Grafting trichs to peres, hydroponics and interesting trich forestry link

[Stillman]

I am an impatient man and so have been dabbling with grafting Trichocereus seedling to pereskiopsis, They take and respond to it really well. Anyhow while having a look about the net regarding this I came across the Trichocereus forestry service same people who do Pereskiopsis forestry blog. Pretty out there but some of it was very interesting. I like messing around with Hydroponic techniques and peres is so forgiving I wouldn't mind building a little aeroponics set up and giving some grafts a pump.Anyone considered doing this as an experiment?

Heres the link anyways http://trichocereusforestryservice.blogspot.com.au/2008/07/trichocereus-pereskiopsis-grafting.html

[Jonstn]

Holy shit this place trips me out sometimes, over the past week or two I've been tossing around the idea of cranking an aero setup and trying out some Peres, and maybe a little piece of opuntia I got laying around.

They grow fast enough on their own, but if you could still accelerate it in any way that'd be the bomb lol

Goodluck mate, will be good to see progress hopefully I can get some free time and get a little setup going

[Moses]

ive grown both trich cuttings and sprouted seed airponically so yeah give it a go beinteresting to see what you can do.

[Stillman]

did you build your own airoponic system moses or did you buy one? I was kind of thinking about a lowfy one using micro sprayers directly above the reservoir. I used to have a set up to start cuttings that would be ideal for peres I would think.

[Moses]

did you build your own airoponic system moses or did you buy one? I was kind of thinking about a lowfy one using micro sprayers directly above the reservoir. I used to have a set up to start cuttings that would be ideal for peres I would think.

 

yeah sounds just like what i built, i'm thinking of building one now using the mist heads from this site-

http://www.aeroponics.com/

[Stillman]

nice I'll have a look at that, hopefully get my set up rocking soon as I have trich seedlings coming out of my arse at the moment lol. I actually don't have enough peres so it might be ideal just to get it pumping.

[Mr. Bowser]

I use an ebb and flow system, home made of coarse out of some plastic storage bins, a pump and plastic tubing. It took a while to fine tune the auto-siphon which was upgraded from last winter season, but relatively inexpensive and low maintenance.

I was shocked how well the peres and grafts do when placed in hydro culture like this! This system is great for speeding seedling growth. I use 14/10 MH lighting and get pretty decent results. Even if you don't have enough cuttings now, just wait a month and each peres can give up a cutting...

Anyway, was thinking about experimenting with rooted selinicereus stock in the E&F system, maybe dialing back the watering schedule to once a day... anyone use this stock in hydroculture?

[Stillman]

Nice has crossed my mind using ebb and flow system. What medium are you using? I have used the canna cocco and canna terra soil mediums just as a direct watering instead of soil and the respond extremely well. ANd I just use 25 watt cfls and get some pretty serious growth so with MH lighting I'm thinking they must go mental.

[Mr. Bowser]

The medium is a mixture of lava rock, pea gravel and expanded clay pellets. (The clay pellets float to the top, so it looks like straight clay pellets)The mixture is cheaper and seems to support the peres better than straight clay pellets.

The hydro shop guy advised against coco coir in my ebb and flow unless its got a filter since the fibers could clog the pump. Looks like the coco is just fine to water from the top tho

CFL has some advantages with seedling grafts since the stock and scion really love illumination on all sides... and its cheaper and cooler to run. Don't think the grafts grow much faster under the MH than CFL tho maybe just a little thicker with longer spines.

I like the peres and all but... I'd really like to get a larger diameter rootstock that can also take a daily watering. I'm hoping selinicereus will fit the bill!

Edited September 23, 2012 by Mr. Bowser