Fig cutting leaves curling up

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mediterreanfigs

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Hello, the past couple days, my fig cuttings the small leaves at the bottom to be shriveling up and one or two already fell off Should I be worried? They are on heat pad, not in direct sun, I dont overwater. Any suggestions.
 

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I would guess they are getting stressed. Heating pad may be drying out the root zone. Try bottom watering, less likely to over water and you'll keep the bottom of the pot from drying out faster than the top.
Once 2-3 sets of leaves form I remove them from heating pad as they have likely formed roots already.
 
What kind of light do you use? Heat pad temp?

Yeah, you should be worried when leaves curl up at this stage. How long ago did this one pushing leaves?
 
If you wrote down the starting weight, you can just bottom water them to the original weight, maybe a little more. The soil looks dry, but if you bottom water, the dry top doesn't necessarily mean they need water.
 
Yeah, I guess Its tiime to leave the heat pad off. Its just indirect a bit far away from the window. these leaves only stated couple weeks ago.
 
mediterreanfigs said:
Hello, the past couple days, my fig cuttings the small leaves at the bottom to be shriveling up and one or two already fell off Should I be worried? They are on heat pad, not in direct sun, I dont overwater. Any suggestions.
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Does your heating mat have temperature control?
 
They look fine to me. It’s not unusual at this stage for some of the smaller leaves to do that. I don’t worry about it if the other leaves look good.

If your ambient temps are warm enough, I would remove the heat mat. It’s not needed once you have roots.

How often are you watering and what is your rooting mix? Are they under grow lights? They look a little pale…

Also, are they in a bin and was it closed until recently?
 
RosyPosy said:
They look fine to me. It’s not unusual at this stage for some of the smaller leaves to do that. I don’t worry about it if the other leaves look good.

If your ambient temps are warm enough, I would remove the heat mat. It’s not needed once you have roots.

How often are you watering and what is your rooting mix? Are they under grow lights? They look a little pale…

Also, are they in a bin and was it closed until recently?
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Hi, yes I was watering only once a week or so, they are not under grow lights. I am in 9b and there is a lot of sun but I dont put them in direct sun, just off to a corner away from the sun. Yes the bin was close until recent
 
mediterreanfigs said:
Hi, yes I was watering only once a week or so, they are not under grow lights. I am in 9b and there is a lot of sun but I dont put them in direct sun, just off to a corner away from the sun. Yes the bin was close until recent
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I wondered about that. 🙂

Okay, the lower leaves drying up like that can happen when they’ve been in humidity and then suddenly aren’t, like from removing the lid. It’s happened to me before and usually does not harm the cutting overall.

They do need more light than they are getting. Do you have any grow lights?
 
mediterreanfigs said:
Hello, the past couple days, my fig cuttings the small leaves at the bottom to be shriveling up and one or two already fell off Should I be worried? They are on heat pad, not in direct sun, I dont overwater. Any suggestions.
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If they are rooted to when you tug on them gently you feel they have rooted out cut the heat mat or at the very least drop the temp down to 70f. The heat is generally just to wake them up and get them to root. Once that happens the heat pad can cause more harm than good.
 
mediterreanfigs said:
ok thanks. i cut off the heat pad for now. I dont have any grow lights I am not that advanced lol. Was hoping the indirect sun would be enough.
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Indirect sun usually is not enough so a grow light even if it is small is always better to have if you can make that work. The light energy they get from a window durring the winter months is not enough to sustain them like a house plant that evolved for low light conditions. Figs want allot of light energy for them to grow.
 
Italian4u said:
Indirect sun usually is not enough so a grow light even if it is small is always better to have if you can make that work. The light energy they get from a window durring the winter months is not enough to sustain them like a house plant that evolved for low light conditions. Figs want allot of light energy for them to grow.
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What do you consider a min/max temperature to put them outside?
 
RedSkip said:
What do you consider a min/max temperature to put them outside?
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You can take trees outside whenever temps are above 40F and do not dip delis that especially at night. If trees are awake then I would wait until night temps are in the 50f-60f range. The warmer it gets the more they will pick up the speedy growth.
 
would you put even these young plant cuttings outside , temps are upper 60s to lower 70s for few hours every day? you think a grow light is still worth it?
 
mediterreanfigs said:
ok, got you.. but evne in zone 9a-b we get a lot of sunny days here although very cold mornings.
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The other thing you have to consider is that many windows have UV glazes on them that limit the type of rays that come through. Plus with the house/walls blocking the direct sunlight they can’t get the same amount of sunlight indoors as they would if outside, even if it was summer. So the windows actually are not allowing the full spectrum that fig plants need to grow properly.

You can see the lack of light from pale green leaves or in thin, leggy growth. Even grow lights don’t fully meet plant needs, but provide enough to last for a few months so that you don’t have a weak, spindly plant. They still need to be acclimated to full sunlight when transitioning them to outdoors.

The zone you live in is more about winter low temps than sunlight exposure. So it’s not the amount of sunny days you have that matter in this case for the reasons above. Growing it indoors at this time is going against its natural response of winter dormancy and convincing it that it is warmer and sunnier inside than it actually is so that your plant grows.

A small LED full spectrum shop light or similar can work as well. I know grow lights can seem pricey or like an investment you may not use again.

You can put them outside if temps are over 65-68° for the full day, but bring them back inside at night. Growth may not be as fast, but it still is better than nothing. Always check on them at first too, to make sure they’re not wilting from too much sun too fast.

Watch if weather is expected to be hotter. Full sun in warmer weather can be hard on a cutting.
 
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