Tissue culture: anyone doing it?

snarfing

snarfing

Well-known member
Has anyone experimented much with tissue culture from figs? Especially grafting the resulting plant on a more established vigorous variety to speed up fruiting?

Seems shocking to me varieties are still so expensive when theyve been around a bit when you could make 100s of plants off a leaf if you set it up.
 
There are some videos around of people doing hobby level tissue culture. Sadly, I don't think the ratio l works out to "100s of plants from a leaf" though. I believe that you still end up requiring bits of a bud to get each new plant started (I may be wrong and frequently am).

In my opinion, at least in regards to figs, the biggest upside of the tissue culture process is the potential removal of the viral load from a variety. That in itself will pay huge dividends for most varieties that are out there. Almost everything suffers some level of fig mosaic virus/disease.
 
I know it’s a popular way to propagate but my personal experience with TC figs is that they are great for the grower who wants to ensure the longest possible wait from propagation to actual fig production….. I’ve tried a bunch and have never had one fruit…. They tend to grow spindly for a long time.

Some may have had different experiences. I’d take a rooted cutting or layer if at all possible.

If anyone has good experiences with them. I’d certainly like to hear about it.
 
TorontoJoe said:
I know it’s a popular way to propagate but my personal experience with TC figs is that they are great for the grower who wants to ensure the longest possible wait from propagation to actual fig production….. I’ve tried a bunch and have never had one fruit…. They tend to grow spindly for a long time.

Some may have had different experiences. I’d take a rooted cutting or layer if at all possible.

If anyone has good experiences with them. I’d certainly like to hear about it.
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I had a good experience with TC figs - that I never grew any :ROFLMAO:

But seriously, what you said, plus I hear they sucker like there is no tomorrow. No, thank you.
 
Figgin' A said:
I had a good experience with TC figs - that I never grew any :ROFLMAO:

But seriously, what you said, plus I hear they sucker like there is no tomorrow. No, thank you.
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I've never seen one that doesn't sucker like that... And there's this.... I know some say that with proper care and pruning or grafting they can do fine... but I've never heard a single person say to me that they have grown a TC fig tree that grows even "as well" as one rooted.....

Can it be done? I'm sure. Is it nearly as good? Beyond lower cost, I don't think so.
 
I bought 2 small tissue culture VdB from Lowes last spring. They both grew to 4'-5' tall and produced a lot of figs. One of them produced over 100 figs and was my most productive fig tree this year. Many people say that tissue culture trees are no good and don't produce. I guess mine are anomalies.

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ETXfigs said:
I bought 2 small tissue culture VdB from Lowes last spring. They both grew to 4'-5' tall and produced a lot of figs. One of them produced over 100 figs and was my most productive fig tree this year. Many people say that tissue culture trees are no good and don't produce. I guess mine are anomalies.

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interesting.... are you sure they are TC? I've never seen them look like that. I've only ever seen them look like this

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ETXfigs said:
None of the ones at Lowes had the cutting stump sticking out of the soil the way rooted cuttings do. I know which nursery that Lowes got them from, it's in Florida. I am going to email them to find out for sure.
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The original cutting is often buried entirely on pot up... Or possible layer.
 
I bought an Olympian from a local food store this year just to say I bought one. So many suckers and one fruit that didn’t ripen. Well I cut it all down to two leads and hopefully next year will take off.
 
TorontoJoe said:
The original cutting is often buried entirely on pot up... Or possible layer.
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I know they can bury it but usually there will be a few still visible if you dig around at the base. I checked at the base of the plants, digging around a little with my hand. I did this to the figs at Lowes and couldn't find any cuttings. There was another big box store in town that was selling Brown Turkeys. Every one of their fig trees had a cutting sticking up out of the soil that the fig tree was growing out of. I'm going to email them to find out for sure. I guess airlayers would be more difficult to spot.
 
ETXfigs said:
I know they can bury it but usually there will be a few still visible if you dig around at the base. I checked at the base of the plants, digging around a little with my hand. I did this to the figs at Lowes and couldn't find any cuttings. There was another big box store in town that was selling Brown Turkeys. Every one of their fig trees had a cutting sticking up out of the soil that the fig tree was growing out of. I'm going to email them to find out for sure.
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Would be cool if they can give you an informed answer...... I suppose even a cutting rooted with an apical up wouldn't have a stump.

You might need to get the name of the nursery the buy from to get the right answer.
 
TorontoJoe said:
Would be cool if they can give you an informed answer...... I suppose even a cutting rooted with an apical up wouldn't have a stump.

You might need to get the name of the nursery the buy from to get the right answer.
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I have the name of the nursery. I have emailed them earlier this year. I will email them again to find out if they are tissue cultures.
 
hambones said:
There are some videos around of people doing hobby level tissue culture. Sadly, I don't think the ratio l works out to "100s of plants from a leaf" though. I believe that you still end up requiring bits of a bud to get each new plant started (I may be wrong and frequently am).

In my opinion, at least in regards to figs, the biggest upside of the tissue culture process is the potential removal of the viral load from a variety. That in itself will pay huge dividends for most varieties that are out there. Almost everything suffers some level of fig mosaic virus/disease.
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not sure! a good guide on how to do it at home and allegedly can get a really, really high yield from just a leaf. maybe less with figs? not sure. She says even a thousand. I do agree a huge benefit is removing any FMV from a plant, which should in theory help a lot with vigor.

It looks a bit overwhelming but to b honest its just a pressure cooker/instantpot, scale, some cups, and some powders in the end, shes just being really careful, and a lot of her steps are a bit overkill if youre ok with -some- failure.


TorontoJoe said:
I know it’s a popular way to propagate but my personal experience with TC figs is that they are great for the grower who wants to ensure the longest possible wait from propagation to actual fig production….. I’ve tried a bunch and have never had one fruit…. They tend to grow spindly for a long time.

Some may have had different experiences. I’d take a rooted cutting or layer if at all possible.

If anyone has good experiences with them. I’d certainly like to hear about it.
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I agree, plus the time to fruit ive heard is long which is why id think grafting could be a way around it. but not sure after reading some comments
 
honestly me and my wife both have chemistry degrees and she works in a lab still. So maybe i'll get into this for some rarer varieties. though i'll probably start with a plant i have right now. maybe my adriatic jh since it has fmv as far as i can tell.
 
snarfing said:
honestly me and my wife both have chemistry degrees and she works in a lab still. So maybe i'll get into this for some rarer varieties. though i'll probably start with a plant i have right now. maybe my adriatic jh since it has fmv as far as i can tell.
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100%! You'd know better.... I don't even know why they tend to grow the way they do.

One thing I'm pretty sure about is that the new specimens are free of FMV... so that's a reason to explore this.

I don't know nearly enough to to say anything beyond what I've seen in the specific trees that I have.

If you're going to do this I'd like to encourage anyone who can, get you the samples you're looking to work with.
 
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