BucksCountyFigs
Well-known member
Since there are a lot of new folks, as well as folks looking to improve their fig pop technique, I thought I’d make this post to help, since these pics are good examples of some commonly asked questions.
Here is Portuguese unk #5, which for those unfamiliar, you won’t find when you look up online, since it is one of a series of 5 unknowns given away in a Fig Fanatic contest.
Interestingly, it was NOT the strongest grower of the five unknowns (#4 was).
This was fig popped on 12/19.
Here is what it looks like today (2/10).
Question 1:
When can I up pot?
1) Before up potting, your roots have to be ready.
They will go from being fat white ramen noodles and will turn darker, and have this brownish yellow tinge. These more mature roots will also become very hard, which helps prevent the very common up potting problem of the roots breaking off during up potting.
2) Your roots need to develop roots. This means the first roots will start growing smaller roots off of them. These smaller secondary roots are vital for uptake of moisture and nutrients.
3) You will hear the saying “roots > shoots”, which means developing good roots is far more important than developing green growth on top. In 10-15% of the time, the green will grow before the roots, (according to an article I read).
Pushing out green leaves is easy. Heck, even if your cutting is dying and has no roots, it can still push out leaves, just using its intrinsic energy in the cutting to grow its death knell leaves.
So, as exciting as it is to see green growth, it’s far more important to see root growth, so don’t push your cutting to grow shoots over roots, by putting it under lights too quickly.
If you push the green growth over the root growth, you can end up with too small a root system to support the that amount of green growth, or not as mature a root system, or not enough secondary roots, and then the odds of failing at up pot increase.
4) I forgot to take a pic of the leaves, but there are only 2 and they are tiny - you can see one of them in the pic below.
5) Another common pitfall when up potting, is your figpop can break apart, tearing your roots off. This tells you a couple of things. First, your roots were not mature enough, because mature roots are tough, and I can comb my fingers through it and smush the soil if I wanted, and mature, healthy roots would not break off. Mature roots are not delicate at all. Secondly, if you have enough roots, they will hold the entire pop together in one solid piece, when you remove the bag, as seen in the picture.
Question 2:
My roots are growing up out of the soil.
You mean like this?
As you can tell, it totally doesn’t matter if your roots are growing out of the soil. Heck, they even push their determined little way up through tightly tied rubber bands holding the fig pop closed. I can understand how they can be destructive to house foundations, break pots, etc.
Note: these roots pushing up out of the soil are very different than roots that might be growing above the soil higher up on the cutting. Those are because the conditions are too humid. They are not desirable, but not bad and you can make lemonade out of lemons.
So, to answer the original question of is this ready to up pot?
Yes, a bit over ready. I was in the hospital, so it went probably a week over, but I up potted it today. If you have roots growing up out of the soil like this, just be sure to cover them with a good amount of soil as you can.
Can you up pot before any of the things I mentioned above? Absolutely you can, and people do it all the time, with differing success rates.
But I just wait because I’m a lazy gardener, and what could be easier than just leaving them in a fig pop?
Plus, we have some time before it’s warm enough for them to go outside, and fig pops take up way less space than tree pots or larger pots, so I’m in no rush to up pot until I really have to. And once those leaves start growing, they grow fast and big, and you run out of canopy space very quickly.
Hope this was helpful.
Happy fig popping, everyone!
P.s. I’ll also post this in the post that has the progress of all five Portuguese unknowns.
Here is Portuguese unk #5, which for those unfamiliar, you won’t find when you look up online, since it is one of a series of 5 unknowns given away in a Fig Fanatic contest.
Interestingly, it was NOT the strongest grower of the five unknowns (#4 was).
This was fig popped on 12/19.
Here is what it looks like today (2/10).
Question 1:
When can I up pot?
1) Before up potting, your roots have to be ready.
They will go from being fat white ramen noodles and will turn darker, and have this brownish yellow tinge. These more mature roots will also become very hard, which helps prevent the very common up potting problem of the roots breaking off during up potting.
2) Your roots need to develop roots. This means the first roots will start growing smaller roots off of them. These smaller secondary roots are vital for uptake of moisture and nutrients.
3) You will hear the saying “roots > shoots”, which means developing good roots is far more important than developing green growth on top. In 10-15% of the time, the green will grow before the roots, (according to an article I read).
Pushing out green leaves is easy. Heck, even if your cutting is dying and has no roots, it can still push out leaves, just using its intrinsic energy in the cutting to grow its death knell leaves.
So, as exciting as it is to see green growth, it’s far more important to see root growth, so don’t push your cutting to grow shoots over roots, by putting it under lights too quickly.
If you push the green growth over the root growth, you can end up with too small a root system to support the that amount of green growth, or not as mature a root system, or not enough secondary roots, and then the odds of failing at up pot increase.
4) I forgot to take a pic of the leaves, but there are only 2 and they are tiny - you can see one of them in the pic below.
5) Another common pitfall when up potting, is your figpop can break apart, tearing your roots off. This tells you a couple of things. First, your roots were not mature enough, because mature roots are tough, and I can comb my fingers through it and smush the soil if I wanted, and mature, healthy roots would not break off. Mature roots are not delicate at all. Secondly, if you have enough roots, they will hold the entire pop together in one solid piece, when you remove the bag, as seen in the picture.
Question 2:
My roots are growing up out of the soil.
You mean like this?
As you can tell, it totally doesn’t matter if your roots are growing out of the soil. Heck, they even push their determined little way up through tightly tied rubber bands holding the fig pop closed. I can understand how they can be destructive to house foundations, break pots, etc.
Note: these roots pushing up out of the soil are very different than roots that might be growing above the soil higher up on the cutting. Those are because the conditions are too humid. They are not desirable, but not bad and you can make lemonade out of lemons.
So, to answer the original question of is this ready to up pot?
Yes, a bit over ready. I was in the hospital, so it went probably a week over, but I up potted it today. If you have roots growing up out of the soil like this, just be sure to cover them with a good amount of soil as you can.
Can you up pot before any of the things I mentioned above? Absolutely you can, and people do it all the time, with differing success rates.
But I just wait because I’m a lazy gardener, and what could be easier than just leaving them in a fig pop?
Plus, we have some time before it’s warm enough for them to go outside, and fig pops take up way less space than tree pots or larger pots, so I’m in no rush to up pot until I really have to. And once those leaves start growing, they grow fast and big, and you run out of canopy space very quickly.
Hope this was helpful.
Happy fig popping, everyone!
P.s. I’ll also post this in the post that has the progress of all five Portuguese unknowns.
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