It must be rot. Happen to me also. Then I came up to this:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fig/msg0417583226601.html?12

I think you should right away dig out the plant find the rotten spot cut it out and if there is any cutting left plant it the way I described. I saved some of my cuttings this way.
{{gwi:770674}}

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Here is a small plant that is left after removing the rotten part of the cutting. I buried the entire small peace of cutting that was left and kept only the new grow on top. Few days ago a small-tiny leaf came out, which is good.

I took the cutting out of its cup. No visible rot. I repotted it with same mix, but I made sure to add it in loosely around the roots, thinking that there was too much water/mix and not enough air. I'll see what happens.

I suspect that maybe it was in fact due to over-watering, since the potting medium was quite damp. This is a problem that I ran into before.

There's a lot of discussion about how to get a cutting to root, but I haven't seen a lot about watering, hardening off, etc. I'd be interested to hear discussion about these issues or directed to older postings on this.

Thanks...Geoff

You can not see the rot but you can feel it with your finger nail when pressing on the cutting.

Upon transfering from cup to pot, I use 50/50 perlite soil mix. I add water til wet enough to form a ball in my hand, but w/o water wringing out. I run it through my hands to fluff up. I pour it around the cutting once in pot, lightly packing in. After about 7 to 10 days I check moisture with finger or meter. If Dry on meter I add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of water around edge. I have yet to lose a cutting this year. Coarse perlite is the key for me. No dust!

Sometimes, mostly due to over-watering, the mid-twig
part between the roots and leaves does rot.

One day they are happy, next day the leaves go limby, limb
(b/c the plumbing was broken).
If it is what I think it is, test one:
the (midway) bark will feel soft/brown/rotten when finger scratched.

I have managed to salvage a very few such disasters
by upping-the-soil on the still-alive-top-part.
(I even used taped-container-parts to contain that extra soil).

Hard lesson learned for second year of rooting cuttings...too much water.

I finished repotting my cuttings this weekend. While many of the cuttings had healthy root systems, many of them showed signs of nicely developed roots that ultimately rotted out.

I am finding that the transition from only perlite to potting mixture (lite mixture of about 50/50 perlite and seed starting mix) to be quite a challenge.

I have still managed to pot up a number of cuttings that have survived over the past two weeks...fingers are crossed while I water lightly around the edges.

The same thing happened to two of my cuttings. I potted then in 1/2 gallon pot with mix of perlite, moss and Humus . Had good roots and three leaves. Later the leaves welted dried and fell down. When I pulled up the cuttings from the pot the roots were damaged and black. I think I killed them with too much water. Now I don't water unless my finger feels dry soil and I give then only one ounce of water. It seems the rest of potted cuttings are happy with that. My experience give the cutting very little water and shelter them from sun the first season.

Thanks for starting this thread, for me, I've had some trouble transitioning cuttings in cups into pots these last few yrs. Nothing more frustrating than losing them during this movement!
In my experience, the lack of humidity seems to be a huge factor in it's survival.

I'd love to hear more advice or techniques used by the more experienced folks on this transition.

@fortisi...This has been a helpful thread for me, too. Like I wrote above, this is my second year trying to root cuttings, and it's definitely been a learning experience.

I like the perlite center with soil mix surrounding it idea mentioned by penandpike above (http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fig/msg0417583226601.html?12), and I intend to give it a try with my next batch of cuttings.

In the mean time, I give two big thumbs up to air-layering, with which I have had near 100% success.

@foolishpleasure...regarding your practice of keeping first-year cuttings out of the sun, I've had a different experience. Last year, I managed to establish a number of cuttings, and all did well in full sun...of course, after having been hardened off to sun, wind, and water.

Actually, I am having the same problem. I was going to post my own post, but saw this was here, so I thought it may be better to ask here.

What is happening with me is that I am planting cuttings started in straight perlite, over to a mix of potting mix and perlite into bigger containers. I just lightly moisten the mix before transplanting.

However, my leaf wilting is not happening over time. It is over night. I transplant them that night, and in the morning, their leaves are wilted and droopy. Since they have not even been watered, would my leaf wilting be from root stress from the transplant?

So, will the cutting recover? Even if it loses its leaves, will the cutting still be ok? Should I do anything else to them?

I was just curious is my wilting if from transplant shock since it has only been 12 hours after transplant and what I can do to save them while they are still alive.

Thank you! Christy

I use a technique similar to what was mentioned above. I start the cuttings in baggies, then as soon as roots develop, I plant in pure perlite in 12 oz clear plastic cups in an inverted translucent plastic bin. Once substantial rooting is visible, I transplant into gallon containers holding a well draining media. As I fill up each gallon container, I leave a filled 12 oz cup in place, that when removed leaves a cup shaped space in the media. I then carefully transfer the contents of a cup (rooted fig and perlite)into that spot.

Often the fig cuttings do fine after being transplanted, but sometimes I will see wilting after some hours. When I put the wilted figlets in their new containers back to the higher humidity under the bin, the wilting resolves. After some additional root growth, they no longer wilt outside the bin.