Hi Fig Forum, 

I am in the process of digging up my trees to place in doors for the winter.  As I dig them up, it is impossible to get all of the roots with the main tree.  I collected several roots loose roots from a tree after I had potted up the main root ball.  Would these roots put up suckers next year if allowed them to go dormant, brought them inside in a cool area, and planted out next spring?  Does anyone have experience with this type of growth?

Craig 

Hi Craig,

I often pull off suckers from the main trunk to root ( sometimes they already have a good root system). Do you have a pic of the main trunk and suckers? Are they just roots ( below ground) or have actual shoots?

Hi Bill,

These are just roots left in the ground after digging around the root ball of the plant for potting and bringing in doors. As you know, it's impossible to get every root. Once the tree was dug I pulled up a few of these roots. Some were about half an inch thick, others were the size of a pencil. If you plant these roots in a pot, have them go dormant, bring them in for the winter, will they send up shoots next year once brought outside? Has any one ever tried this?

Ps. I owe you some fertilizer Bill. Been delayed in getting to central PA but hopefully soon!

In the past I planted large pieces of root, about 1.5 inch diameter IIRC, early summer and they made shoots. But I recently tried with thin root pieces (about 1/8 inch diameter) from an up pot root trim and those did nothing.

Theoretically possible but the long wait for a happenchance is not worth waiting for.

Read these threads:

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/fig-trees-from-roots-4600158?pid=39049817

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1873556/propagation-from-roots

You can mark them and leave till spring for grafting. 

Hi Conrad,

How old was the plant you had success with getting the roots to put out new shoots. Thank you for the links Ottawan!

Hi Craig,

That was probably a 5 year old in ground tree. I needed to relocate it and only managed to dig out about a 2 gallon root mass near the "crown". The left behind large piece of root that I planted in a second spot was done as a backup in case the main relocated tree did not thrive. So I got shoots from the root but dug it out after the main tree did well so can't comment about the quality of tree it would have eventually produced.

Hi Fignutty,

How do you distinguish the crown from the rest of the roots? Would it be comparable to a crown on something like a rhubarb plant?

A member that has not been around for a while had luck in grafting the roots to cuttings.

As usual, I would recommend doing a search for the previous threads relating to "Root grafting"