Roots are geotropic, but means that they 'want' to grow in the direction of gravitational influence, but there are exceptions. If the cuttings polarity is reversed (proximal end - the end that was closest to the roots planted up), roots will tend to grow upward for a very short time. Also, (I'm guessing you used potting soil to start them?) if you used a heavy rooting medium, like potting soil, the lower reaches of the soil may be saturated with perched water. Since roots do not 'look' for favorable conditions to grow, they simply grow where conditions are favorable, it could be that the only place they CAN grow is in the top fraction of soil that is not occupied by perched water and still has enough aeration to support root function/metabolism/growth.

Al

Al,

Thanks for responding. No, I didn't use potting soil. I used regular perlite. (I can't find the coarse kind around here.)` I noticed that one root actually went through the top of the perlite and was just above the surface. Is it possible that the perlite is/was too dry and the roots were looking for the humidity????

c.J.

I also noticed some cuttings with roots growing upwards
through the rooting medium (a soil/perlite mix), into the air (as much as an inch).
The twigs were covered with a dome and they were planted
right-side-up. Eventually, those roots would dry-up, but
the rootings did flourish because of many other roots in the
medium.

Maybe jenia is right; fig roots may look for humidity.

Gorgi,

Thanks for the response. Having a sick cutting is almost as distressing as having a sick child.

In this case, I think Dr. Al was right...as usual. The top was bone dry but when I shook off the top 2-3", the bottom was soaked. It is very hard for me to judge the moisture content in 100% perlite so I had recently gone back to equal parts of potting mix and perlite and that seems to be working...so far.

C.J.

Is there a chance the top is dead and what appears to be roots is the fig trying to send up suckers to save what's left of itself?

Rick

I always see upward growing roots, and assume that this is normal behavior. This picture that Jose posted some time ago (see below) is often what I see with my roots - some grow upward, some grow around the cup bottom, and out. Albeit, mine are usually only half as thick, and half as many. I have a couple of cuttings which are NOT over-wet, and the only 2-3 roots showing are growing upward, at an angle, and out of the soil.

Can you post pictures of the roots you're worried about?

One other thing -

Leaves flopping (for me) have most often been a sign of water problems, BUT "water problems" does NOT always mean too much water. Quite often, for me, it's been insufficient water.

With that said, I thought it might be best to provide some of my experience, just to give you a full rounded view of things, adding to what Al wrote, covering all the bases, etc. It would be a pity to think that you may be UNDER watering certain areas, and have your cutting shrivel up and die.

Once again, moisture...Some would argue, but I think proper moisture is the #1 hardest thing to get a grasp of with any plants, and the #1 problem for most beginner and novice growers. I don't feel like people talk about it enough when discussing rooting from scion, instead we argue what is the best overall method, or the best way to clean, best way to maintain temp and humidity, BLAH BLAH BLAH. The reality is, overwatering in bags leads to mold. Underwatering in bags leads to dessication. Overwatering in pots leads to drowning/killing the roots. Underwatering in pots leads to drying out/shrivelling/killing the roots. Over- and underwatering both lead to droopy leaves and leaf drop - and the reality is, if you can learn how much water is just right, you will be light years ahead of most people with your rooting success.

Most often, using my methods, I find that my leaves droop when there is insufficient water throughout the root zone - key point there: THROUGHOUT THE ROOT ZONE, i.e. 'the area where roots are'. Like, if the bottom half of my cup is wet and top half is not, AND there are lots of roots through the top half of the soil, then yes, my leaves will be droopy, because the roots aren't uptaking enough moisture from the root zone to keep the plant material well-hydrated.

NOTE: If you're experiencing uneven distribution of wetting/moisture like this, it could be indicative of 'user error', with two huge errors being improper watering or poorly draining soil. Just thought this should be mentioned.

When my cuttings are showing good roots - i.e. multiple roots, at least an inch long, pushing against the side of the cups - I remove them from the incubator box, "skin them" with an opaque cup with the bottom cutoff (see below) - this allows for water drainage and airflow (again, see picture below - clear cup, with bottom-less red opaque cup over it) - and I put them in a tray that gets moved daily to a sunny window. But being in a sunny window, I have the side effect of higher rate of moisture loss (evaporation). Bad news!

The good news is, we are all very lucky; our plants will talk to us IF we learn to speak their language. For example, if the leaves are standing upright and firm (i.e. not sagging), this is a good indication that the overall plant is happy and not in distress. Leaf drop can even be a normal thing, every now and then, my rooted cuttings will lose a new/fresh leaf ... I don't know why, it just happens every so often. I don't get concerned as long as there are other healthy leaves, and they're not dropping in rapid succession.

When the leaves start to bow down a little, or they're feeling a little limp, 9 times out of 10, when I slide the sleeve off, there is very little moisture in the potting mix and thus I water a bit. The plant will spring back to firm leaves again within 2-3 hours, sometimes as soon as 30-45 minutes.

Personally, I usually only end up watering every 8-15 days once I take my cups out of the bins and move to my 'sun cage' for the sunny window. My leaves tell me when my water level is bad - too much or too little wetness - and I judge which it is by looking through the clear cup at the potting soil AND by judging the weight of the cup (lighter=less water). You should be able to do the same. If the soil is drier throughout the root zone, then I direct some water there with targetted watering.

PRO TIP: If you happen to notice uneven watering, and you need a quick fix, or you want to do "targetted" watering to water all except the top few millimeters (in case of fungus gnat problems), consider going out and buying a meat marinating syringe, and using this for watering - you can probe into your cups and target where the water will go easily, AND control the amount of water added.

Just wanted to post some other stuff to consider.

Jenia - screening the fines out of your perlite will help reduce the amount of water it holds and greatly reduce the ht of the perched water table. Adding a wick through a drain hole & setting the container on newspaper or a paper towel will also reduce the water retention. Alternately, you can hold the container with the cutting in it over the sink. Lowering it slowly and then reversing directions and raising the container up very quickly (several times - until no more water comes out the drain hole) will remove almost all the perched water and go a long way toward providing healthy aeration in your rooting medium.

It's most important to have moisture and air in the medium surrounding bottom of the cutting, but it should never be immersed or in saturated soil. If roots are growing upward, it means there is adequate moisture there and 'probably' means that conditions lower in the container are too wet, lacking air.

Al

Al - just curious, not a trick question here (trying to learn) - would you say that the cuttings two pictures up are too wet in the bottom of the cup?

jenia perhaps they are Chinese figs and they are just Confucius-ed?lol

From one of Jose's recent posts, apparently he and I use pretty much the same rooting method. His picture above shows "typical" roots that develop when using a UPM/perlite rooting mix. The reason some roots grow up and outwards of the rooting cups is because they have little other direction to go than up. Those roots are thick and very long.....what some of us call monster roots. Those pictured above are very healthy roots albeit not yet harden-off. ONE OF THE REASONS why a UPM/perlite rooting mix gives such excellent results is because it maintains optimum moisture levels between "too wet" and "too dry" over a wide dynamic range. It does this while still maintaining excellent porosity (aeration) over than range. Its "optimum" moisture range is much wider in comparison to many other rooting mixes. It is much much wider in comparison to "inert" perlite.

So..........some roots can grow upwards simply because they are VERY HAPPY with their rooting environment. Also FYI....there are quite a few other reasons why UPM/perlite works so well........and why I have highly recommended it in the Improved Baggie Method.

Dan

SH - answering your question is complicated and hinges on the difference between what plants tolerate and what they prefer. It's difficult to say if the soil is too wet in the picture, but it's a safe bet that unless you are watering in small sips, it recently WAS too wet.

I'll talk about it more when I start a thread about cuttings. I'm having trouble getting the time to sit down uninterrupted to collect my thoughts, but I'll make time soon. I think you'll find the answer below, though.

Just announcing that a particular mix ".... maintains optimum moisture levels between "too wet" and "too dry" over a wide dynamic range ...." doesn't make it so. We know that is not true, and the 'optimum' range of a potting soil/perlite mix is narrow, AND dependent almost entirely on the particle size of the media ingredients; so any premise built on the noted statement has no foundation.

Actually, screened perlite or Turface (through 10 mesh or larger - about the size of a 'standard' size kitchen strainer) has far superior water retention and aeration characteristics for cuttings than a mix of perlite and potting soil, and it's very easy to prove.

Potting soils are also not sterile, and therefore, poor choices for starting cuttings. The reason that you can usually get away with using heavy, unsterile media for starting figs is because of their inherent genetic vigor. They're like willow, and will root in practically anything but molten lava. If they root and grow well in a mix of potting soil and perlite, it's no testament to the sagacity of medium choice; rather, it's a clear illustration of the vigor of the plant and its ability to overcome less than ideal conditions and still root. They don't root because of the unfavorable medium, they root in spite of it.

I am well schooled in soil science, and have never heard the term 'wide dynamic range' used in describing water retention, but if we want to talk about ideal or optimum conditions, I can assure you that any soil that supports a perched water table (PWT) is not ideal or optimum from the plant's perspective. It may be ideal for the grower because he has to water less frequently, but that convenience comes at the price of reduced vitality in the plant.

Virtually ALL bagged peat-based soils hold perched water, which automatically excludes them from being ideal or their moisture retention levels optimum. Adding perlite to these soils doesn't change the ht of the PWT, that remains constant because of the particle size of the peat. Perlite simply reduces the volume of water in the o/a mix.

Using heavy rooting mediums, like potting soil, often finds the lower reaches of the soil saturated with perched water. Since roots do not 'look' for favorable conditions to grow, they simply grow where conditions are favorable, it could be that the only place they CAN grow is in the top fraction of soil that is not occupied by perched water and still has enough aeration to support root function/metabolism/growth. During those times that the bottom half of the soil is soggy, roots will not grow there, they grow wherever the air:water ratio is favorable. If that happens to be in the top fraction of the soil, odds are good the bottom fraction gets too wet.

Roots subject to anaerobic conditions (soggy soil) first see impediment of root function and metabolism, followed very quickly (hours, in many cases) by necrosis (death). They don't all die at once, they die incrementally, with the finest, microscopic hair roots, or the organism's work horses, succumbing to wet conditions first. If anaerobic conditions prevail, increasingly larger roots are affected. This is extremely expensive for the organism in terms of wasted energy. The energy that would have gone into producing new roots and leaves is instead used to replace the fine roots that can only regenerate after adequate aeration returns to the soil. There is no way we can label a soil that holds perched water "ideal", because we can clearly see it is not ideal, nor can it provide optimum conditions over a wide range of water content.

OTOH, using screened perlite, screened Turface, others .... offers sterility, a particle size large enough to ensure the medium will not hold perched water (the PWT disappears at a uniform particle size of just under 1/8"), and very near ideal moisture conditions over a wide range of moisture retention levels.

Screened Turface gets a big nod as an excellent medium for starting cuttings, because it holds good amounts of water internally, yet holds no perched water in huge numbers of macro-pores. Since higher EC and TDS levels (nutrient content) inhibit the cutting's water uptake, Turface shines here, too. After root primordia form (what Dan and others refer to as initials are actually primordia - initials occur below the epidermis and cortex and are invisible except by pealing off the bark. The protuberances we see emerging through outer branch tissues are primordia.) the cutting can then absorb and utilize nutrients from the media solution, so weak doses of appropriate 'complete' fertilizers are best given AFTER adventitious and de novo root formation. Screened Turface just happens to have an excellent CEC (ability to hold nutrients), too, so gets another nod here.

While it's best that you do not fertilize your cuttings or use a medium that includes fertilizers, again, carica is so genetically vigorous that it will root in spite of many impediments. It's simply wrong to make the leap that just because the plant tolerates unfavorable conditions well, it prefers them; or that there are not many better alternatives.

Was your answer in there, SH? ;o)

Al

Jason,

Unfortunatey, I didn't take a pic before repotting the cuttings, but mine were quite different from the examples you show from Jose. Jose's roots hit the bottom of the pot and appear to only move up after occupying all available space at the bottom. The roots in my 2 cuttings went straight out to the side of the cup and then up, just barely hitting the bottom.

Al, Thanks for the tip on the perlite.

Here is one of mine I found today. Sal (Gene's) - There are one or two main roots with lots of feeders. This side shows a big, fat, white root circling the bottom right under the upward growing root.

This is 10 days after cupping it up. Roots are both growing upward and around. Little browning of the roots on the upward shooters, while the lower roots are bright white.

I typicaly use 50/50 - 60/40 of screened Perlite and Fafard 3B. This is one day after watering, hence the little bit of condensation because of the method I use for watering.

I use very-cheap (somewhat-porous and very easy to work with) foam-cups.
The big disadvatage is that the roots are not visible; but
after "some" experience, one can tell the rooting progress by
just observing the rooting fig twig.

I agree about the observation about 'experience'. The vast majority of plants grow better in containers with opaque sides. Many texts that talk about propagation principles and techniques list as an attribute, the soils ability to keep roots in a dark environment. I do realize that the more inexperienced a propagator is, the more enjoyment they get from actually viewing the rooting process, but aside from satisfying the propagator's curiosity and a greater sense of being a part of the rooting process, there is no advantage from the plant's perspective in using clear containers, and more likely some disadvantage.

Al

I just love it.....those of you who are still trying to "stamp out misinformation" and wanting me to shut up. Jose's roots look pretty darn good to me. Those nice roots didn't just happen by accident.....that UPM/perlite rooting mix was especially DESIGNED to make it happen.....it IS NOT "just another potting soil" as some claim. If that mix was "too wet" and contained perched water......you would see brown roots on the bottom. The dynamic range for controlled moisture for this rooting mixture is so good that one usually does not have to add any water to the mixture from the time cuttings are first put into the rooting cups....until the time the cuttings are removed for their final up-potting. That in itself is a very desirable property for a rooting mix.....as many people have been known to KILL their cuttings with too much moisture (me too until I learned the secrets that I shared in other threads). It amazes me how some can make comments on a mix that they admittedly have never even tried. My My My not very scientific......

Happy roots can and will grow UPWARDS too. When used in conjunction with a good rooting method.....THERE WILL BE NO perched or standing water in the rooting cups. "Moisture control" which is problematic to many rooters is simply managed by adherence to very specific details of a well written procedure.

And yes.....what the container is made of can make a difference too. More later after Al and maybe George post their rooting methods. Seems like those rooting methods would have already been reported by these two "seasoned" guys....maybe I completely missed those postings.

Dan

I have NO self-proclaimed-invented fig rooting method!
I did use many recomendations found in books and on the internet.
For the record, a few weeks ago, I just stuck a
3x1/4" Wuhan thin tip (usually regarded as waste) in another
(plant) pot "dirt", and waalaa, it is going pretty good.
Now all I have to do is a simple separation/division.
This illustares that fig twigs are very easy to root!

Gorgi - I don't use styrofoam because it's not easily recyclable or cleanable, and this is the main reason I prefer plastic. I can run it through the dishwasher many times with no degradation, and throw it in the recylce bin if it ever cracks to pieces. Thanks for mentioning using cups like this - It is a good time to pass along a tip for others. If someone wants to determine root development using any old cups, you can very gently turn the wood (barely spinning it 1mm back and forth) and easily tell whether a cutting is well-rooted. If rooted, it won't budge much (if any at all). If it's not well-rooted, it will spin and wiggle easily. The same is true in most all cases I've seen. NOTE that you do risk damaging small rootlets if you turn too far, just the slightest twitch will work fine. It is easy to learn how much spin is OK and how much "give" signals rooting has occured after a few tries. Be sure to lightly compact the soil around the cutting afterwards :)

Al - As seen above in both pictures, I do not worry about opaque sides, because I "sleeve" my cups with a bottoms-removed opaque cup when they come in contact with persistent light, once the roots come in contact with the sides of the cups. This leaves the roots in a dark zone. Although, as one member on F4F asked, "why are you afraid of light reaching your roots", at which time I questioned.... I've been told by several people over the years that roots do not like light, it is bad for them, you will burn the roots, and many other things... weird, I've always accepted this as truth, with no real evidence to back it up. This is strange for me, because I question almost everything. Where can I learn more about the effects of light on roots, so I am able to know if this is truth or an old wives tale?

And just a general note about this thread: Once again, I feel like we getting into this annoying back-and-forth, and the pot is being stirred. I also feel like there is a lot of mysticism and "opinion" being pushed around as "fact". I don't think either is really very helpful for 90% of people reading it, and I know - myself - I'm finding myself bored and bothered by it (yet again)

SH - I hope you're not talking about what I offered. I've been trying hard to stick to the facts. Anything I said about the cuttings can be verified in any number of university level texts on propagation techniques and or principles, and if anyone wished to challenge anything I said about water retention or perched water issues on a scientific basis, I'm up for it. ;o)

You can find references to irradiance, photo-period, and photo-intensity in Hartmann & Kester's work 'Plant Propagation - Principles and Practices'. I wouldn't be surprised if you found references on the net, too.

Al

Jenia
You can reduced the moisture (PWL) in the perlite at the bottom of the cup by tapping on the holes with index finger and it will extract more water out through the holes till tapping no longer helps or helps too little any more. Wick will do the same.
My question is if bigger holes at the bottom will help in overcoming adhession/cohession (whatever is holding the water there) & released out this extra water just like the tapping on holes or wick does it?

Bigger holes or 100 holes won't help (except to the minor degree that the additional holes will increase the surface area of soil exposed to air, which will marginally increase evaporation), but wicking will help considerably.

Al

Al - not directed at anyone in particular, and I appreciate the suggestion on material, trying to find an eBook of your suggestion tonight. Thanks!

Al when it comes to soil I trust you which is why I'm asking this question.

As far as the more holes thing goes; What if you add more holes that are higher up on the container?

OK - I understand, SH.

Thisisme - The extra holes simply serve to expose some additional soil surface to the air surrounding the container, which increases evaporation. The extra evaporation in applications related to cuttings would generally be considered a good thing, especially if you're using a heavy medium like potting soil.

I think a very good thing to remember is that the cutting needs moisture at the proximal (bottom) end, but O2 also needs to get into the cutting. Even a film of water over the proximal end of the cutting inhibits O2 from entering the cutting, which facilitates rot, so be thinking damp, not wet. The ideal moisture level for cutting media is approximately that of a well-wrung sponge. This is another of many reasons that highly aerated, coarse, sterile media are preferred to potting soils for starting cuttings.

Al

You're right, UPM is not just another potting soil, it's just another potting mix. Potting mixes are supposed to be soil-less.

Furthermore, making it out to be some super magic mix is a bit over the top, some may even call it lunacy. Go buy some Fafard 3B or Pro-Mix BX. Same stuff, same ingredients, different label. I consistently turn an extremely high ratio of twigs into plantable trees using Fafard 3B. It has all of the same ingredients as UPM and costs less money.

In the end, it's not the bagged stuff I buy which results in successfully rooted (plantable) trees, it's the observation of proper moisture levels with a thoughtful mixing of rooting medium (60% coarse perlite, 40% potting mix for me). It has nothing to do with brands. To say it does sends up red flags for me and others.

As gardeners, we *ALL* have our preferred products, and we can say they're better all day long, but in the end, it's all preference, and preference is opinion, not fact. I think Al says he likes using Turface MVP, Sphagnum and some other sterile ingredients, and that's great. It works for him, and quite well, without problems, so why should he try UPM when he exhausted dozens of other mixes before settling on the one he found works best?

I tried the MVP/Sphagnum mix, and it really didn't work so great for me. 95% of my stuff rooted and is ready to be transferred and planted, but it didn't happen as quickly as 35-40% Fafard 3B with 60-65% coarse perlite, nor with the size, health and abundance of roots produced. I could try UPM, but I've been told by someone I believe 'knows', that these two products are actually supplied from the same place, and both list all of the same ingredients in their packaging. Difference is, I don't need to ship the Fafard 3B to me, it costs 30% less per bag retail, and I can find it everywhere locally.

I dunno. I don't buy into the "magic fairy dust" idea, that some product is super special when we all know it only combines naturally occuring ingredients.

Sorry, Thisisme - I forgot to thank you for your trust when it comes to soils. Please forgive the oversight, and thank you for saying so.

Jason is exactly right in what he offered above. Fertilome says of their UPM:

"Fertilome Ultimate Potting Mix Is A Must Have For Every Gardening. This potting soil stays light and fluffy while it still holds on to water. Your plants will be happy living in Ultimate Potting Mix. Use this Potting Mix in all container gardens or add it to your plantings. Be sure to dig the hole larger than the root ball and mix some of the existing dirt with the potting soil to backfill (actually, the sentence previous is bad information). Contains: Sphagnum Peat Moss, perlite, wetting agent and slow release humic acids." (which describes virtually every other unsterilized, peat-based potting soil on the market).

It really is 'just another potting soil/mix' ..... nothing special about it, and the fact that it is unsterile does eliminate it from the list of media experienced propagators would consider as suitable for starting cuttings.

Again, I'll mention you can usually get away with using it because of the plant's inherent genetic vigor, but that doesn't mean it makes the shortlist of best choices.

Al

One of my favorite wags: If you put 100 economist in a row they would all point in different directions. The different direction in this case is directed straight at me.

One of the best demonstrations I ever saw about what Al is talking about with water retention was done with a sponge. The person wanted to demonstrate that even pot shape has an influence on water retention so they put a sponge in a bucket of water then held it flat until it stopped dropping water. Next they put the sponge vertical and the sponge started dropping water again until it reached equilibrium. The punch line was not only mix but pot shape can have an effect since a short squat pot can easily be saturated while a tall pot will drain the upper levels of the pot. Not trying to put words in Al's mouth but I read his efforts as making the mix as idiot proof as possible by adjusting the particle size and properties such that you would really have to try hard to kill something in it by over watering.

Being no ordinary idiot and pointing in a different direction, I wonder if it might be possible to make something less idiot prone by construction? For instance it is composition-osmosis is my life-, surface tension, height, surface area that controls the height of water retained. I'm probably not the only one who has over watered and spent a couple of minutes trying to shake the excess water out.

One thing that may work is just putting something like a cotton rope or twine through the pot and out the bottom. How fast it would drain would depend on the hieght of the string and it would always come to equilibrium below saturation. In practice you could just water the hell out of the plant and the cotton string would 'wick' away the excess. If you wanted to keep it at a high moisture level, you could just pull the string up level with the pot when it got to where you wanted it.

Not that anyone besides myself cares about this kind of stuff but I will do a couple of quick experiments since it is so simple. I always look for complicated things that will make my life less complicated. String + any pot + any potting mix, drench with hose, string saves your rear by making water content good is about right for my level of sophistication.

Rick

Rick - Good thoughts. I wrote this about container soils and water retention several years ago. It addresses how adhesion and cohesion make up capillarity, perched water tables (PWT), gravitational flow potential, wicking, experiments to illustrate PWTs, aeration ...... I've also spoken often of using sponges in the way you refer to, to illustrate how PWTs work.

BTW - pot shape can have an influence on how much water is in the PWT, but it has no influence (for practical purposes) on the ht of the PWT. The ht of PWTs is linearly correlated to media particle size.

Al

I think I may have figured out why the roots are growing up in all the pictures above! I decided to make an account to make this post to inform you guys.

So the roots are not "trying" to grow upwards, they are trying to grow strait outwards, however, the slope of the container they are in is pushing them in an upward direction because the cup is larger at the top and smaller at the bottom. If you were inside the cup and pushing strait outwards, that lateral force will be turned into an upwards force -- this explains the roots initial upward bend. Now, if you imagine making that root grow longer and longer outwards from the stem of the plant, it will follow the path of least resistance, which will continue pushing it upwards against the side of the cup.

To test this, we could try rooting the same types of plants in an Erlenmeyer flask and, if I am correct, the roots will not grow upwards.