Cutting Preparations from Sellers

DCallahan

DCallahan

Well-known member
Im curious to know as a buyer of cuttings, what you expect the seller to do to the cuttings to prepare them before shipping? and WHY do you want it done that way?

Ive seen a wide array of preparations advertised, from absolutely no prep or labeling to intricate cleaning regiments, identification and packaging.
 
If I was buying I’d want good quality cutting with them wrapped good and then packaged good for shipping. Also, label the cuttings either individually or by same variety if more than one. I usually wash and dip in diluted bleach solution myself before wrapping and storing in fridge.
 
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AS a buyer of cuttings would like clearly labeling and wrapped. No added moisture , not need to be washed or sterilized as we will do that ourselves. As a seller of cuttings, I like to label and wrap cut ends with para film so moisture isnt lost then we wrap in a saran wrap. I dont like to add moisture as it causes mold to grow. We have received cuttings that have been dripping with wetness and the smell mildew . These are from sometimes from very experienced figsters.
 
Clip, wrap, ship.

The seller shouldn't be doing anything special to cuttings to prepare them for sale to me, especially unnecessary over the top packaging that forces the cutting/shipping price to be higher because of the extra input cost of said supplies.
Let me be the person who adds the variables that will inevitably kill them.

Also, don't put candy in my cuttings package. 😐.......weirdo...........
 
FruitBrute said:
Clip, wrap, ship.

The seller shouldn't be doing anything special to cuttings to prepare them for sale to me, especially unnecessary over the top packaging that forces the cutting/shipping price to be higher because of the extra input cost of said supplies.
Let me be the person who adds the variables that will inevitably kill them.

Also, don't put candy in my cuttings package. 😐.......weirdo...........
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Didn’t appreciate the extra Skittles I threw in there huh 😔🤣
 
Willow at the Creek Figs said:
AS a buyer of cuttings would like clearly labeling and wrapped. No added moisture , not need to be washed or sterilized as we will do that ourselves. As a seller of cuttings, I like to label and wrap cut ends with para film so moisture isnt lost then we wrap in a saran wrap. I dont like to add moisture as it causes mold to grow. We have received cuttings that have been dripping with wetness and the smell mildew . These are from sometimes from very experienced figsters.
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Sometimes the extra moisture is unavoidable. I’ve let cuttings sit out and dry overnight then bagged and stuck in the fridge. When pulled out of the fridge later on the ziploc collects moisture inside it regardless of how dry they were initially.
 
I am ok with just cuttings having a few nodes more than three, some type of labeling, put into a ziplock bag and ship first class in a padded envelope. I prefer to do any prepping for rooting myself. In the past cuttings have arrived with damp paper towels, wrapped in cling wrap, waxed or sealed with parafilm. The sellers mean well, but some cuttings have shown mold under the wax and parafilm during the rooting process. I would rather do the prepping myself because I have nobody to blame but myself for whatever goes wrong and I know exactly what they have gone through. I prefer first class mail because it saves on shipping and it only saves a day or two compared to priority mail. The priority mail service is not worth the money as the boxes get lost, crushed or just longer in the system than promised.
 
FruitBrute said:
Clip, wrap, ship.

The seller shouldn't be doing anything special to cuttings to prepare them for sale to me, especially unnecessary over the top packaging that forces the cutting/shipping price to be higher because of the extra input cost of said supplies.
Let me be the person who adds the variables that will inevitably kill them.

Also, don't put candy in my cuttings package. 😐.......weirdo...........
Click to expand...
I would pay extra for chocolate…🤣
 
DELFIG said:
...and fully lignified...
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What’s fully lignified to everyone? Any decent layer of wood under the bark is lignified. The only way to get almost no pith is to start as a pencil thin cutting in the spring and it grows thick by fall. If the cutting starts the size of a sharpie or larger from the bud in the spring then as it lignifies the pith will remain the same forever. 1/8-1/4 thick layer of wood is considered fully lignified to me while others say it must have no pith to be fully lignified
 
DELFIG said:
Cuttings that are thicker than a pencil....
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Some varieties you wont get thicker than a pencil, especially if you want an apical bud cutting. Moro De Caneva is a prime example of this. Many of the Adriatic family will also fall into this sizing.

The original post was asking about preparation, not physical characteristics of sold cuttings.
 
My "ideal" Seller will simply label the cutting individually with a marker or tag. drop it in a ziplock bag and ship it to me using an option that it will arrive in 2-3 days.
I've bought many hundreds of cuttings over the past few years, The ones I have the least rooting percentage are the ones where the seller has "cleaned" them before shipping. I cringe when I hear of people using high percentage bleach baths. My reasoning for not wonting the seller to clean them is because if Im going to store them long term I will clean them before striking them, so then they get cleaned twice. Also the added cleaning step is another place for cutting variety mix ups.
When we buy cuttings, we are buying a chance to have a new variety, I just want the best advantage of bringing that cutting to a beautiful full-grown tree.
If I'm rooting my cuttings fresh from the tree I do nothing to them, If they've been in the fridge a spell, they get a light scrub using a soft toothbrush and a 2 gallon basin of warm soapy Dawn dish soap and about 1/4 ounce of kitchen bleach.
 
DCallahan said:
Some varieties you wont get thicker than a pencil, especially if you want an apical bud cutting. Moro De Caneva is a prime example of this. Many of the Adriatic family will also fall into this sizing.

The original post was asking about preparation, not physical characteristics of sold cuttings.
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Yeah, black Celeste and NdElba too. These are all small fruit varieties that show the thinner branches for me. Maybe there’s a pattern there.
 
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