Hi,

I just finished potting up one of my cuttings from my starting tray.

I may be wrong in reporting what I tried as far as what the results seem to indicate. I used the powder-rooting hormone on just certain cuttings that I started all on the same day early this December.

I know lot of folks here don't believe in using the hormone well either did I but the results I'm getting are going against my old beliefs.

For every three cuttings of the same variety I dipped one in the rooting hormone. I tap the cutting after being dipped in the powder leaving just a very light coating on the cutting.

I then let the cutting with the hormone-dipped end hanging over my worktable. I let it sit there for 15 minutes. While I wait I get my see through plastic cup ready by just drilling 3 holes just 3/16 of an inch in diameter. I have reason for that hole size. I saturated the potting media with water then using a marking pen poke a hole down into the dirt. I do this because I water my new cuttings only from the bottom and my theory is that using those size holes just allows so much water to be wicked up just to keep the soil damp and not water logged. When the plastic tray I have the plastic cups sitting in is empty of water I pour more in just to about 1/4 inch up the bottom of the cups containing the cuttings. I do spray the cuttings daily and have them covered with plastic wrap.

My results as shown in the photos below are indicating this process seems to be working. The cuttings I applied the rooting hormone to are all way ahead of the ones that I added nothing on the cutting. I have about four more that are ready to be moved to a larger pot. That I will do tomarrow. Remember I just started these in the first week of December. The number 11 you can see on the cup was left over from when I was preparing to try and start cuttings from another type of tree--not a fig. I just prepared one to many cups and being the cup was never used I used it for the fig cutting.

By the way I used 1/2 vermiculite mixed with half peat only.

Photos below.

Lou NE, PA