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Fertilizing trichos = seed viability problems?

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Has anyone had problems with their tricho seed not being viable due to fertilizing while the flower is forming?

I hadn't fertilized my plants in a long time (2 years) and added Miracle Grow to all of them a couple times during the time the fruit was forming - this produced vegetative growth and I was hoping for also bigger fruits on the cacti which were forming them. Nice healthy fruits formed with a good quantity of seed inside them. But I'm worried that the 20-20-20 fertilizer might have disrupted something in the seed forming process, though I would assume the cactus would use the fertilizer in a good way.

Anyhow, I'm about 12 days in on a hybrid seed cross and no signs of life from it, and a week in on another with nothing doing. I harvested several other seed crosses and potted them up a couple days ago - should know within a week or so if they are going to come up..

Has anyone simply gotten un-viable fresh seed from a tricho? Someone sent me a batch of unviable seed a few years ago, but I didn't ask more about it - could have not been viable simply because it was too old or had been mistreated or some such..

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I would think that due to many factors a batch of fresh seed may be non viable. It happens in some plant crosses. But you would think Crossing within one species would make this less likely. I've had Gymnocalycium do this, but I think the seed pod was self pollinated.

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Hi Nitro, it happens that some crosses dont match up genetically. Also there are other things going on inside the seed pod during the ripening process that can make seed unviable. Infections for example. But it also happens that some crosses just dont work though they have worked the year before. Dont know the reason but it certainly happens. Dont think it has to do with the fertiliser as long the seeds didnt have direct contact with the fertilizer. But in this case, i think you only need to give them more time. I think you may have sown them very early after harvesting and very fresh seed has a natural protection against germinating inside the seed pod. So the seed needs to be dry for a certain time till you get best results during sowing out. Echinocereus seed for example needs to be stored for at least 1-2 years to get results. I was told that Mammillaria seed is built similar too but havent checked it myself. So maybe you just sown it too early after drying.

You know, if you look at it from a evolutionistical view, its actually clear they have this protection against germinating in the pod or inside the gastrointernal tract of an animal. But in the end, i am sure they will germinate. They just need longer to pull down the germination switch.

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Cool, lets hope its not an issue. My crosses should all be totally compatible in terms of the species.

The one I sowed first is a crested pachanoi mother plant, but it became crested after a nasty slug attack - the other plant I have of it is not crested - when I offer the cross I'm calling it T. pachanoi "quasi-cristata" because of this. So, if it is crested not because of genetics, but because of some sort of infection, maybe that made the seed non-viable? To make matters more tricky it is crossed with TPM as a parent, and the other time I had TPM in a cross only about half the seeds seemed to germinate for people anyhow..

I just sowed the other 8 or so crosses this weekend - the TPQC plant is only in one other of the crosses, so if it is unfit to be a parent, there will still be other crosses which shouldn't have issues - I was going to see if they sprout before I offer the seed to the community, for quality control purposes, but Evil Genius may be right in that I sowed them too quick - I literally sowed mine right out of the fruit, and then dried out the rest of them.

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Still nothing doing - praying to the cactus gods currently..

You know though, I had some Roseii #1 open pollinated seeds last year that took several weeks to germinate - nothing was doing after a couple weeks so I threw a whole bunch more in there figuring it was a seed issue - about a month or so after that all the sudden I had a small lawn of Roseii - must have been 80% germination, but they took many weeks.. I had not seen that before, usually my seeds seem to sprout within a week or two.. it is late in the season here in the northern hemisphere - days are much shorter than they were in summer

Edited by nitrogen

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If you dont get germinations within the next month, just take off the lid and let the whole thing dry out. Then wait a few weeks and re-start germination process...

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Good news - the seeds have started germinating - woo! A friend of mine mentioned that sometimes cold is necessary to trigger germination as well - and it has cooled down here as of late.. It was really hot this summer - and these seed never cooled down much till recently at night..

Might just be time also - like EG said above.. Anyhow, the seed took over a month to germinate, and not all the crosses have come up yet, but on a couple crosses I'm getting very good germination rates..

I will conclude that fertilizing does not necessarily pose a problem - or maybe it did something wierd like make the seed grow thicker shells which kept them from responding to the environ quickly or something...

Livin and learnin!

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Great to hear bud, all of the crosses you did look very interesting. It would be sad if you didn't get at least a few to sprout.

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