ENtiTY

Zeolite is a material that has high cation exchange capabilities and is used to increase the fertility potential in growing media. In the case of the kitty litter it is simply baked clay. Coles also sells baked clay based kitty litter. I use it in my high mineral loph mix and they loooove it. Osmocoate potting soils used to be my go to, especially the cacti flavour but the last time i purchased some it was bulked up with tea tree mulch. Could smell it as soon as the bag was cracked. Terrible stuff. Not even good as a mulch. Hydrophobic and knits down together to form a water tight seal. I guess material availability changes with locality and other factors so it probably isnt always on the ingredient list but its something to watch out for. Another thing to watch is potting soil with ferts added. Seems to be all of them these days. Controlled release ferts arent in themselves a bad thing, i actually prefer and reccomend them. However, when they are pre mixed into potting soil, bagged, stacked on pallets, wraped in pallet wrap and then left sitting in the sun you end up with bags of poison. The mechanism that controls the release rate of fert in those small balls is temperature. The warmer it is the more porus the resin that is used to encapsulate the fert prill. Those bags get might warm inside sitting in the sun and all that fert dumps into the mix. There can also be a heavy burden of fungal pathogens in those commercial potting soils and often come with fungus gnats. You can still use the potting soil you just need to wash all the excess fert out. I usually find a fert ball and crack it open to see how much fert is inside. If it is mostly hollow then the fert has dumped and you need to wash the potting soil then add fresh fert.

Seeds ya say... Lophs ya reckon... Better warm up me clumbsy ol thumbs i think...

Yep yep! That's the snuff I'm looking for! Put me down for a pack of those pearls if it pleases. Thank you for the love ph7.

Sheep poop doesnt have the mass. There individual pellets and dry out to quick. Maybe in a controlled grow situation perhaps. Pasturized horse manure is superior to cow manure when used in or as a spawn medium. Aged horse manure is light and fluffy and more nutritious. If you want to do a proper comparison (assuming it is legal where you live) it would be best to compare a single strain cultured clone as opposed to spores to get good data. Its all ready a know thing though. Anyway, if your out on a hunt, dont over look the horse paddock

Or horses. Horses dung is actually better. A horses digestive system is not as efficient as a bovines so the poopy from a horse has more nutrition left in it. And cubes love it!

Wow! Super cool! How did the cappi and acacia fair mate? Been thinking of doing something similar.

As title states, looking for some dried caapi leaves. If some nice traveller could help me out with 10g or more i would be very happy. Can trade some fresh loph seeds or that money stuff.

Always got open pol fruits coming on. Send me a pm bud.

Mysterious till you get to know it Time to sprout is fairly short if you treat the seeds correctly and provide the required conditions for germination. Within around 5 days all the seeds that are going to sprout will have sprouted from personal experience. This is the beauty of the hot water treatment, the swelling of the seed is the start of the germination process, you can see which seeds are ready to go and which need more treatment or are perhaps un-viable. If you sow the swelled seeds you are sowing seeds that have already started to germinate so the success rate is much higher. I highly suggest treating only a couple of seeds at a time so if you make mistakes you can learn from them and still have some seed to try again with. You got! :thumbsup:

Hey Pedro! Hard to say mate. If it were only a couple of days since sowing I'd say dig'em up and scratch'em up but since it has been a few weeks they may be germinating and disturbing them will vastly reduce survival. My fingers are crossed for ya mate. Maybe grab some more seed while their available just in case

Hi peeps! Great to see some interest in this plant! I distributed some seed of this plant back in 2008 and 2010. Included some germination tips in the OP for those interested. http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?/topic/17008-introducing-a-new-friend/ First thing I suggest is a short (5 min or so) 3% h2o2 bath to kill any pathogens or mold that may have hitch hiked on the pods or seeds, followed by a good wash to flush the peroxide. Scarification with sand paper is usually enough to ensure germination, although a hot water soak can help swell the beans and give visual confirmation the seeds are ready to go. The hot water soak is not absolutely necessary though as long as the seed coat is scratched up goodly. Seedlings are particularly fond of humidity and warmth. As they get older they become more tolerant to the ambient environment. I'm in S.E QLD and have had to use a humidity dome to keep seedlings from wilting. The healthiest seedlings I have grown this year were using the take away tek, in the same conditions I used to germinate lophs and tricho's. Never had this problem back in 2008 and 2010 but the ambient humidity is much lower now due to the drought I guess. Neway, hope some of this rambling is useful to peeps.

This year i have germinated a few cacti. Had a batch of pach that had 7 albino in 45 odd that germinated. Also had quite a few lophs. Interestingly they started life lighter green than their companions and after i left them in a spot where they got a little bit to hot they went white. Another went variegated red and stayed that way.

Perhaps they would respond to smoke treatment. Many native species require it to break dormancy.