It is a little early to tell, but the mold issue in bagged cuttings seems to lessen, if I leave the bag open every 3rd day, or so. Now I am trying a new idea, and putting them in a bag, and blowing the bag up so that there is more air in the bag (kind of like a balloon). I am trying this, because the mold issue seems to be greatest in bags that had the least amount of air in them, and less if I open them periodically, so they get more or fresher air.

So, here they go, Jon. I am pumping all my baggies and zip-locking them like balloons.
(PS: Now I have to hide them from children because they will try to pop up the balloons.)

My guess (and this is only a guess) is the best way to control mold growth is to periodically soak the cutting (along with the bag and paper towel) in bleach or hydrogen peroxide solution.  Mold requires three things to grow:

• Moisture: but we can't eliminate the moisture or the cuttings will dry.
• Air: it's everywhere
• Food Source: it will eat just about anything including the cutting and the paper towel.

• Albuquerque, NM: 30%
• St. Louis, MO: 36%
  
• Austin, TX : 38%
• San Diego, CA: 44%
• Jackson, MS: 45%
• Long Island, NY: 48%
  
• Detroit, MI: 52%
  
• Trenton, NJ: 57%
• Miami, FL: 58%
  
• Ottawa, Ont: 86%
• Houston, TX: 88%
• Altoona, PA: 96%

James,
>>> My experience has been that once mold starts growing, there is no stopping it.
I tend to agree. It may have something to do with mold 'roots' (or whatever they
are called), may have already been established, way deep within the fig twig.

Another example is grape fruit, which is very sensitive to fungus. Vines are
normally sprayed very early in spring during the flowering stage. If one
waits till symptoms show - forgetaboutit!

Which leads to, as I think it was loslusfarms mentioned , good,
prevention-cleaning,  prevention-cleaning, prevention-cleaning...
(edit: aka, remove/kill the spores, which happen to be everywhere, including the
air me and you are breathing while reading this very thread ).

About the subsequent application of the '10% bleach' treatment (or equivalent);
what effect does  it has on any very tender tissue, say, those very first twig
white root initials? My limited observation (about bleach), is that they do no
 like it  at all(?).

Though the above may make the following remark rather  moot.
There are other chemicals that maybe are less harsh to vegetation, and also
more important, to mammals (people);  wonder if there is such a thing...

edit:
Pit, one possible reason that  you may be having more mold problems
with cuttings from the  'east-coast', may be is because not everybody cleans
them with a minimum  bleach treatment before shipping. Considering that
it may take a few days in transit time (mostly in some form of a moist plastic
enclosure), nasty mold does set in. Guess shipping open is maybe better...

George (NJ).

This thread is most probably about cuttings that are mold prone despite all the preventive cleaning (with 10% bleach, H2O2 and rubbing alcohol etc).
For those who have easy access to cuttings (where shipping is the only issue), the easy solution is to discard the cuttings as son as it is realized that the cutting is mold prone.
Those who do not have normal/easy access to cuttings have to find ways to deal with such cuttings through such threads with the help of more experience fig hobbyists.
Will it help if the cutting, after proper cleaning treatment, is buried top to bottom in Perlite/vermiculite for rooting at room temperature by skipping the baggie method? Or is it a case of 'out of site' mold build up leading to rot but we just do not see it?

(Oops: That was another thread for mold-prone cuttings. This one is for a trial of a variation of baggie method)

gorgi,

I do not bleach my local cuttings, and they still have less issues. I haven't found that bleaching makes much difference.

I bagged my Davis cuttings last Friday after scrubbing and disinfecting with Peroxide (straight out of the bottle). Today I noticed heavy mold on a damaged cutting and light mold threads on most of the others.  I mixed up a batch of Captan and spritzed them all and rebagged  in fresh paper and ziplocs - hopefully that will be the end of it. 
 I don't think re-sanitizing works - it only takes out the visible mold - not the "roots" - so it keeps coming back.  A fungicide should take out the whole thing.  But letting air in periodically makes a lot of sense - prevent the problem instead of trying to treat it.

Wow James,  that was interesting humidity levels,  My town,  Altoona, Pa. I know it is very humid around here,  but 96%  no wonder I need so much hairspray!!!! interesting thread.  Ciao.

Fignut,

I wasn't suggesting re-cleaning the cuttings when mold growth appears.  I was suggesting frequent cleanings before the growth appears.  Cleaning the cuttings in bleach or peroxide only kills the spores that are on the cutting when you soak them.  It does not give the cuttings any defense against mold spores later.

As I mentioned before, in arid parts of the world, opening the bag and letting the cuttings dry out may provide some relief from mold growth.  In Houston (my guess is in most places) introduction of fresh air means an introduction of a fresh batch of mold spores.

~james

If this is true that (quoting James) ".....in most places) introduction of fresh air means an introduction of a fresh batch of mold spores" then question arises if these mold spores have a certain life span or they live effective for ever in an area(unlike the flu viruses which go away after a while). 
Or if they are in the air all the time just waiting for the right environment then back to the original question as to why some cuttings are more prone than the others. Well, some day someone like tapla may help us find ways of deliverance from the cuttings mold (& even the black spots from hybrid tea roses as well).

Jon,
Maybe I missed it, but are these bags in the fridge?
I have a fridge that is dedicated to cuttings. The first couple years I kept cuttings in the refridgerator they got moldy within a couple months. I lowered the temperature to around 40F and I'm not having a problem with mold. I didn't even use a chlorine solution.
I also think keeping cuttings in the fridge near fruit and vegetables will get moldy very quickly. This is caused by the Ethylene gas being released. I keep mine in a seperate fridge for that reason.

Bass,

No probems in frig. These are in 75 degree temps to begin the rooting process.

This continues to seem like a winning approach.

The cuttings in these "puffy" bags continue to have significanty less mold problems, even without opening them once in a while.

I open my bags every 2-3 days, and dont have too bad of a problem.

Jose,   
 
How long do you leave the baggies open?
 
Thanks
Cecil

I actually only open them up, inspect the cuttings, wafe the bag a couple of times to get fresh air in, and put the cuttings back in.. If I see any mold on the cuttings I wipe it off with a wet clean  papertowel. If the papertowel that is wrapped around the cutting shows a fair amount of mold I replace it.

When I used to replace the papertowel I would soak it in 10% bleach solution, then rinse it off. I dont do that any more, I have not really noticed any difference.

I would also say that I bleach my cuttings initally, but I also scrup them with a tooth brush. I think that toothbrush helps because it removes all the dead matter that would mold. I also focus to remove the dead stuff where leaves and figs used to be, that stuff stays on a cutting w/o scrubbing, in my exprience these parts seem to be very mold prone.

If you have any ?? let me know.

Thanks Jose,
 
You covered it completely as usual.
 
Cecil

I had a problem with mold on cuttings left in my refrigerator (I was not very happy about it either!)

I took all the cuttings out, scrubbed any fuzz off each with a toothbrush and dipped the tops of the cuttings into a mild bordeaux mixture.  I have had very good success with the cuttings I did this to, though I did have a couple failures (but only one that I am aware of was from re-molding  dessication or just non-progressing are more common problems this year).

I was careful not to get any of the mix onto the cut surface of the cutting, though this was not due to any logical reason other than I felt that I didn't want to encourage too much absorbtion of the mixture.


My limited success (given that my mold problem is usually 33-50% yearly) is not necessarily definitive, but it could indicate a means of protecting cuttings from molding.

~Chills

Has anyone tried Colloidal Silver on a cutting? Colloidal Silver is said to be a natural antibiotic and anti-viral substance. Soldiers use to take silver coins and shave off threads of silver and then place them in wounds to prevent infection. Maybe this could make a shield around the cutting and protect it against the mold.

We had the same mold problem last year and now when we root in bags we do the puffy bags solution (kids actually help blowing them up with a straw) and haven't seen any mold since switching over. My belief is that there are a couple of factors that help reduce mold issues.

1) There is a larger volume of air so the humidity is less.

2) Opening the bags and re-inflating them every 3-4 days exchanges the humid air for less humid air (pretty darn dry here in CT in January) as well as keeps the roots off the side of the bags which definitely brown them. 

Using different rooting techniques such as the new bag method in a bin we also air it out for a 1/2 hour every few days for the exact same reasons. Less moisture (air/soil and consistently low moisture) is better than too much during the rooting process and that led us to better strike rates so far.  Fingers crossed.

I open them once a day and have absolutely zero mold.  

I did pretty much the exact same thing.   I had a bunch of leftover cuttings.  I wet them and put them in a zip loc bag.   I was gone for about a month so they were sitting on a table undisturbed.   All the cuttings rooted while I was away. .   I had the same variety of cuttings taken at the same time as for the other bag.  I put them in another zip loc bag and took them on the trip. I opened them every day or couple of days and no roots.  Both bags had no mold.

i don't blow into the bag, but i sort of "pump" the bag to fill it wih air. still some do get mold.