Purple Cacti

[holymountain]

So I received a bunch of beautiful seedlings from a fellow forum member here and planted them out about 2 months ago at my parents place. When I went to visit I found that some of them had gone from lovely green to a strange purple colour.

They don't seem to be rotting and I've never seen anything like this before. Any ideas?

[del]

Hi holy mountain

They just look a bit sun burnt. are they getting heaps of sun?

just move them to the shade and they will green up.

someone out there better qualified than me to answer this?

cheers del

[-YT-]

cold stress?

[lophty_tricho]

I'm pretty sure this red/purple pigment is a reaction to increased intensity of light- I have some seedlings which are showing the same. My understanding is the red/blue spectrum is reflected, reducing the efficiency of photosynthesis & protecting the epidermis from damage. or maybe their a bit bashful about being leered at by cactophiles

Edit: I've found this is more likely to happen when the plants growth is slowed by low mosture/tempreture- more of a correlation than cause

Edited May 25, 2010 by lophty_tricho

[PD.]

Moisture, food and light.

Lil seedlings can handle a fair amount of watering and prefer it to being left to dry out. If they are in a tray then usually they dry out reasonably fast and that soil mix doesnt look that friendly, try some seed raising mix with a lil sand and perlite, in deeper pots, but, that could all wait for spring if ya wanted for now id give em a good soak with maybe a quart strenthg nute or some eco-amino or seaweed solution, reduction in light cant hurt either.

Try some eco-aminogrow, seedlings love it and if you are willing to spend a heap add some root excelurator (house and garden nutes) and watch them seedlings go nuts.

[J Smith]

I bought a purple bridge seedling from Hamiltons about 12 months ago. I had never seen a purple one before so thought I may have been on to something special. I repotted into a bigger pot with cacti/succulent mix and treated it like any other cacti.

Don't know why it went purple in the first place but it's now recovered fine and is a normal green again.

[bℓσωηG]

I think PD has that right ,I also recently recieved some bulk seedlings of various sizes which a week after potting up went the same red/ purple look, watered in a bit now they dont look so bad, i used some wooden skewers to help them stand straight until they pump out some roots ... They'll harden up .

[mutant]

They're not burnt just coping with increased sunlight probably as the others said. Other than than, I think they will do fine even if you leave them as is. And yeah, I read seedlings like more water

here's a real purple cactus

Edited May 25, 2010 by mutant

[lophty_tricho]

Thats not a purple cactus, THIS is a purple cactus

[mac]

Yeah i found they tend to change to purple to protect them self from high light levels especially seedlings

Gymnocalycium mihanovichii (chin cactus) tend to do it at any age, when moved or planted out in full sun

move them to part shade they will go back to green

Now PD has mentioned nutrients & moisture ill experiment a little with the next batch of seedlings i plant to see how much light & water play in the colour change

Edited May 25, 2010 by mac

[bℓσωηG]

possibly a combination of light , dryness ,and teh stress of being transplanted

[holymountain]

thanks everyone. they've definitely had increases in light etc plus i haven't been there to tend to them so who knows what my mum is doing to them. when i was home i moved them under some more shade and have no doubt they will come good. kind of a shame i liked the idea of having special unique one off purple strains. would have called it 'purple haze' and made millions off of cuttings.

oh well.

@lophty... that was a crack up. haven't seen ol' dundee for years. ha!

[mutant]

Note that reddeding is not bad itself, so don't make the mistake I have made in some batch, when I delayed to put them in more sun, so they now have somewhat thinny bases

PS Yours look great though

Edited May 26, 2010 by mutant

[ubza_1234]

is there any problem with purple pedro? Is growth slower? Does it increase chances of disease? Personally i think you should transplant some so you can keep some purple cause they look friggin cool also i dunno how good it works on seedlings, i use a plant hormone called super thrive and that with some fish or seaweed nutrient (which ever i have in stock at the time) and after using that formula, my 2 and 5 year old lophs have doubled in size right on the middle of autumn in roughly a month. Now it's winter there slowing a bit but growing like mad

[DiscoStu]

in response to something I read on here I put some seedlings which were a crimson/purple type colour and had stopped growing in a greenhouse with dappled morning sun back in october, I'm pleased to announce that they've come nice and green and have even started growing again! so, if your seedlings are turning purple, give them

• humidity
• warmth
• water
• partial shade

and you should be right. i put another one in a cutout water bottle with the lid on and kept it inside on the window sill which was brighter and it still came green so my conclusion in humidity is an important factor (as per what I read).

Edited February 11, 2014 by bot6

[myco]

I'm goin with PD here they look like they need a good drink to me

Might be a good idea to give em a good soak with some soil conditioner seasol or something similar will help them retain moisture for a bit longer seedlings this size can drink alot of water

[M S Smith]

Yeah, too much light.