Sherry SPencer wrote an article about metal sheeting tube going up the trunk so the squirrels can't climb it. It was in the last Pome News or before it. Doesn't work for me because my trees are near the fence or other trees.
John S
PDX OR

I transplanted one of my "air layered" figs tonight. As I posted earlier this summer I surrounded three branches with pots filled with dirt the last week of June. I probably should have taken this example for transplant a month or more ago. The fig start was pretty root bound in the gallon pot I used.

I dug up some of the layered filberts I had posted photos of last June. They rooted very well in about one year's time, I had staked them down last fall. They were layered in very dry soil. I had no rain from early July until the end of September and I never watered these layered branches.

Cool project. I predict many people will try that now.
John S
PDX OR

Two years ago I pulled down a branch of my Whitten chestnut tree and staked it to the ground to try layering it into a new tree. I wanted to fill in a spot where another chestnut tree had died. After one year I dug up the branch to check it. No roots had formed after the first year. I buried it again and left it for another year. I checked it again last week and it only had two fine roots growing, one was about 3 inches long, the other about 6 inches long. I decided to cut the branch and transplant it anyway. My internet seach of chestnut layering suggests that they are difficult to layer successfully. I had much better luck with layering filberts.

Very nice result. What variety of fig is it?

I cut off the other two air-layered Desert King figs and planted them on Martin Luther King Day. I then reset my air layering pots with new branches, filled with potting soil and hope to harvest three more air layered trees early this summer.

My Casina Filbert was in full bloom on 2/8. My barcelona is a few days later blooming. I have a beaked hazel too that is even later blooming, probably 10 days later than the Casina.

This is a really interesting way of propagation. It seems like you have a very high rate of success with air layering. Does air layering work for other fruit trees, or is it mainly good for figs and filberts?