so to make sure there's still condensation on the inside. Another two on an LSU Purple are sealed pretty well, but they're right on the ground and probably have some water getting in when I flood the tree's basin.

Haven't had one fail on me yet. I've had a couple killed after they were established, but that is another story.

Here's what the ones I mentioned on 7/30 look like at one month (I started them on 7/14). I'll let them go another week before cutting them loose.

I still need to prune off the big horizontal branch that the small LSU Purple air layer is attached to, so once I remove the small one I'll start an air layer on the big branch, which will make the main tree back into a single trunk.

For some reason the image of the larger of the two LSU Purples didn't attach; I'll try again.

I just snipped the airlayering this morning that I did on 7/29/12 on an unknown using the unsealed method and I had roots coming from everywhere! I think it's better this way so you always have moist moss due to watering and the heat helps the roots grow.

Well here's the update. Started on 07/30.  This is a double main trunk air layer. I will air layer no other way going forward. Soaked plain old peat moss (not sphagnum) in water in a zip top bag for 2 hours so it absorbed water. Cut a clear plastic bottle in half. Squeezed out the peat moss and filled both sides of the bottle. Clamped it back together with zip ties. Wrapped in foil. Used a "chip clip" as a way to hold the air layer in place. Watered maybe once a week when I thought it needed it. Important to note that i did not do a thing to the bark(thanks for the suggestion Martin).  I made sure each had a node that went into the air layer but bark was untouched.<br /><br />A nice side bonus, the main trunk below pushed out some nice growth where there was none during this time. Im going to leave these on for a few more weeks.

Also thanks to Jon @Encanto for posting the info on his site for the hand hildong end of it.

Good job!  Happy they turned out so well for you!
Suzi