My baby photos- the Loph/Scop graft

[Darklight]

Here's my baby photos!

Loph grafted at 22mm diameter onto a scop a little over three years ago. This is the first season they've pupped! Babies born on October 4 as announced in this forum and they're all elongating rather than growing rounder.

Great hey! But don't let it put you off...

This was my first cactus graft, so beginners luck applies.

Both cactii sat round for aaages while I mucked about and panicked and researched and wondered what to do. Finally one night I got over it, made a couple of good guesses, used two sterile scalpel blades to cut, and held it down with some 3M micropore tape ( avail from most chemists )

Initially I was worried that the graft was poor, cos the area which took was so small- maybe 10mm max in diameter. Thankfully Torsten reassured me it was doing just fine, or I might have done something silly like moved it or paid it some attention.

It lives on the sink in my bathroom, which is a kind of biological hell, under a skylight. It gets watered weekly in the growing season with a good solution of worm liquid. Bugs eat it ( you might be able to see bug bites on it in closeup ). It gets moved around. So far, so good, nothing phases it.

What interests me is the apparrant etiolation ( lengthening ) of the loph. It's not just my imagination, several knowledgable visitors have also commented on it. Would it be the distant and soft light source, or is it possible that something like giberellins are being transferred from the scop over the graft and into the loph?

The photos have been retouched slightly here as they didin't come out anything like the colour of the actual cactii. I should have used a flash! I've never done this before, so I hope the pics work and the file sizes etc aren't too huge

All it has to do is flower now, and I'll be happy. Thanks to Torsten for his support and advice on it. And yes, it is *def* a loph.

[This message has been edited by Darklight (edited 15 January 2002).]

[This message has been edited by Darklight (edited 15 January 2002).]

[Darklight]

Dunno where that third picture went, it was the best

But *phew* it worked!

[spiraleyes]

thats the most beautifully ugly thing ive seen darklight,i can see how you love it.

ive never seen lophs grow long like that before.

my lophs just flowered for the first time last week.

two of them,and another two due soon.

they look so cute.

my pachanoi are flowering too.

i'll be attempting some grafting soon.

later loph lover

[gomaos]

Great, Darklight, looks excellent. I didn't know lophs would grow like that...

I've no luck at grafting...Only graft that ever suceeded was pachanoi on pachanoi...stupid hey, but it looks a cool cactus...

[Torsten]

Only their mother could love them ......

[gomaos]

The more I look at the pics the more the loph looks like a dick with testicles...

[Darklight]

gomaos have you been stealing food from my fridge? Cos if your dick looks like that ( green and lumpy with five balls near the end ) then I'll know whose been at the buttter...

[gomaos]

Hey was that your frigde?

I had this dream, I was standing in front of this enormous fridge; on the top layers it had all these extracts and essences and powders in it, dmt, tryptamines...you name it..., all the food was in the lower layers...

Since I was naked in that dream, my enormous shlong must have dangled in ya butter while I checked out all the goodies

Sorry for that DL

[Gwydion]

Wow.

Darklight, that "thing" that you're calling a 'cactus' is F#$&*@G OBSCENE!!

What did you do to it!?!?!? The poor thing looks like it's been living in a vacuum cleaner for several years! ;-)

As a member of the RSPCC, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to confiscate that Loph, and gradually (and carefully) squidge it back into a natural shape. ;-)

[Darklight]

...my enormous shlong...

Geez you should have twigged it was a dream then, hey

And no, it wasn't my fridge. My fridge is completely different. It's full of stock hormones and weird agar brews and plant sterilisation mixture. If you'd been stealing from my fridge, you'd get a whole new dimension to the question " Was that one lump or two? "

If we're gunna be silly maybe we should go to Chill before the mod gets us

[terah]

I hope you dont mind Darklight, I put a picture up of your Lophs. It cracks me up everytime I look at it. Congratulations, its remarkable. Please show us when it flowers.

[eccles]

they look incredible

please repost the third pic if you can!

[theobromos]

Weird and wonderful.

My only suggestion as to the columnar habit of the Loph would be that you appear to have grafted to the very tip of the stock Scop. Usually grafts are done quite far down the plant near the roots. From the picture it looks as though this graft was very near the growing tip. The hormones (indole-acetic acid?) that promote columnar growth will be in the growing tip if I remember my Biology from school. Perhaps some residual growing tissue?