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Jox

My first apple!

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Nice work Jox

How much seed to you expect to get out of one apple?

How to you know when its ready to be picked?

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hey sorry to hijack ya post.

just wanted to ask question as I have never tried pollination before.

I got my first two flowers the other day. One tricho pach and one cereus peruvinanus.

Do you know can you cross pollinate these two different species ???

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Trichoshaman pretty sure they will not be compatible.

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Thanks guys,

@DreamTimeBliss, I have never got fruit of a Cereus spp before but I would imagine they would be packed with seed. As far as when it' ready, it has to ripen, it will get bigger, change colour & get softer. I have got hundreds of seed from the fruit of a Pilosocereus spp a few weeks ago & I would imagine Cereus fruit will be the same, just a lot bigger.

@trichoshaman, no worries mate, only way to learn is to ask :). I don't think you can successfully X Trichocereus & Cereus. There are different members of the cacti family that will X, like Astrophytum X Leuchtenbergia. but I'm no expert.

Cheers

jox

Edited by Jox

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thanks all for your advise.

thanks for link Dreamtimebliss, great stuff EG put out there. I will try that with the cement.

How long do flowers open up for on trichos. Mine opened up two nights ago on the 43 degree night. But last night it was close.

Can I manually open and try cement dust trick ?

thanks stillman and jox for your feedback.

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Id definitely be interested in some seed if there will be some available. The fruit should turn red or pink and possibly feel soft or split when it's ripe. Its always nice to see cacti producing a fruit, because its pretty common for the flowers to drop and the fruit to abort (at least in my experience) - I have a 10m tall dragon fruit (hylocereus) and the only time its ever produced a fruit it turned out to be small and weird looking and full of green ants!

tricho - It would be worth at least attempting the hybrid, as the results may surprise you. I wouldnt expect it to produce fruit or viable seeds, but you'll never know unless you try. You may be able to salvage some pollen from a closed flower, but not too sure if itll accept pollen after its closed (again you never know though, cacti are notorious for having male and female parts that mature at different times, so it may accept the pollen even after its closed). My trichos have never flowered, but i believe they only stay open for one night

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keen to try that too could trade for some seed? kate

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thanks poisonshroom

i will do some experimenting.

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My first apple split this morning

Any tips on collecting the seed?

2013-01-14131810_zps922a929b.jpg

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Nice work DTB :),

It doesn't like like it's ripened fully before it split, so I hope the seeds are properly developed.

When it comes to collecting the seed from cacti fruit like cereus or pilo, I scrape all the flesh & seed out & let it soak in a jar for a few hours, giving it a good shake every time I walk past. The idea is to get the flesh to get soft & break apart, now I pick out the flesh that is floating & scrape off any seed back into the jar, I keep doing this till most of the flesh has been taken out & only seed & fine pulp are left in the jar. Now I pore it all through a fine strainer & let the water drain off, place the seeds & left over pulp onto a heap of paper towel, I remove what ever pulp I can with tweezers & leave the paper towel to dry. When the paper has dry out completely (A day or two) I hold it over a big bowl & gentle scrape of the seeds. This takes awhile but I end up with all the seed & I have always had great germination.

Is that fruit from Cereus peruivanus?

Cheers

jox

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Nah

Its from Super Pedro crossed with SallyD's pach

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Jox that piece you gave me flowered so just finished work and I happened to have some monstrose pollen from that piece I got from the lady at Redcliffe in the fridge so gave the flower a good fiddle, if I get some seeds i'll do you a trade.

DSCF2002-26_zps498e94a5.jpg

DSCF2001-23_zps1732ef58.jpg

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Well one of my cross pollination attempts has worked & it's looking like I will end up with an apple :).

I took pollen from a cactus I have labeled as Cereus peruvianus (please tell me if you think it's C. peru or another type of Cereus) & put it over a flower on my Cereus hindmannianus monstrose. After two days the flower head fell of, leaving the base, now the base is getting bigger by the day.

DAD

 

attachicon.gif2013-01-09 11.31.01.jpg

 

attachicon.gif2013-01-09 11.30.30.jpg attachicon.gif2013-01-09 11.30.47.jpg

 

MUM

 

attachicon.gif2013-01-09 11.29.23.jpg attachicon.gif2013-01-09 11.29.36.jpg

With a bit of luck I will end up with an apple, & some fresh seed :wink:. If anyone is interested in growing this X let me know as there should be some monstrose babies amongst the seed.

Cheers

jox

pls keep me a little seed if possible cheers kate

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This one changed colour overnight

DSCF2031-4_zps3c7d9144.jpg

DSCF2030-3_zps8dd80fbc.jpg

No monstrose genes in this one but. I'm keen as to try the fruit, I'm thinking cacti Orchid the fruit must weigh about 100g. And mum and Dad were almost spineless.

Dad

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Mum

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Does anyone have a link to a Database to try and ID some of these Cerues?

Edited by Stillman
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Jox that monstrose cross I did failed. It initially set then went black and dropped off. Thats the second monstrose that has aborted, while the normal column has taken no problems, not sure if its a humidity issue, perhaps the standard column species can handle a bit more of our climate? It Sucks arse I was looking forward to growing out some freaks.

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Thats a pity mate, maybe the pollen was to old? Or maybe the plant I gave you Is the same plant the lady has in Redcliff? I have heard a few people saying that they think all of this form of monstrose Cereus in Australia is originally from one plant! I hope this is not the case. Anyway I have a flower about to open tonight on a normal C,peru & there are about eight flowers on my monstrose Cereus that are going to open in the next few nights, so I'm hoping to get some more apples. I know this is not monstrose x monstrose but there should be some interesting seedlings come for the seed.

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DSCF2060_zps93883c26.jpg

SHould I wait for this to get soft or split before picking I am saving half for seed and half to have a taste?

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that looks so tasty

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Interesting article about column cacti species used as a future arid crop.

http://www.insad.pl/files/journal_pdf/journal_2004/full2004-16.pdf

On another train of thought, from doing a bit of reading on cereus "peruvianus" farms alot of articles claim that the plants are self fertile? Perhaps certain clones exist but from my experience the bulk of the clones in cultivation in Australia certainly aren't. So assuming that Cereus "peruvianus" isn't self fertile (which it isn't at least where I am), wouldn't it be in the best interest of production yield to have as many individually seed grown plants available? Even if this compromised a good fruit quality clone? I'm just thinking flowers and odds, I mean you could possibly work on a strain to improve weight flavour. But as a niche crop, initially yield/ fruit set would be the focus?

This study confirms they are not self fertile

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1993/V2-486.html

Edited by Stillman

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DSCF2152_zps315b6ffa.jpg

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You can see were I have been squeezing the fruit checking if they are ripe. We picked it yesterday and had a taste, it probbaly could have stayed on the plant another 2 or 3 days but I am in the middle of getting flooded here and thought it best I pulled it before the fruit split.

Texture is sort of like a water mellon initially but breaks up and is a little more "snotty" but in a pleasant way. The flavour of this plants fruit was hard to describe, sweet lemon/ citrus and perfume... the smell of lemon fresh detergent but in a tastier way?? Hard to describe, but if you ever get the chance you will know what I mean. I think the fruit could be a potential drink/ liquor or jam conserve crop.

Big fruit I'll leave the fruit on the plant a couple more days next time and see if it increases sweetness.

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Obviously saved a shit tonne of seed. Will planting out my "orchard" next week and will do a stack of grafts on peres, Might experiment with Bap to produce low growing multi limb plants like they are in Israel.

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