Stillman

lol

6th November

Nice stuff GOT and Ceres.

16 days set. see how far it lifted the vine. I think if I had not raised it the fruit may have snapped clear as this plant is anchoring itself to the ground everywhere.

I saw them for sale on Koehres

that flower ended up aborting but the plant are pumping along now, plenty of leaves in the air so hopefully flowers next month or early next year.

Hybrids for this year... G guerkeanum are one of my favourite Gymnos with a interesting yellow flower. So this might be a unusual hybrid depending on genetic dominance. G guerkeanum isn't a prolific flower producer but anistii is so who knows what might throw?

Some of my ragonesii hybrids are opeing, most are typical white with little variation from the mother genotype. But one is opeing today or maybe tomorrow which appears to be a pink/ red colour. This is very weird as mother is typical ragonesii father is green closed flower, G mihanovichii. Bad photo but you can see the pinkish colour in the flower This is another seedling from the seed batch with the expected cream coloured petals. Only produced about 50 seeds, I hand pollinated it myself, so not sure where the pinkish colour is coming from? I'll keep you updated once it opens. here's a pic of the father plant in flower http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n153/stillmanz/Cacti/DSCF2232.jpg

Yeah got a forklift lined up from work lol. Long way to go yet but.

I think due to the intense inbreeding for specific traits variegation appears to be prevalent in a lot of the big competition plants. Varieagation can be caused through mitochondrial DNA and the genome DNA so makes sense if they are focusing in on a small pocket of genetics that certain faults appear. The variegation doesn't appear to make them any less vigorous though which is interesting.

14 days set and its starting to pump. If the weather doesn't stitch me up I reckon this one will go large. The stems on the plant are really thick and the stump is about as thick as my wrist.. I have buried the vines and am watering the whole area to increase water uptake. Now just gotta keep it up for the next 50 days or so.

yeah spray milk early in morning. top and bottom, once a week. breeding programs exist, I believe pollen will last in the fridge for a couple days. I'm taking cutting of my pumpkin your welcome to a clone down the track if you like.

Here's some pics of the variegated vine and leaves.

Hey Waterboy mine has that weird variegation on the stem and the leaf too. I'm not sure its a virus as much as a chloroplast mutation, it doesn't seem to have any negative impact on how mine grow. From doing a lot of internet reading the yellow vines seem to be a trait of the very big.

They are starting to get some thick stems.

its a lot hotter here then in NZ when it warms up over there yours will go mental. In the US they keep them in hot houses and put heat cords in the soil and all sorts of over the top stuff for the first month or so. Its been in the high twenties for nearly 2 months now lows of about 16.

I have set a back up pumpkin just incase that sting mark rots out I'll leave it until day 16 or so if its still shiny and growing well then I will cut this one off and let the plant concentrate on the one fruit. I have buried and watered a lot of th evine so big root base to pull from. Could be my undoing if we get early flooding.

10 days old has a sting from some sort of wasp which was there from the beginning so have sulphured dunno how it will go. Raised the vine and everything just in case it really wants to get big I really think it will get too humid and hot here to grow a really big one over Summer it spends most of the day wilting regardless of how much water I put on it. And I think Powdery mildew will become a big problem very soon.

When I went to Merv Whitehouse's place a few years ago he had a table of crested pacypodium grafted healing he said I can have one for $15. I think I had done my budget so I didn't get it. Kicking myself. Good luck with them dude.

yep milk 1 : 9 it seems to work but you gotta spray regular its probably a better preventative. And molasses dude add that to everything. its the shiz. I dunno if its making this thing grow big but the Americans swear by it.

hey mate I was talking to a old guy the other day about this, he uses fine hair like a cats whisker to pollinate them by hand. They are usually pollinated by butterflies apparently, same as Adeniums. He swears by it and this way you don't have to cut the flower, I am yet to give it a go.

probably not Cereus but you could try and see.

both used to be Lobivia so they will cross very easily. Trade you some seeds of the cross if you like.

any updates?

run on about 6 to 7. Works for me but maybe I am a bit ADHD.