Too Late to Propagate?

10 years ago

Last fall, walking down the road near the railroad tracks I noticed a pretty large fig tree growing on an abandoned property. I have no idea what kind, but I figured the variety must do well around here since its been growing there unattended for years. I walked over there and took a couple dozen cuttings today. Most of them have a small peak of growth on them.

I read that you should attempt propagation with "dormant" cuttings. Am I too late? I figured I would wrap some of these in wet paper towels and store in zip lock bags for a while and just stick some others in the ground to see what happens.

btw, I have no idea if this tree even produces good fruit, but I figured it would be worth a shot.

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Comments (5)

Starrling
10 years ago
I am in the exact same boat, all the way down to finding a tree. I would imagine it's not too late, but we'll see. Mine are in paper towels in a large baggie right now. I'll keep you updated. Could be a while though.
frankallen
10 years ago
Not to late!! Have some rooting now, that was cut a few days ago!! Go for it!!
eboone_gw
10 years ago
Clean them with a soft brush & diluted bleach solution to remove any mold spores. Some like to seal the ends with wax to inhibit mold or rot there. The very slightly damp paper towel-in-baggie method works pretty well most of the time
Starrling
10 years ago
Just got some results yesterday, so I thought I'd update this. Mine are now showing root signatures! They were getting mold pretty bad, so I washed the baggie with hot soap and water, then completely dried it. After that, I wiped all of the mold from the cuttings and placed them back in the bag. They're doing great now. I have some with foliage and at least two that are showing roots.
Starrling
10 years ago
So as I said, I am coming back to update this. Out of the four cuttings I've done, two more are rooting well using the baggie method. Also, using Dan's method, I transplanted my largest one into a 3" peat pot with a peat and perlite mix and placed a baggie over the top and taped it onto the container. Today the roots have revealed themselves and have pushed beyond the peat pot into the soil below. Hopefully soon, it'll be time to start hardening it off, but not just yet.