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The Corroboree

karl_marx

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About karl_marx

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    Psychonaut

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    zone 6A

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  1. karl_marx

    Shipping cactus cuts to the US. Legal?

    I've found that US customs seems not to know what 'trichocereus' means. You can fill out the declaration truthfully and, at least for now, nobody will bother to check it.
  2. karl_marx

    The Sowing Out Thread

    I typically skip the sterilization step because it opens up the soil for whatever organism happens to show up first and it's usually a gross one. Today I sowed most of the various wild-collected seeds I have accumulated about 200x Icaros DNA some Harissia Jusbertii (not actually from the wild, thanks zelly) SuccSeed numbers: 5543 6341 2983 6608 4835 2979 Edit: I added some of those polyacrylamide water-absorbing crystals to the mix on these ones. Hopefully it will save them from my periodic forgetting to water anything for weeks on end. Or they might die. Who knows?
  3. karl_marx

    Grafts -Photos & Updates

    just casually showing off all those logs in the back are you?
  4. karl_marx

    EM-1 microbial innoculant

    I use Great White as an inoculant with no ill effects. It's not exactly a controlled experiment, though. I inoculate, generally, whenever I feel like it or once or twice a month during the growing season. Trichos, grafting stock, seedlings. I imagine you can get the same effects with a rich compost though. If you already have a great microbiome for your plants it may be redundant.
  5. karl_marx

    The future of tricho breeding in Australia

    How do the colored flower breeders conduct themselves? They might have some solutions we don't know about.
  6. karl_marx

    Mineral/Medium resources

    Wherever you got your pots probably has a ton of broken ones too.
  7. karl_marx

    The future of tricho breeding in Australia

    If you want to preserve the legacy of trichocereus and have a vehicle for all those abandoned gardens to be cared for, any solution that could be proposed would be legal in nature, either by encouraging collectors to will their plants to another collector or by creating a corporation to dispose of cacti that become homeless. I think the first option may be less effective overall but would involve less ongoing interpersonal drama.
  8. karl_marx

    The future of tricho breeding in Australia

    That is true - I have already seen a "Killer Green Cactus" plant around, and we don't need more suggestive names although it's only a matter of time. I'll agree with you that an arms race like you described would be off-topic on SAB. On the other hand, I don't think very many breeders are selecting entirely based on looks except in the case of mutants and freaks.
  9. karl_marx

    The future of tricho breeding in Australia

    I've been looking into ways to identify promising plants before they're mature. I should have the parts to start a fast and cheap method pretty soon. I probably won't be able to post the results here, though. edit: What traits are even desirable in these cacti? The colored flower breeders seem to have a good thing going, but we're more content to give names to whatever plant we happen to like. Should we come up with a core set of traits to breed for? Also, since most of us aren't outlaws, we can consider doing things in public. Is there any demand for a collective database of plants that we can all access to compare our results more quantitatively?
  10. karl_marx

    Possible San Pedro?

    Very impressive find. Can we get some close-up photos of the aeroles and spines?
  11. karl_marx

    Sowing seeds

    I've got seedlings doing very well in my humidity control chamber with the RH maintained around 60%. If you have more mold issues, try lowering the RH by a lot and letting the seedlings grow that way. In my limited observations, giving seedlings heat seems much more important than humidity beyond a certain minimum. All that said, your cacti look pretty great. Are you planning to graft some? It's much easier than it looks.
  12. Inspired by Master B's recent post in "what did you do": How do you all manage your grafting stock? Most posts take it for granted that grafters have plenty on hand but I haven't seen a thread focused on growing stocks, aside from the hydroponic experiments. I'll start - My pereskiopsis have gained probably 30cm since a few months ago. They are 4-5 plants to a 4in square pot with a mix of sand, perlite, and potting soil that's quite a lot richer than what I use for trichos but not pure potting soil. They get about 6 hours of direct sunlight a day and I keep them watered most of the time. I've observed that similar plants I put in 6-pack pots (much smaller space) are growing at a pretty pathetic rate, by comparison.
  13. karl_marx

    What did you do to your cacti today?

    agreed. have you posted your (clearly very sophisticated) pereskiopsis operation for us to envy?
  14. karl_marx

    What did you do to your cacti today?

    Is that a new humidity chamber? How do you like that mister, especially when the water level in the jug gets lower?
  15. karl_marx

    id request

    Here's what I found. Very interesting specimens, I wonder if they get pulled down if they peek over that wall
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