Grafting trich to gigantic old cereus

[Smiling Cloud]

Hi there,

Whilst walking around my friends new property we found an old cereus (thats what i think it is anyway), it is about 3-4 m high and the main trunk is about 30-40cm across. I was wondering how i would go about using that gigantic root system to grow some trichs. Prune all the branches and attach a trich or just leave it be and attach a trich to one of the branches? Could i do multiple grafts so that i "convert" th whole thing into a trich tree?

I will get a pic and post it here so that the tree can be identified.

Thanks

[Chiral]

I have often wondered this too..the only issue I think is that the ribs are so thin it's slightly harder to get the rings to line up..well worth a go with some PC pachs I'd say...it's quite vigorous and hardy that's for sure...It would look really cool if the whole stump was Cereus and all the grafts where different types of trichs..

H.

[Teotzlcoatl]

Could i do multiple grafts so that i "convert" th whole thing into a trich tree?

Yup.

I'd cut off all the growing tips of this huge cactus and graft Trichocereus tip cuttings on to the tops!

Plant the Cereus tips somewhere else since you just destroyed this guys means of reproducing!

[Smiling Cloud]

Went there today but forgot to take my camera, the trunk is actually about 50m across! Maybe even a bit more.

So should i chop the branches back to the stump or just the tips? I was thinking that it may be better to leave the "tipless" branches on that are getting sun so that they can supply energy from photosynthesis.

Also its raining here atm, should i wait till the sun comes out or doesn't it matter?

[strangebrew]

I doubt it would be suitable somehow, that base is probably wooden as a tree. Young growing tips are generally recommended for grafting and besides Cereus are pretty slow growing from what I've seen.

[Teotzlcoatl]

Use only the new active growing tips for grafts.

[Smiling Cloud]

Strangebrew- Yeah the trunk looks like a tree, very hard and wooden. It would be amazing if it was all fleshy, i'd love to see a cactus that round.

So my plan is to chop of all the branches that don't get any light. And then chop the tips of all the branches that do get light (to provide energy), making sure to remove any new pups that may form and then graft a trich onto one nice fleshy growing tip. Hopefully that massive rootball will make the graft absolutely crank, but if not it will be a cool experiment nonetheless.

If anyone has anymore input it will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks all for your replies, i'm going a-grafting

Edited April 5, 2009 by Smiling Cloud

[Teotzlcoatl]

So my plan is to chop of all the branches that don't get any light. And then chop the tips of all the branches that do get light (to provide energy), making sure to remove any new pups that may form and then graft a trich onto one nice fleshy growing tip. Hopefully that massive rootball will make the graft absolutely crank, but if not it will be a cool experiment nonetheless.

That sounds about right to me!

[Chiral]

Hopefully the Cereus is in a place where others cant mess around with it and take the grafts...if its out in the open will be difficult to keep an eye on the grafts especially with any wild weather etc...just do one at a time and see how they take...gotta be one of the coolest experiments ever...a cactus tree with every type of Tricho growing from every arm..can you imagine how cool it would look in a few years.

[Smiling Cloud]

I reckon it will look really cool, especially once i start grafting some lophs to the trichs! I have a feeling the lophs wouldn't graft straight onto the cereus, doesn't look fleshy enough to me, so i will have to graft them to the trich. I also read on an old thread that lophs don't take to cereus for some reason.

I forgot to take a trich with me today but i found a few nice fresh pups that i will graft onto, i will be chopping the tips to make a few more pups tmo. Will graft my first trich tmo too.

I have 75 loph seeds and probably the same amount of cereus growth tips. If my grafting experiments work i will have a gigantic football loph tree in a few years... HURRAH! Now i just got to get enough trich to go in between.

[planthelper]

i remeber a post at the nook, where member "me" harverested maybe 2m or longer pedros and re grafted the tips onto the stumps left in the ground successfully. those pedros would have not produced a very woody base yet, but it shows that this principal works!

i would try to match the "rings" as perfectly as possible and this could be achived by, cutting and than measuring the diametre of the ring, and than to cutting again but lower if a bigger size ring is needed.

hmm, probably doesn't work in the field...

i see a difficulty in how to fix those grafts, onto your branches.

another thing is that you would have to cut, and than wait a week or more and than re cut your scion, as otherwise you will end up with the graft being pushed of the scion, because the materials / tissue a cacti is made of have different shrinkage when they dry. in short, the ring will not be level with the rest of the cacti tissue, once the area dries out.

anyway, what i say is pretty much the same thing why one bevels of the edged of a scion before grafting.

lining up things (in our case the rings), without seeing them is always guess work, and even trying to measure it out often fails.... so you could try (never have done this before) to, but a few say 5mm long tooth picks into three areas of the ring of your graft and than press down the graft onto the scion, mark two corners of your graft on the scion with another few tooth picks (so you can find the same location again), than remove...

now look for the inprints of the picks, did they match up with the ring of the scion?

if so, good you know how to place the graft after recutting it.

if they don't, try again the same prozess.

instead of tooth picks, you could use something else, like maybe smal grains of sand or so.

obviosly, your idea has set my imagination running wild, don't know if those ideas, would stand the field test, anyway,

happy grafting!

[Birdman]

Ive thought about this too,when im an old man and my cereus is trunk

like in thickness then grafting the hell outa the bastard. cant wait to see how this goes

Best of luck!