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Halcyon Daze

The future of tricho breeding in Australia

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I'm wondering where this is all heading. No doubt the breeds will get bigger and better and more diverse etc, but what will become of all the large collections that are being established all over the place.

 

With the multitude of clones going around, will pedigrees mean anything in the future, and will we see markets (ebay, sunday markets etc) so flooded that prices plummit (prolly a good thing).

 

Where are we sitting in the boom/bust cycle? Are these the "halcyon days" of tricho breeding in Australia?

 

I often find myself pondering such questions but they hardly seem part of the general discussion.

Edited by Halcyon Daze
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I wonder the same. I think it's definitely a good time for new crosses, there's so many people distributing seeds.

What will happen to them all? I'd say a lot will fall to neglect eventually. I mean they take up a lot of space once they get past the first year or two. I'm trying to put as many as I can in the ground so that they establish themselves into mature plants. Hopefully they'll still be around after I'm gone. But I fear that's improbable. People seem more interested in redevelopment so older houses and blocks get bulldozed to make way for modern buildings.

People like spooge who are mass planting them are the future Fields/cactus country maybe?

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It has got to be boom time. I think it is a great time to be collecting trichos, wether for future sale or private collection. If it's for resale, prices will surly drop on bread and butter clones but new clones will always command a premium price. But these new clones will be harder and harder to come by with all the seed getting sown, as you will only be able to sell very unique looking plants. There will be many unloved plants grown that do not make the cut but have the nice named parents. Most with a large collection, even when money is one goal, they are still collectors at heart, in my opinion. Thus their collection still being taken care of for personal satisfaction, even if a living can't be made. I am excited to see where the breeding goes and what comes from it, and also be a part of it. Sowing what I think will be unique plants for their flowers and looks. It is all just a progression or obsession of a hobby!

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Grow out everything!

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Still waiting for a red flowering scop :P, lots of work still to do. 

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just look to what hybridization has acheived for the cannabis industry.....with thc levels much much higher than in the original strains.....

 

growing out 20-30 seeds doesnt often offer much chances for varieation, whereas when growing out hundreds or thousands of seeds, dominant genes become more apparent

 

Quote

Still waiting for a red flowering scop :P, lots of work still to do. 

the down side for trichs vs the cannabis industry is the time required for plant maturity / flowering.  but hey, maybe thats a good thing.

 

If superpedro does the trick and J3 does the trick, does superpedro x J3 do a better trick?

if ss02 does the trick and ss01 does the trick, does ss02xss01 do a better trick?

 

just gotta wonder then what (superpedro x J3) X (ss02xss01) & reverse brings to the table.....

 

 

Edited by zelly
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I've been looking into ways to identify promising plants before they're mature. I should have the parts to start a fast and cheap method pretty soon. I probably won't be able to post the results here, though.

 

edit:

 

What traits are even desirable in these cacti? The colored flower breeders seem to have a good thing going, but we're more content to give names to whatever plant we happen to like. Should we come up with a core set of traits to breed for?

 

Also, since most of us aren't outlaws, we can consider doing things in public. Is there any demand for a collective database of plants that we can all access to compare our results more quantitatively?

Edited by karl_marx
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I don't think it's necessary or beneficial for anyone to have some sort of arms race going on.  

 

We wouldn't want things to go down Sally road. Or Mary road for that matter

Can you imagine how destructive it would be it people started using ridiculous names like 'super-skunk-mind-melter'. It would only take one idiot to ruin things for everyone 

 

Just remember a plant with greater stamina and physical strength doesn't make it better, sometimes a stronger plant can just seem downright creepy to the eye of the beholder.

 

 

A big fat spineless blue with pink or orange flowers would certainly do the trick for me.

Edited by Halcyon Daze
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That is true - I have already seen a "Killer Green Cactus" plant around, and we don't need more suggestive names although it's only a matter of time. I'll agree with you that an arms race like you described would be off-topic on SAB.

 

On the other hand, I don't think very many breeders are selecting entirely based on looks except in the case of mutants and freaks.

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If you want to preserve the legacy of trichocereus and have a vehicle for all those abandoned gardens to be cared for, any solution that could be proposed would be legal in nature, either by encouraging collectors to will their plants to another collector or by creating a corporation to dispose of cacti that become homeless.

 

I think the first option may be less effective overall but would involve less ongoing interpersonal drama.

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It's an interesting, but slow, evolution of genetics with cacti. I think there will always be a market for hybrids, but as hybrids begin to be made from hybrids the phenotype variation will become huge... For desirable traits from a given cross to show there will need to be a very large number of seeds planted. However, the possibility of something very special will drive growers on...

i think there will then be a growing market for the stable original strains like pach etc. once growers get tired of having 1000 seedlings for one or two great ones... The 'best' breeders will have to plant huge numbers of seeds and throw away a large proportion of them...

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How do the colored flower breeders conduct themselves? They might have some solutions we don't know about.

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The f2 generation is moat likely where the really interesting hybrids will start to differentiate, if we can get someone to inbreed a cool hybrid then select special specimens...but it's a lifetime of work and we're just getting started!

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Yep if you were breeding dogs to produce a top pedigree. The breeders destroys a pup that is deaf or deformed in any way to remove those "bad" genetics. If the goal is to produce strong healthy plants, it makes me wonder that hybrids that show traits of monstrose or albino are not of benefit other than looks to the owner like a poodle with pink curls that has no hunting skills. This bring me to a question. When is it suitable and valid to name your own plant strain? How do you know your the first to make that cross? How long does it take to choose the best genetics from that crosses offspring to clone? Either way it would be very time consuming im sure.

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New hybrids and cultivars can be registered through the royal horticultural society but I don't think there's much of that going on with cacti due to lack of certainty between different species etc.

 

Anyone can name a clone though.

 

for instance if you were to remake the Grevillea 'Robyn Gordon' it would still be a Robyn Gordon but you could name your new clone after yourself which would be written

Grevillea 'Robyn Gordon' 'Fungal Forest'

 

It doesn't matter/count if you are the first to make the clone, it only counts if you are the first to register it.

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What's with the ridiculous prices for cuts lately, Are we going to see a boom/ bust scenario.

 

There's a CSD degraft on ebay for over $200 right now, it's only 24cm and skinny as shyt.

 

Is this just an economic bubble set to pop like with the Dutch 'tulip mania'?

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On 29/09/2016 at 9:25 PM, Halcyon Daze said:

New hybrids and cultivars can be registered through the royal horticultural society but I don't think there's much of that going on with cacti due to lack of certainty between different species etc.

 

Anyone can name a clone though.

 

for instance if you were to remake the Grevillea 'Robyn Gordon' it would still be a Robyn Gordon but you could name your new clone after yourself which would be written

Grevillea 'Robyn Gordon' 'Fungal Forest'

 

It doesn't matter/count if you are the first to make the clone, it only counts if you are the first to register it.

No it won't , You need a lot of info on your new ''cultivar' , grow out trails, breeding programs and so on.  This is only for  recognised registration for plant breeds.

Cactus and most succulents you don't need to do any form of registration, Aloe breeding is a good example,  There's a load of new cultivars being ripped off by other collectors..  Names are popping up everywhere of the same cultivar.

 

Same with trichocereus I believe but what can we do ? Go with Flow? :o   Just put 'RARE' on the listing, BOOM 

Edited by smithy
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For close to a decade I only grew PC, 1 bag of bridgesii seed, and 1 unknown peruvianus clone. Since getting out of school and landing a job I've been buying tons of seeds and clones. I already figured the market will be completely saturated in the future.  But I'm in it for the love of growing cactus. I hope and belive I will be able to retire early from 'plastic purgatory' and just sell cactus and other plants. Will I become a millionaire? Seriously doubt it. That's not my goal. I'm just a dude that wants to grow cactus(as well as all plants), provide for myself and future wife while not going to work at a place that is terrible for the enviroment, and of course turn people on to the life and love of cactus to where anyone can afford it.

I figure all the seeds that I produce some day ill be selling and sowing. Hopefully I can leave behind a legandry forest of cactus. That's really my end goal.  Cactus forest. I think I'll see it someday, I'm 27 

The price some of these clones are going for is nuts. I feel like I have quite a bit of extra $ to spend on hobbies but man $400 for an OGUN, $200 for landfill, $150+ for some BBG, etc. Is crazy. I found my OGUN for a fraction of that and traded some Kratom for landfill. 

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From another point of view completely, I don't see what all the fuss is about truthfully - I do not love or go crazy over Trichocereus and I do own quite a few crosses which most people will never have access to obtaining seed or cuts of. However having said that I know they're mostly tough (from cold), easy to grow (grow in dirt just fine), grow fast (compared to other sorts e.g Eulychnia & Lophocereus) but I personally do not see what the big deal is. My bookface account is a member of a page within an Australian tricho page and day after day post after post of the same mundane boring PC or hybrid which is not so great (to me anyway) and people eye them off like gold such as this 'landfill' cut.. for $100 + you can buy lovely plants such as Pilosocereus Magnificanus, Lophocereus Schotti Monstrose, Pilosocereus Bradeii, Carnigea Gigantia, Stenocereus stellatus etc. etc. for half the cost or less.. No big deal......... *End of rant*

 

Agreeing with the top post however, I have noticed with other columnar cacti the prices are decreasing as availability is becoming more readily accessible as more collectors and growers acquire cuts. A good example of this is the Cereus Forbesii Spiralis, which is starting to circulate among people in the know and prices are steadily dropping (not talking eBay here). A point I like to make to friends and people as I have been mentored by an elder collector who is an expert with Cacti and Succulents - collect the original's such as Robert Fields specimens, these have actual history and worth dating back to the 1920's or true species from South America, Chile etc grow them from seed and enjoy them, plenty of online trusted vendors to acquire seed of lovely plants from.

 

Albeit I must admit Zelly's pink/orange flowering specimens are in a league of their own! Fantastic stuff, truly.  

 

Hopefully with the widespread growing, people will be able to acquire the bigger stuff a lot easier and cheaper as I don't know a single person who does not like a large Terscheckii or big old San Pedro. 

 

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On 19/09/2016 at 1:03 AM, zelly said:

just look to what hybridization has acheived for the cannabis industry.....with thc levels much much higher than in the original strains.....

This is only part of the story. Many great varieties have been born, which produce well in cool weather, confined spaces, that both flower quickly and all at once. However old school tropical sativa's can still hold their own when it comes to THC. Trich breeders can learn a lot from the industry. In the early days a lot of breeders where just breeding to sell seed or for the prestige of the cannabis cup. High THC was the buzz word, all the other great cannibinoids where all but ignored. Back when I was at uni I remember some of my instructors getting excited becauce several of the Pharma companies were offering big money to any one that could develop a commercial plant with high CBD. THC and CBD are proportional, high levels of one means low levels of the other. The industry had bred the CBD out of modern cannibis, despite the fact that CBD is the very substance that prevents psychosis in heavy, long term users. Breeders, in their greed, had literaly driven the industry crazy, not to mention nearly destroying a priceless resource. This time we where lucky. There are still several wild strains in places like the Himalaya. Pavarti is pretty much 50/50 with some individuals being much higher in one or the other. Sadly the wild plants are disappering. Each year you need to travel further and further up the valley to find large stands. One day they will be gone. This is what makes breeders and growers so important, that is so long as they don't forget what it is that makes these plants special in the first place.

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I was watching those Strain Hunter guys on youtube. They went to Pakistan where cannabis originates from. All they were looking for was people's crops of weed rather than wild stands of the plant. I was so disappointed it seemed like they just wanted to get stoned etc that's fine but they totally ignored the wild stuff. Don't they realise what they missed out on. Who cares if you have to smoke 4 times as much to get stoned. Getting stoned sux.

 

I hope people don't go that way with cacti breeding, they'll end up getting trichos banned!

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16 hours ago, Halcyon Daze said:

Getting stoned sux.

Aren't there rules here about swearing? Profanity aside I know where your coming from. Thats why genetic diversity is so important. With over a hundred cannibinoids, many who behave differently depending which others are present, the possible combinations are endless. I'm new to cactus, so obviously know nothing, but to me Australia's southern states look like the perfect location for some serious strain development. Standard practice would be to plant very large numbers, cull heavily based on a numerical selection criteria, then open pollinate whats left. Is any one doing this yet? Personaly I'm excited for the future.

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3 hours ago, Crop said:

Aren't there rules here about swearing?

Are you kidding? It's so hard to tell, via text... No, there aren't. The rules, and I'm paraphrasing here, but essentially don't they just say "play nice"? Wasn't there even a supreme court ruling a couple years back to the effect that cussing was part of Australia's cultural heritage, and the language used was less important than the spirit in which it was used?

 

Or to put it another way: you can say "cunt", just don't be one.

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4 hours ago, Crop said:

Aren't there rules here about swearing?

 

I'm not sure sucking on lollipops could be classified as swearing. Or are we talking about donkey ballz here?

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