Grafting or Rooting: a question or two

[euphoraecopia]

I received this lovely grafted Willie 7 months ago now. It seems to be doing very well, I have learned to tell when it wants water by look and sometimes by feel, and it seems to have developed nicely. But now I'm wondering if I should degraft it and root on its own, or regraft onto a trichocereus.

Which brings me to my second photo. I've had this baby Pachanoi for the same amount of time and it hasn't done much of anything until recently. As you can see the tip has narrowed down and to my novice eyes probably wants a bigger home. However, I'm wondering if its diminutive tip might be prime real-estate for grafting the previously mentioned Willie.

sorry, having difficulty with attachments.

Edited July 7, 2012 by euphoraecopia

[Stillman]

pachanoi is a good graft stock, But graft stock is only beneficial if its vigorously growing. Once the stock starts to put some new growth on then its a good time to graft.

[euphoraecopia]

Should I pot the mini pachanoi into a larger home first or is that pot sufficient for loph stock?

Also, the two pups that are growing out of the pachanoi on the left, could I hypothetically graft onto one of those?

I guess I'm just having a hard time deciding whether to graft or root my Lophophora. Any thoughts?

[Jox]

Hi euphoraecopia,

Good luck making up your mind.

You can graft onto the pups on your pachanoi.

May be you can have a look at another topic in this forum "Rooting degraft buttons?", this might help you make up your mind.

Like I said good luck.

Edited July 9, 2012 by Jox

[Stillman]

I like grafts they grow quick. I don't keep lophs but they are known to be very slow.

[2Deep2Handle]

IMO....if its your only one...leave it on the pere....its growth may slow substancially, but if it does it will more than likely pup within a year(or flower and seed) of slowing right down. You then graft those pups onto pere. Then where u cut off the original pups should pup again. repeat process until you have a pere/loph army....then consider attempting to graft a few inch+ buttons to some larger stock, and rooting some(of the bigger ones or tiny ones).

Its the process I started very slowly going though about 2 years ago with other mexican tap-roots.(Astrophytum, Copiapoa etc)

soon i will have more cacti than i know what to do with, and will be able to experiment with several types of less tried/sucessful grafting etc.

Grafting peres is easy....trichos not as much IMO, as suddenly pressure must be applied, and humidty is no longer your friend(more like super glue if grafting on angles ;) )

[euphoraecopia]

I like this idea a lot, so I think I will just sit and wait. Maybe slip the loph some coconut milk on rare occasions to encourage pupping. Thanks!

One thing I noticed though: the graft is getting bigger, are there any signs I should look out for that the loph is getting too big for the peres?

[2Deep2Handle]

ummm now i cant help you here on the getting too big part, but i have seen 3inch+ buttons on pencil thick pere...

Im going to leave my first one on there until it falls off naturally (or i see splitting in the connection of the graft or can see obviously detrimental leaning of the scion)

[euphoraecopia]

I've decided to leave the Loph in the OP on the Peres for now. If it starts to grow down around the peres stalk much more I will degraft and either root it or put it on a nice Blue Myrtle I have rocking, or a

Harrisia jusbertii I just found.

I took the plunge on one of my other Lophs, removed him from the peres and put him on the midget Trich above in the OP. It threw up serious growth since then so I thought it a fine candidate. I did this 3 days ago and already there's the slight bright green color of new growth. I hope that means I did well! I left several areoles worth on the peres graft so hopefully we'll see a pup or two.

How should one winter Lophs on peres? My intuition tells me to treat it like a semi tropical cactus and bring it inside to protect from frost. It doesn't frost often and I know any well established Trichs are probably fine, but I was considering building a mini green house for my little Loph on Peres community out of PVC and plastic sheeting, something small around 50cm cubed.

The days are getting shorter now. We're still reaching +/- 35°C during the day but are dipping down past the 20's °C at night so I might not be watering my cactus too much longer. We don't have much of a fall period, it will soon be bone dry cold winter. I should probably also figure out what I'm going to do soon.

Edited September 22, 2012 by euphoraecopia

[.dg]

^ under floros in the closet if you want them to keep growing actively, then keep them warm-

or anywhere the temps wont drop to freezing, you get some cold nights in the high desert- but they wont grow much if at all with cold night temps

graft stock is only beneficial if its vigorously growing. Once the stock starts to put some new growth on then its a good time to graft.

 

i dont know, i've had good success grafting onto un-rooted stock ( planted stalk to root once the grafts took)

Edited September 22, 2012 by dg420

[Stillman]

True they will often take but sometimes they stall and won't grow for ages and ages.

[euphoraecopia]

Well my graft for the previous post took, but now it is showing some strange color changes. what does this mean?

[bogfrog]

Probaby not getting quite enough sun by the looks of it.

Try and gradually introduce it to a bit more sun, but be very careful not burn it, cacti are quite tender when they look like this.

So don't go sticking it in full sun right away, start somewhere which gets dappled sun for a few hours per day and slowly move it into a brighter spot over a couple weeks.

[euphoraecopia]

Thanks I will do. It gets a bit of direct sun then mostly filtered through pine needles for the afternoon, in the same spot as my other trichs. Hopefully this is better than where it was located before. It is getting cooler at night, perhaps growth will slow down a bit.