AusBonsai

I was checking for any callusing on my Manchurian pear cuttings again today and realised something was wrong. I found the wood had started to deteriorate and there where also tiny little maggot like worms on the bases(look closely in picture). One of the purple leaf plums had a small amount of callousing and seemed fine. A small fig cutting I put in for comparison had a nice set of roots. I have thrown both of these out as well just in case.
I used a seedling mix with some spag moss and fine zeolite on the surface. I did a swap of medium tray and setup a few days after they where planted but I thought I would have gotten away with that. Too wet maybe it was a little hard to tell how wet it was the way I had it setup. I had the temp pretty good mostly around 23deg but it did fluctuate between the limits of 18-26 at times. I will try a full inorganic medium this time and see how I go. I have the Bible of propagation(The Reference Manual of Woody Plant Propagation) arriving for fathers day so it can only get better from here.
I will start a new batch today any suggestions would be helpful.

I think I have worked out the reason for failure. After cleaning everything in hot water with a little bleach in it and making up an inorganic medium of granite and zeolite. I set a batch of crepe myrtle, purple leaf plum, and a few other bits an pieces and crossed my fingers again.
In about 4 hours the temperature had risen to over 24deg which is fine but at that rate I gather it would have been a fair bit over the 26deg limit suggested for cuttings. Why would this be when I had the same setup as before. Could it be that I did not have the temp gauge deep enough in the growing medium. Well that is my guess which would mean that the temp would have been way to hot in the last batch. I took of the foam surround that I constructed to keep out the cold and this morning it is sitting at 24deg. I would imagine that as the day warms up I can even turn the heat pad of for a few hours.