My sample set only has an N=1, however, I will throw it out anyway. Last year, I rooted three Tena cuttings. One of them grew two figs to maturity during the year. The other two did not have any fruit. At the end of the year, I did not notice any substantial difference between in the growth of the three trees.

As I mentioned, this not anywhere near scientific, and it does fly in the face of popular belief. It is my experience with one fig.

~james

Congratulations hlyell. Perfect timming towards my intentions to airlayer my plants using the potting technique.

Paul

Very nice root mass!
Since you didn't mention it I'm assuming that you didn't bother with wrapping with saran wrap and covering with foil, etc., ???
About seven weeks ago I started three air-layers using a plastic liner without drainage holes, damp potting mix, and sealed the whole thing with saran wrap and covered with foil. After five weeks +/- I cut two off and the roots weren't nearly as developed as yours. The last and largest I haven't cut yet but should I believe.
Even though the roots on my attempts aren't as nicely developed as yours appear to be they have prospered since being potted, with no wilt at all.

Effectively, it is a good root ball!
But with rooting figs must be cautious to draw conclusions. In my opinion, it depends mainly on variety.

With the same method, I am sure that there would be big differences in the root mass between different varieties.

Regarding the cuttings rooting process and according to Pierre Baud (he roots thousands of cuttings per year in his nursery), there are varieties that get up to 90 % of success, on the contrary, the most difficult varieties only get a 30% of success.

Glenn,
I did not use any plastic wrap with this air layer at all, but I did cover the sides of the black plastic pot with foil to reflect sunlight and keep the black pot from absorbing all that heat (this tree was in 7 hrs./day of sun beginning late morning. I did not cover the opening of the pot at all, but the limb I used was at about a 30-35 degree angle (from the ground). The limb was also growing so that the opening of the pot was facing Northeast. Therefore, the opening of the pot got very little direct sunlight because in this part of my yard the sun doesn't break free of trees until around 11:00 AM. Again, one of the most interesting things coming from this experiment was observing how much faster this air layer developed than the one with moss, plastic wrap and foil - on the same tree. Just yesterday I saw the first white root has reached the plastic wrap (through the moss) on the other air layer. One other bit of information I don't think I mentioned in the original post was about this LSU Gold tree. I bought this tree in late March of this year at a home and garden show here in Jackson. A nursery from the gulf coast had come to the show and had a couple of these LSU Gold trees. Based on prior pruning this year would be the 4th full year for this tree. However, when I re-potted it (from a 5 gal.) it appeared to have lived its entire life heretofore in this pot, and it was very root-bound. Since it already had leaves and breba figs on it I simply re-potted it as it was and figured I would prune the roots when it is dormant. New growth at the distal buds this year has only been about 1 1/2" on this tree. Anyway, this info is probably meaningless, but as a beginner I thought I'd pass it on in case it might be important to someone. Henry

I'm a beginner too Henry. I just planted my first bare root fig this spring and have just potted up my first dozen or so cuttings that I started under lights this spring.

I like your further information. I wonder if the fact that the tree is so rootbound made it more prone to growing roots via the air-layer, having finally found some unfettered room to grow roots.

Fantastic results! What is the size of the pot, and the formula for your potting soil? Surely it is some sort of magical mix.....Elder

Murky,
I wondered the same thing. However, the fact that the more traditional "moss air layer" on the same tree is so slow developing casts doubt on this.

Elder,
The plastic pot is approx. 4" square at the opening with a slight taper down toward the bottom. It is approx. 8" tall. My potting mix (hardly magic) was 1/3 each humus, peat moss and perlite (no fertilizer or root hormone). I did cut a 1/2" long piece of bark from the limb before potting it up. Also, I only filled the pot about 3/4 full because given the angle of the branch this was all the soil I could get into the pot. In retrospect (and quite coincidentally) I believe the fact that the branch I used was angled rather than vertical helped keep the soil moist without needing much watering (I only "misted" it two or three times). Also, the branch facing away from the sun helped also. Lastly, and probably the most important factor: beginner's luck :)

Hello all. I thought I would post a couple of pictures of this plant after around 5 mos. of growth this year. The pictures don't even come close to doing this plant justice. Also, I waited too late to get the best pictures because some leaves fell off in the last few days. The leaves were the healthiest, darkest green of any of my figs. Anyway, the plant is in a 5 gal. container (for scale). The 2 longest branches are around 3 feet tall, and they are completely new growth that was pushed out after I potted the airlayer. It also began producing figs a couple weeks ago, and I snapped them off. Anyway, using a plastic pot to airlayer has worked great for me - particularly airlayering larger branches than this one. It looks like on its one year birthday this airlayer will be producing a decent crop of figs. That's pretty neat.

Henry

sorry for the lousy photos. When I posted them I didn't realize they would be this small. Hopefully these are better:

Do a google search on 'rooter pots', they (small ones), have
been usually easy and good to me (maybe too late for this
year though).
George (NJ).

Thanks George. I just ordered a couple to try. I have a couple of plain old pots I've split and used duct tape on that have worked well. I've re-used them a couple of times, but I'm gonna need more next year.

Henry