bit

Here are some closeups of the damage - note that none of this is mushy, if anything while green it's the same, when yellow/brown it's hard and brittle:

Thanks Yates is a common brand here so I should be able to find that! I will post pics tomorrow morning. Too tired right now! It's not actually rot as such, it's something that gets under the skin and hardens the flesh into the yellow/brown stuff you see. Consistant with what I've read about hard scale. The deepest it appears to go is about 0.5cm into the cactus.

Hrmm. Thanks for the suggestions. I've not heard of 'white oil' - is it available from regular garden centres? (I'm in NZ). Brush/spray this on? What's the method for the kero and soap flakes (regular soap flakes for washing clothes etc?) - mix together and apply with a brush? How dilute? I wish I had been able to treat this a lot sooner, but this cactus only came to me 2 months ago. Believe it or not the other side of the cactus is practically scale free. Will post some closeup pics of the damage sooner. I believe the white stuff is old scale - it looks to have started from the base and worked up. evolutionNth - do you know if it affects pachanoi? The only other plants in the garden in question are pachanoi and another trich (poss T.argentinensis). AndyAmine - definitely not a root forming, the minor surgery was done immediately after cutting with pruning saw.

This little guy appeared overnight! Bringing my total baby count to 12 so far this spring/summer I've circled him in this next zoomed out photo. Now I have a question about the 3rd plant with the big pup - last season the parent and pup were doing fantastically, both bursting with life and rich greeness (pup grew around 16 inches in a year!). This season, as you can see, the parent plant is rather yellow, and although the pup seems to still be growing, it's nowhere near the rate of the plants to beside it, let alone last year's rate. Now, changes since last season - the mix it's in is now a year old - should I repot it with fresh mix (I fertilize bi-monthly with half strength 27-5.5-9 which they seem to like)? Is the pup sucking the life force from the parent - should I remove it and let the parent concentrate on itself? I'm considering moving it into one of my greenhouses (this helped green up another pedro), but would really like to leave it out. And lastly, my macro which I cut up has pupped from the base! Stoked with this little guy

You know what they say... there's good pussy and bad pussy...

Thanks I believe for these ones the mix is off the shelf 'Thrive Cacti and Succlent' mix. Although it could also be 'Dalton's Cacti and Succulent Mix' I'm too lazy to mix my own soil. Just as an update to this, the cactus with pup was moved inside my mini-greenhouse and has recovered it's green colouring. I'm still planning to repot it, but just need to find somewhere to get a bigger pot.

Thanks I hear ya, but the main trunk has a lot of scaling which is none too attractive. I will leave about 3 foot at the top, a foot at the base, and that should leave me 2 reasonable mid sections to trade

Haha yep, that's the one. It had tiny buds when I transported it which remained very small until about 2 weeks ago (think I got it start of december). Once the buds drop off I'm going to propogate it, so this may be it's only flowers for a few years :| It has to be done though as it's really REALLY too big for it's pot! Thanks for your kind words everyone

That's a tough one. The tip looks pach-ish but the spines don't look right. It does look malnutritioned. Could also be scop, although I keep comparing your pics to my mature scop which is probably incorrect in the id game. My final call on this one is short spined peruvianus Post some more pics in a couple of months when you've potted it up and fed it nicely

Hrm.. I'm known to present arguments for the sake of it so please don't take what I have to say the wrong way, because I understand your point of view. I would apply my statement situationally, based on the importance of the "theory". Clearly the importance of the fact varies from person to person. So a person with a vested interest will be more inclined to dispute such a "theory", whereas a person with a passing interest would be more likely to accept 'face value'. So it's not black and white, and the amount of interest you have dictates whether you should or shouldn't seek to disprove a theory. At this stage of my cacti hobby I'm interested enough that it serves as interesting background information, but nothing further. So long as I am not basing decisions on this, or passing it off to others as fact, I don't see the problem?

I'm with Archaea/Pigsah on this one, although I also agree with the logic in Michael's rather verbose refutal If a tribe claims they have been in location A and cultivating crop B for X years, and have no ulterior motive for doing so, then in the absence of evidence to the contrary it becomes a generally accepted theory.

Wow. That's awesome beyond words!

Hey ed, any chance of a hi-res version of this one? I need a new wallpaper, and that's a really nicely composed pic! http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/uplo...93_3_230781.jpg

I completely agree. I would like to see some closeups of said Aussie Scop for comparison - sounds like it is a deeper green over there among other things. As for the NZ pachanoi - definitely haven't seen/don't own any of the backenberg (sp?) clone myself. Starting to believe all my pachanoi may be juuls, although they each have distinctive characteristics. Thanks - they aught to be decent given what I have spent on the camera!

Indeed, when you own one of each they're like chalk and cheese (copied from my other post in id section): Pachanoi Tip: Pachanoi Spination (note the skin texture!): Scopulicola areole layout: Closeup socp spine, again note skin texture (unfortunately this guy is far too tall for me to get a good pic of the growing tip at the moment!):

Here's some images to back up my belief it's pachanoi: Pachanoi Tip: Pachanoi Spination (note the skin texture!): Scopulicola spination: Closeup socp spine, again note skin texture: (yes I have nothing better to do today!)

Pachanoi I think, scop doesn't have the waxy dotty skin texture

1 (it's the big pup in the second photo) - this time last year my collection stood at 3 cacti..

Not sure about extremely young plants, but: San Pedro (T.Pachanoi) have rounded ribs, and definite, albeit often very small, spines Scopulicola have pointier ribs, and non-existant spines. They are also usually a duller green colour compared to a pachanoi deep green/blue.

I so can't wait for my cacti to flower!!! Mega jealous here! Beautiful!

Yes, it'll be an oputunia. Possibly Opuntia leptocaulis?

T. Bridgeseii would be my guess

Picked this up from a local plant shop for a reasonable price - cereus peruvianus? It had lots of small white things around the tip, most of which I've scraped off. What could they be?

I think that's what's commonly known as the mexican christmas tree cactus?

Holy shit zee!! What a chistmas porno present!! :drool: :drool: :drool: How much was the property? Is there a house on it?