Tissue culture plants isn't a new thing but it's relatively new to Figs. I've purchased a few varieties grown in this method and they tend to grow very bushy with lots of suckers. I wanted to try this for rare figs since it would make sense to put so much effort into growing a Dessert King this way.
After some research, I purchased some key ingredients to making the agar gel.
Ingredients
Sugar
Distilled Water
Plain Agar powder
Kinetin .1 gram dissolved in 100 ml if water. then use 2.5 MLs of that solution Murashige
Sterilizing Tablets
Microwave
Cups with caps
The most important part of this process is keeping your work space super duper clean. Which is tough because I have 2 small boys that are constantly sick and love getting into everything.
After mixing the ingredients accordingly and microwaving the solution until the agar is melted into the water I poured the solution into pre sterilized cups and wrapped them with saran wrap.
The point of this project is to easily reproduce rare varieties without having to lose too much wood from doing cuttings. I pinched my Ponte Tresa (which is somewhat rare still) to induce branching and fig production. I took the tip, washed it in bleach and alcohol to get ride of any mold spores. I then cut the green stem into little pieces and placed them into the agar gel with nutrients.
Keep in mind to spray all of your equipment with your alcohol solution. You cannot be too cautious about that. The last thing you want is a petri dish full of mold.
This is my 1st crack at this and for all I know I could've just made a cultivation for a bunch of bacteria but we shall see. More to come.
Update: 6/15/17
Just as I feared, looks like I did not properly clean the cuttings and I've got a crazy amount of mold growing.
6/25/17 Round 2: This time I'm using a Black Madeira. Cleaned extra long with bleach, alcohol, and hydrogen peroxide. I also made sure to clean my tweezers. They may have been the culprit the last time.
Update: 7/5/17
Well I'm really good at growing mold. Keeping a sterile environment is much harder than it seems.
Sometimes when we purchase a new fig plant, it's hard to know how long it's been stuck in that same pot. The tale tell sign would be if it doesn't push out any new growth for months and it reminds you of Charlie Browns Christmas tree.
This was the case with my Hardy Hartford from Sky Nursery. It did little to no growth since I purchased it. Watch the video to see the process.
So the green cutting did not make it. It rotted. I was very careful about the amount of moisture I added to the mix so it wasn't from excessive moisture. At the end of this experiment, I can say that the chances of rooting a green cutting are very slim.
Unless you have a very rare variety I wouldn't bother wasting resources in trying to root them.
However, I'm sure with perfect conditions , it may be possible. However, I have yet to discover the perfect recipe. I think that if the there was a bit of lignified woodnear the bottom, it would make it possible to root a semi green cutting. I have been able to root cuttings with a green top and brown bottom.
Top 3 Pros:
1. Low chances of mold - I've discovered not a single cutting with mold using this method
2. Dense area for rooting lots of cuttings - I've packed in 20 cuttings to one shoe box
3. Maximize more plants for the amount cuttings received - Since I cut them to just a few nodes per cutting I'm getting more plants from one long cutting. However as of late I've been suffering from fig fatigue and I'm a bit burnt out on the constant up pot of new cuttings.
Top 3 Cons:
1. Lots of roots and no leaves - One thing I've discovered is that some cuttings do no leaf out. They may grow a ton of roots with no leaves, I wonder if it's because the entire cutting is under the root medium or if there isn't enough top nodes to leaf from.
2. Tangled roots - Not all cuttings will root at the same time so some cuttings will need to be up potted sooner than others. Individually pulling out cuttings that get too tangled is a bit of a hassle and can damage the roots.
3. Slower growth - Because the cutting is shorter, I've noticed that the new stems tend to be skinnier and has less vigor than a full size cutting
So to use this method successfully there are certain parameters to consider:
1. Length of cuttings need to be 3 modes or more
2. There has to be enough nodes so some can grow into rooting nodes and others can grow into leafing nodes
3. Watering a hole-less tray is a delicate matter and time consuming. I used a turkey baster to hit the growing roots
4. Duration - After 2 months if there are no roots check the tray. You may have bad cuttings or something is wrong
5. Up Potting - As soon as you see feeder roots it's time to up pot. Some leaf nodes will sometimes grow into the soil medium instead of up to the light and if you wait too long it will be more difficult to transition the new cutting to a 1 gallon
Will I continue to use this method? Yes but probably only for thicker cuttings with many nodes. So lately I've been using the bag method and it's been working out much better for me.
Time to Up Pot my Fiorone di Ruvo that was grafted onto a Gillette fig cutting, Gillettes root like weeds! So they are a perfect root stock for this type of Fig propagation.
The Fiorone di Ruvograft that I used on a Gillette cutting has started to root nicely. Gillette's root like weeds. It doesn't mean that the graft has taken but it does mean that the chances of success are higher. The successfully rooted cutting now has a means to provide energy into the Fiorone di Ruvo graft.
Yesterday, I decided to unleash the fig cuttings I got from San Jose and I was amazed at how many plants made it from one regular size shoe box. They've been in there since the beginning of November. I probably should have up potted them at 2.5 months rather than 4 but this variety took much longer to root than others. I still have some of the same cuttings using the cup method that has not shown any growth.
In all, I up potted to cups 20 plants. I left 5 or 6 in the shoe box that have yet to form new leaves. Most of the cuttings were about 4 inches long. I was impressed with the amount of successful cuttings from just 1 square foot of growing space.
They probably would've developed more growth had I started the diluted fertilizing sooner.
With the Lasagna Method of rooting figs the main question I had when I came up with this method was...
"When to up pot?"
Well I think I've learned a couple more things along the way besides when to up pot.
1. I've been waiting too long to water the trays.
I use a turkey baster. Now, I start watering the new cuttings when the roots grow dense and form feeders. The turkey baster allows for spot watering. Try to water the rooted end and avoid wetting the leaves, which may cause mold. And since the trays do not have drainage holes, you do not want to drown your cuttings.
2. I was waiting too long to up pot / transfer the new cuttings into their own cups.
As soon as you see leaves forming and a strong roots, up pot them. I waited 3 months on certain cuttings and the roots became too entangled and dried.
Here in this up potting video, you can see the roots have formed into feeders roots but I did 2 things wrong, not enough fertilized watering and 2, I waited too long to up pot them, which made it real difficult to untangle the roots from one another.
3. I needed to fertilize them as soon as the feeder roots form.
My buddy Vinny asked whether or not I fed my new cuttings, I said no. But he did and his growth looked so lush and healthy. It was also 2x the size of my cuttings even though we rooted cuttings around the same time. Now this got my attention. So he pointed me to Dyna-Gro liquid fertlizer which I've been using for the last couple of weeks and the plants love it! The leaves and stems look greener and stronger.
I've also added a bit of Silica Blast to my weekly feedings. Silica blast should strengthen the stems and make the plants heartier to frost and heat.
4. Do not bury them too deep, you want the top layer to just cover the cuttings.
I noticed that in one tray, the new leaves were not strong enough to break through the top layer because it was too thick. The developing leaves were white from not being able break the surface to photosynthesis the light.
5. I was cutting them too short.
I was getting phenomenal roots but some cuttings were lacking the leaves. Moving forward nothing less than 3 nodes should be cut.
The tray on the left would be the best time to up pot cuttings to their own cup
Today I decided to dig up one of the Black Madeira cuttings in a tray that I started about a month ago. The roots looked amazing. It has not developed it's feeder roots yet but it was so much easier to transfer to another pot at this stage.
Inspired, I went through my other trays and up potted a handful of other varieties that were about the same stage in the rooting process.
Video taken on 3/22/16
My wife wasn't too happy about me spending so much time with the figs on a weekday.
Wuhan x7 Salce x2 Ginos x3 Dr Monticellos x2 Petrovacu x5 3 Lobe Unknown x2 Black Madeira x2 Vista x2 Desert King x10 Brandon Unknown x10
After about 3 months or so, it's time to up pot some of my first Lasagna method cuttings. From this one container of about 12 cuttings all but one did not root and leaf out. That's a 91% success rate!
The ones in the video are from some Black Small figs I collected in California.
Close up photos of the root development. Some look better than others. The overall success rate is really high compared to other methods.
These are from my Genevese Nero. Untangling them can be a delicate matter but it's not too hard with gentle hands. I pulled out 6 that had nice root development and 6 more that were just ok. There were 2 cuttings that didnt make it from this shoe box. Which is not a bad ratio.
The nice thing is I found no mold what so ever.
I noticed that my Oreo cookie method was still retaining a bit more water than I would like. The soil layer would rot the cutting where it made contact on some of the cuttings.
So I thought about it and came up with doing a tunneling method instead. In this method, you would have the cutting in the center, then a layer of perlite, then a layer of soil on the outer ring. This way would ensure that only the perlite would make contact with the wood cutting. It would create an airy moist layer for the cutting to root through. As the roots sprout it will eventually reach the soil layer to feed from.
I took a 20 oz cup pre drilled with holes and used a pvc pipe to create the cavity for the perlite and cutting.
With the pipe in place I moistened the soil so that it would not crumble into the hole I made once the pipe was removed.
Add the cutting to the center of the hole. Be sure that there's a gap between the cutting and the soil. User perlite to fill in between the gap until it reaches the top.
Mist and place into your humidity bin. Don't forget to mark the variety and date.
8/24/15 Gene's Vashon Cutting.
Update 10/08/15
The cutting eventually died. Probably my own fault from over watering. Cross this off your list of rooting methods.
{This Experiment failed}
If you love figs as much as I do don't forget to join my fig addiction group Fig Addiction
It maybe a little late but I air layered a bunch of my figs today. I cut one end of a sandwich bag and slipped the entire thing over the branch that I want the air layering on. Next I scraped the area of the branch instead of girdling it. Then I use rooting hormone powder before filling the bag with dirt.
