I use dip n grow, only thing i found that works wonders for me, pulling about 95% root rate. keeping fungus gnats away is another issue though.

i also do i light scoring on the cuttings before treating with dip in grow. exploading root systems. but to each thier own youo gotta find what works for you.

Dave

Maybe the key is the IBA concentration, with better results with low ppm IBA.
Do you know what ppm IBA you use? Dip n Grow has different products.
By the way, 1,000 to 4,000 ppm IBA are very usual concentrations.

1.0 % Iba
.05% 1-naphaleneacetic acid
98.05% other


I mix this to water. 7-1 for harder wood and let em soak a min, i know t says only 5 sec ut when your doing alot you know. 10-1 for softer cuttings.

treat dormant cuttings. i soak in slightly warm water with some antibactiral dish soap for 10 min. line up tops and bottems. and look at quality. ie number of nodes, cracks ect.

freashly cut at a 45 degree angle with sharp bypass pruners leaving the bottem node untouched. i then lightly scor the bark from one side using the edge of the pruner between the bottem two nodes. i will lightly scral the surface of the nodes that will be under the soil line. pop cutting in mix to soak while doing te next one. once mix cup is full i pot mine rith into 4x4 inch pots with a light mix 50% perlight and 50% miraclegrow seed starting mix. they grow like crazy.

Good luck
Dave

Hi Axier.  I seem to remember another member, ascpete, mentioning in one thread or another that
     a) he did some controlled (or at least semi-controlled) experiments on fig rooting, comparing Dip'n'Grow-treated with a control group (no Dip'n'Grow)
     b) he had great initial apparent success by using Dip'n'Grow, but that
     c) subsequent to that he found that the Dip'n'Grow-treated trees weren't doing as well.
I think I remember point "c" at least... but I can't find the threads about his conclusions any more.  Maybe he'll see this posting and comment.  Pete, if you see this:  I found the thread about points a and b, but am I dreaming that I saw you subsequently post about point c also?  I couldn't find it just now when I went searching, but maybe it was some other thread from your initial one?

Anyway, if I'm remembering this correctly, it would match the point you're describing, Axier.  But on figs rather than the plants you reference in that Cornell paper.

Mike   central NY state, zone 5

Thank you Dave.
So, 7+1 for a 1% IBA is a 1,250 ppm IBA solution, 10+1 is a 909 ppm IBA solution.

A bit lower than most of my solutions, but when I used 1,000 ppm I got bad results too.

Mike, thank you, very interesting, I don't remember that post.
So I am not the only one with bad results...
It seems that, according to Pete trials, he saw the same thing, an explosive root initial (in my case) but subsequent to that, the decadence...

Just curious, I use 5,000 to 6,000 ppm IBA for rooting softwood kiwi cuttings with very good results. It is evident that each plant tolerates IBA in a different way.

I used both dip 'n grow (10x dilution) and clonex this year.  Essentially every cutting has rooted for me.  At first I lost almost half when I potted up (apparently due to not getting the amount of water and root gas exchange right) but I have refined the technique and have much better success now.  Around 10% with good roots were very delayed in pushing out leaves.  Some have eventually leafed out but I still have a few that are stuck at this point.  I'll keep watering them for another month or two before I give up.  Of course I didn't do the control experiment so I don't know how things would have turned out had I not used rooting hormone.

Axier, please see my thread Root Riot Graduates started today. I used Clonex  3g/L IBA along with scoring on each side at the bottom 1 inch. I could not
ask for better results in rooting and growth.

Hello Axier,
 Yes to both (delay and absence). I did a few comparisons of Rooting Hormone and concentrations.  My conclusion was that a lower concentration achieved a balance of increased root growth and Quick leaf growth. I have done a few hundred cuttings (of 5 different varieties) as a test, and I still have the same conclusion (results).

Conclusions is here...

Experiment #1 and Experiment #2 are here.

I used Dip N Grow Hormone, and did'nt know the actual PPM concentration, but 15X (<edit> 15X=750Iba/375naa PPM) dilution was the best over all concentration. Note, without hormone I still have a 100% rooting rate with long fibered sphagnum moss, it just takes longer.

Mike, ... The conclusion is in both topics somewhere, but may also have been stated on other topics relating to hormone use. In my observation, in a side by side comparison, the rooting hormone at higher concentrations always break bud and leaf out slower than untreated cuttings.

Rewton, I have not tested against a control batch, because of this I am not sure, but I have rooted cuttings for a lot of years and I never saw this absence of sprouting in well rooted cuttings.

Newnandawg, Clonex has other ingredients apart from IBA, maybe these have a beneficial effect.
I will follow your post.

Thank you Pete, very interesting and professional your trials, I will read them with calm.
Your conclusion goes in the same direction as mine, the higher ppm IBA the lower sprouting, so IBA inhibits sprouting in figs, it depends on concentration.

Taking into account that it is a dangerous risk and the easiness for rooting of figs, in my humble opinion, it is not worth the beneficial of IBA.
I have no doubt, I won't use rooting hormones for figs in the future.

See this interesting comment of the document from Hartmann and Kester's Plant Propagation book:

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/faculty/davies/pdf%20stuff/ph%20final%20galley/Chap%209%20-%20M09_DAVI4493_08_SE_C09.pdf

By the way, a book of high academic level, a propagation bible!!

In the page 42 of 65 (319 of the total document):

Thanks for posting the links to the PDF documents (Book). I am definitely interested in the information.

I haven't had that problem with the rooting hormone.  Some of mine put out leaves before roots.  I fertilize mine when the roots appear, though.  If you have any left with roots and no leaves you might try some houseplant strength fertilizer on them to see what happens.

[QUOTE]Taking into account that it is a dangerous risk and the easiness for rooting of figs, in my humble opinion, it is not worth the beneficial of IBA.
I have no doubt, I won't use rooting hormones for figs in the future. [/QUOTE]

In the past I did not use rooting hormone w figs. At the very end of cutting season this year, after reading some of the threads, I tired it on about a dozen or so. I used dip and grow. Forget the concentration. I got lots of roots impressively fast, but many of these cuttings never sprouted. Some are still sitting there in the rooting chamber with roots and nothing else weeks and weeks later.

I had better luck producing 'whole plants' with slower rooting, without hormone. Fortunately I did get entire plants from a few of those last (extremely desirable) cuttings, but at a much lower %. Just transplanted a few of them into 5 gallon containers today.

I also won't use rooting hormone again with fig cuttings.

interesting. i thought about using hormones number of times, but never did. when i first started rooting, i heard how hard it is to root certain figs and thought hormones were the way to go. but it seems i don't have any issue rooting any of the cuttings. no need for the hormones. they will root in their own time. few weeks difference in time for the rooting wasn't that important to me.

I believe this picture speaks for itself... Hormone treated (undiluted Dip n Grow) on left Untreated on right. Only 50% (3 out of 6) of the hormone treated survived to the 1 gallon stage. All six (6) untreated survived to the 1 gallon stage.



<edit> I am now setting up to start rooting my purchased cuttings using a 15X dilution of Dip N Grow, maintaining a high ambient temperature (above 70 deg F) and high ambient humidity.

From observations of all the tests that I performed, These factors will produce faster growth in a shorter period of time. Plants started with low concentration of hormone and maintained at a constant warm temperature (controlled environment) have the same observed growth as plants that were started three (3) months earlier without hormone.

Thank you AscPete for your scientific contribution (mine are only words).
Yes, it is very evident! and frustrating...

good luck with your De la Reina. something i can only dream about :)

question, showing my ignorance here,  do the dip and grow and clonex have the same active ingredient?
Have people noticed the same thing with clonex?

Un diluted Dip and Grow will produce wire brush masses of roots, but will stunt the growth of leaf buds eventually starving the plant. Another mistake is dipping the entire cutting into the hormone solution,  will result in roots and never any leaf buds. Those that look stopped but have active green buds but look stalled can be fed a very low level liquid fertlizer to kick start the growth. One of the universities had a set of papers on this topic, will try to find.

Greg, ... Yes "IBA", but I have never used Clonex.

Jack, ... Undiluted Hormone was only a suggested experiment (by another forum member). It did perform exactly as you stated, and I did try fertilizer (1/2 teaspoon / gallon of All Purpose Miracle Grow). I actually did expect it to fail by using all the energy reserve of the cutting to produce roots.
Most of the rooting tests were conducted with normal concentrations at the  manufacturer's recommended dilutions, initially starting with a 10X dilution, those results were in the linked topics.

Here is a picture of those cuttings for comparison...Untreated on the Left, Hormone treated at 10X dilution are on the right.


The same condition applies comparing Hormone treated and untreated regarding slower budding and leaf out.

Note with larger caliper cuttings a higher concentration (10X dilution) increases root formation without noticeably slowing down bud break and leaf development. On one (1) inch and larger caliper cuttings it speeds up the total rooting process.

Several in Agri tracks at universities have tried the diluted vs un diluted ratio experiments, that all i was saying, and tried to summarize what I have read.

Here's a photo of my typical results.  I score 2 opposite sides and paint Clonex on the green part I exposed.  Often leaves come out before roots.  My workspace varies from 70-78 in temp and is well lit during the day.  Not only are there 2 apical buds active, but if you look at the tip of my ring finger you'll see another bud swelling.  It's right above the scores producing roots.  For a cell phone photo at night it's not all that bad.   :)      This is my scramble time - getting everything potted up and getting all of my back up cuttings into media next.

Axier, Thank you for the link to Hartmann and Kester's Plant Propagation book. That is a great find!

A more complete publication of the one by Sun & Bassuk that you linked from Cornell above is:
http://journal.ashspublications.org/content/118/5/638.full.pdf

My experience with IBA plus NAA is more variable than what some of the others are reporting. Attached is a picture where I used Dip 'n Grow at the 10x dilution. I lightly wounded the cuttings and placed each in the diluted IBA for 60 seconds. I allowed the cutting to dry for a few minutes and then placed in Root Riot cubes. The tray has been incubated at room temperature (~22oC/72oF) out of direct sun light for 12 days now. The 3 columns of cuttings on the left are Conadria (15 total) and the 4 columns on the right are Panachee (20 total). All the cuttings were obtained from the NCGR/USDA at Davis, CA. A number of things are readily observed. First, the Conadria are rooting more rapidly than the Panachee. Second, upon careful examination, 100% of these cuttings are showing rooting and 100% are showing bud break. This indicates to me that there is likely cultivar to cultivar variation in response to rooting homones. It also indicates that bud break in fig cuttings is not necessarily inhibited by IBA + NAA. Unfortunately, I did not have enough cuttings to do a no IBA + NAA control. 

These are cuttings provided to me to run an experiment on the impact salicylic acid may have on FMD. According to Howard Garrison at NCGR, these were left over cuttings stored in their cooler. The lengths and diameters of the cuttings from both cultivars were very similar. I processed them immediately upon receipt and started the rooting process, which brings me to an anecdotal observation. Over the course of the first few months of this year, I collected cuttings from a number of sources. Some of which I started rooting immediately while others I stored in my kitchen refrigerator sealed in plastic bags with a moist paper towel. That machine cycles and has cold pockets. My observation is the longer I stored a cutting in my refrigerator, the poorer it rooted and the poorer the bud break on rooted cuttings. Treatment with IBA + NAA appeared to help rooting even on these cuttings but did not improve bud break. I have a modest collection of well rooted cuttings that I am waiting to see if they will ever bud. I need to ask what the temp setting is for the cooler at NCGR. I assume it is a typical lab piece of equipment with great air flow, good temp control and no cycling for moisture control.

All of this is to say, my take is that there are a number of variables that can contribute to successful rooting and bud break. Hopefully, everyone's success will increase as we continue to exchange information and compare notes.

Good luck with your rooting!

DWD2,
Thanks for posting the link.

Hopefully you will be able to compare the hormone treated to untreated controls in the future, for a more comprehensive evaluation.

Your observations of refrigerated cuttings are similar to mine. My cuttings were stored in plastic bags with a small amount of dry Long fiber sphagnum moss (shredded). I still have stored cuttings that were taken in October and November of last year, They root in approximately the same amount of time as they did when they were first cut, if they are first re-hydrated for 3-7 days. The re-hydration process is simply placing them in a bag with overly wet long fibered sphagnum moss. This can be done in the refrigerator or at 75 deg. F., it has worked both ways. Once the lenticels swell, they are then placed in the normal sphagnum moss rooting procedure. If you root without pre-rooting the re-hydration procedure should still work.

I've been communicating with another forum member about my successes and failures also with all of my cuttings being treated with Dip n' Grow or IBA only.  I've had great success with some varieties and terrible success with others, though sources were usually different also.  I somewhat wondered if the freshness of the cuttings or, perhaps, vigor of the plant from which the cuttings were taken were responsible.  For instance, Valle Negra, Genovese Nero, and Ronde de Bordeaux have done very well for me while CdD Grise and Marseilles Black did poorly (2-4 cuttings of each).

Thank you for the updates.
I used IBA Hortus, it is only 20 % IBA, not NAA hormone nor other substances like Clonex.
Of course, I diluted it to get the different solutions.
I think that one of the keys is the ppm of IBA, and in the case of Clonex, maybe the presence of other substances.
It is true that the hormones help for rooting figs, in some cases spectacularly, in others not.
But fig is easy for rooting, it is not a difficult plant like kiwi. Hormones are dispensable.
In my case, I won't use hormones with figs anymore.
This year has been the worst rooting batch ever for me.

Attached below are the MSDS for Clonex and Dip N Grow. Clonex uses only IBA, while Dip N Grow uses IBA and NAA. The only additional ingredient listed in Clonex is an ingredient to make it jell. Also attached is the PPM document for Dip N Grow for comparisons of concentrations (dilution).

From our collective observations it seems that the best overall success is achieved at an IBA concentration at or below 1000 PPM relative to the caliper of the cutting, 10X for 1 inch and larger cuttings...down to 20X for green and pencil thin cuttings.

Dip N Grow's generally recommended Dilutions (X) are as follows:

Dilution= IBA/NAA PPM
0X=10,000/5,000 PPM
5X=2,000/1,000 PPM
10X=1,000/500 PPM
15X=750/375 PPM
20X=500/250 PPM

Does anyone know the actual PPM (parts per million) of IBA in Clonex?
I would like to compare it to the recommended PPM dilution of Dip N Grow.

According to this sheet:

http://hydrodynamicsintl.com/HydrodynamicsImages/GTClonexRootingCompoundMSDS.pdf

0,3 % IBA, so, 3000 ppm IBA.

Higher than I thought!

Pete,

My two cents.  The first batch of figs I ever did was 23 varieties at the same time 3 cuttings of each variety.  I rolled them in newspaper then in bags one variety to a bag.  I used no hormone.  The cuttings took a month ++ to root and I lost some to mold but I would say 60% of those that made it to the cups survived.  If I had used moss instead of newspaper I think I would have been around 80%

After hearing all the people talking up dip n grow I tried it on the second and third batches of cuttings, about 40 varieties in total.  Used the dip n grow at 10X and was amazed that in some as little as 10 days roots that were massive.  I cupped the cuttings up as the roots came and there they sat many rotting without sprouting and some still green but no sprouts weeks later.  I would say my success percentage on the second two batches is around 30%.  I won't be using hormones on the cuttings in the future.  

WillsC, the same as me with IBA.

I use chinosol (oxyquinoline) fungicide and paper towels for the rooting bag, never rotten cuttings or mold.
The only problem without IBA is a longer wait, but finally, with patience, most cuttings root and sprout healthy.

OT:

I knew chinosol, years ago, while reading Lon Rombough book "The Grape Grower: A Guide to Organic Viticulture", an excellent book.

I use chinosol to store cuttings and to root cuttings in bags, with excellent result.

This is what Lon Rombough says of Chinosol:

"It is a chemical used in medicine as a topical

Axier, ... Thanks for the info.

WillsC, ... Your experience was similar to mine. There was a high failure rate at higher concentrations of Hormone. I use the long fibered sphagnum moss in bag method and have an almost 100% pre-rooting rate with or without hormone. The difference as I have stated is a 2-3 week faster rooting with hormone. This time difference increases to 3-4 weeks when rooting large caliper cuttings.

The experiments with lower concentrations demonstrated that there may be a happy median, where Hormone concentration actually aids in the rooting and development of the cutting. Large diameter cuttings (1 inch and larger) actually root and grow much faster with hormone than without, making a producing plant faster than using smaller caliper ( 1/4 to 1/2 inch) cuttings.

From observations, reducing the concentration for the appropriately sized cutting caliper and type (lignified, partially lignified or green) will actually aid in producing faster growth.

BTW, I'm not promoting rooting hormones, Just stating my observations....

The result of using IBA 0.5 %   

I’m new at rooting fig cuttings, but have had good success with rooting grapes, roses, and plumeria in the past. Last fall, the friendly people at my local hydroponics store gave me a free sample of Rootech, a rooting hormone which is .55% Indole-3 Butyric Acid. With Dip and Grow, it all has to be used up within a short time period. Rootech is already mixed and can be used as needed.

      With one batch of cuttings from eBay, I treated half with the Rootech and left half untreated. This picture shows the varieties grouped together in twos, threes, and fours with the hormone treated cuttings on the left. There was some lag of sprouting with the Rootech cuttings compared with some untreated with some of the varieties. They have quickly caught up in size with the untreated, AND have healthy roots, unlike the untreated.  All but one of the untreated either have few if any visible roots or have not sprouted out at all. They could all die when I move them up to pots, but for now, I think I’m going to use Rootech on all my cuttings in the future.