Quixote

I'd say it's a cross between a PC Pachanoi and a Scopulicola..

My plants are powered by a giant fusion reactor in space.

I, for one, welcome our new cactus overlords.

Thanks for uploading this! However, I am not completely convinced that those "slices" are in fact slices. They might be flowers for all we know. The "petals" a bit look too rounded to me, a cactus slice has more of a rounded triangular shape..

I just read on trichocereus.net that EG recommends a purely mineral soil for Scops. Does that mean a mix only consisting of coarse sand, gravel and pebbles? Not any organic soil at all, not even something like coir?

Thanks, I'm looking forward to see how they grow in it. I feel it should be the best soil I have mixed until now. This time I made sure to flush the coir and also the sand/gravel too, last time I just mixed it. But I think flushing helps. It's IKEA coir so I don't think it has salt in it, but never hurts to flush it anyway. The sand/gravel is from a builder's market, I don't think it has salt either, but who knows, and flushing the worst of the dust and fine grained sand out of it should probably help with keeping it airy, I hope.

I was not thinking about growing it in "tomato" soil, just wanted to know if "pure mineral soil" meant 100% sand and gravel or maybe around 80%. I started out aiming for the 80%, but through intuition I finally ended up mixing a soil of 60% coarse sand and pebbles and 40 % coir (and a bit of crushed leca).

Looks like you grafted it unto a Cuzco? Maybe that makes it grow differently?

Might it encourage rooting if you place the cutting in full sun? To stress it and dehydrate it faster and make it want to make roots? Sounds logical to me, but I've read that cuttings should not be placed in direct sunlight before they root...

I like that idea too. Do they have pumice in their native soil or is that just something you can't resist adding? Not sure if I can find any around here. Going to re-pot my little Scop soon, and want to make its new home as comfy as possible...

I'd say definitely plant it.

She said it "wasn't San Pedro". Because they didn't want to sell anything illegal.

Found this little guy in a store today, but the girl working there told me it was not a San Pedro cactus. She said it was a species that looks very similar but is not the real deal. I don't see how that could be possible. To my eyes, it looks like a typical Pedro, not a Cuzco, but I need your help, because a friend wants to buy it as a birthday present for someone. Please give me your opinion.

Yes, mine as well. It grows much slower than both my PC Pach and my Peruvian Torch. If PC Pach grows at speed 10, I'd say the Scopulicola grows at around 3. Even taking into account slight differences in soil mix, that's a big difference. The Scop was grown from seed, so maybe it's just this individual plant that is a slow grower.

I am aware of it, but no worries. To me, it looked like a PC Pachanoi from the first moment I saw it, but I just wanted to make sure, since the storekeeper was so certain it wasn't one. I feel pretty certain about ID'ing these cacti now, but it's always good to be humble and accept that there are more varieties of these plants between heaven and earth than even a cactus lover has dreamt in his wisdom...

Thanks for replies so far, anyone here think it's not a Pachanoi?

I even asked her if she could find out what the latin name of this species is, if it's not a T. Pachanoi. She promised me to check up on it and call me. Now I wonder if they think I'm some undercover cop, haha

No, she didn't seem that knowledgeable about the finer points of Pachanoi really. But she said that they didn't sell the real San Pedro because they are illegal and the shop could get a fine. So even though - to me - it looks like a predominant cultivar Pedro, I started to wonder if there could be some other species that looks just like it, or if they are just saying it's not a real Pachanoi to avoid trouble with the "law"?

Well there's only one sedling left, and it's looking pretty unhappy, but it's not going back under the halogen. Nor am I rigging up a LED installation for it, it will have to fend for itself in the windowsill during the long, dark Northern winter. If it is strong, it will live till summer.

I successfully sprouted three little loph seedlings, and they look healthy enough, but stopped growing. They basically haven't grown since they sprouted, each of them has those little hairs/baby spines, they are dark green colour, but they just won't grow! In the beginning, I kept them under plastic wrap, but I took that off because I feared mold (it killed a previous batch). Then I had them in the sun for some time, they turned reddish so I put them in the shade again. Now they are no longer red, and I have tried having them in half shade. In the last couple of weeks I put them in quite a lot of sun, thinking they might miss sun and warmth. They don't seem to be hurt, but won't grow either. What can I do? I fertilized them only once.

I think I mixed up colour temperature with CRI - Colour Rendering Index. So, basically, my cactus will look its natural colours when under a halogen lamp, but that doesn't necesarily mean the cactus is happy. I wonder if halogens are completely useless for seedlings, or if they are just not optimal?

Looks like it could be called Echinopsis Cthulhuensis...

Not sure what you mean about the spectrum, as halogen is supposed to match 99 pct of the sun's spectrum? At least that's what I read...

Update: I put the seedlings under some plastic cover again, with ventilation holes. But one of them died because of mold, so I removed the lid again. Now there are two left. They look healthy, green, 5mm diameter. On rainy days I take them away from the window and place them under a a halogen spot in my kitchen (propped up by a bottle of Glenfiddich 15). The idea is that they need more heat than my North European window-sill is able to provide, but that on the other hand, the summer sunlight up here is too bright. So, under the halogen they should get a bit less intense light, but a whole lot more heat.

My cactus is also putting out one of those roots - but it has not been lying down. Why does it do that - lack of nutrients or too much? Problems with the roots to make it grow new ones?