nitrogen

I've had Eileen's not grow that quick - to me it's like most other bridgesii in that it can really turn it on and grow fast, or can stall out..

Nice pics! Glad to see you got some SS01 x SS02 seedlings going - I didn't know SS had done that cross, but I love the reverse cross - SS02 x SS01 - that was the first tricho seed of any sort that I grew out and what a stellar cross it is - really stunning progeny and quite vigorous..

That big bridgesoid reminds me a bit of Eileen..

For sure sun exposure is the single most potent variable, from what I've seen - more sun = longer spines..

Spectacular!

Right on - I have wondered how those would turn out - those babies are actually SS01 x TPM, not the reverse. My comrade Mel/vin made that cross from the TPM pollen and his SS01 - thing is, he tried to get it to take on several of the SS01 flowers - none made it but one - my TPM pollen was getting kinda old, but we figured it was worth a go. Problem is, he is not confident that the SS01 was pollinated either fully or at all by the TPM, given the other flowering plants in the garden at that time, and the lack of success with the TPM pollen on the other flowers - tiny little fruit it was too.. Anyhow, hope those freaky genetics got in there - I haven't seen any mature examples of that cross yet..

Happy day!!

Haha - nice, glad they arrived for ya GoT! Can't have ya offing a postman and whatnot..

Yea those caterpillers are a big issue here on pereskis also - I don't like killing things, and I love butterflies, but it's game over if I catch anything eating my cacti..

Thx - nice selection indeed!

What is the webstore url? I check the SAB store on the main site page but find no cacti, just a bunch of other plants

Thx for the kind words! I've been fortunate in a number of ways in terms of cactus growing, and enjoy spreading the goodness - brings me a lot of joy to stoke other people out.. Hopefully everyone's get there, but as Ethos says, there is now a bunch of these seeds in Oz and NZ - assuming good germination rates like I'm seeing, there will probably be seeds and seedlings in circulation here in a bit for those who didn't get the seed from me..

From what you describe I'm afraid it sounds like the pollination was not successful - basically, the flower would stay on the plant and develop into a fruit, which is the seed pod (often sweet and tasty as the plants way of enticing animals to eat it and spread the seed around when they defecate).. With trichocereus anyway it's always a very sad sight to come out and find the flower laying on the ground after pollination was attempted..

Hope they all touch down soon - pity it's taking some of them awhile to arrive. I imagine they will get there though - all addresses were double checked and printed legibly, and everything was tight and proper in terms of the packaging and customs form - they would have no reason to confiscate the letters - the return addy is real and no letters have come back to me - all were paid at the register too, so there were no issues with correct postage etc.. And everyone who emailed me with their addy got a letter sent out. I've seen this before with letters to Oz though - sometimes they take a bit - no rhyme or reason to it

I've heard mixed things about how long to leave them in high humidity.. A comrade of mine says he just keeps pereskiopsis grafts in humidity for 24 hours.. I've been doing 2-4 days - seems to work pretty well - about 80% of them take.. I depends on how humid the climate is though - I reckon some places don't need it for as long..

Yea those look healthy - if they are sown at the right time though a year under natural conditions can produce good size like that - few inches tall or so within a year.. Ferts make a big difference too.. Hybrids with SS02 and other bridgesii in them seem to grow faster than pachanoi/peruvianus seedlings too, IME.. The SS02 x SS01 is a bridgessi x peruvianus and those are quite vigorous indeed - as long as the bridgesii is in there they seem to do really well..

Grafted some more seedlings to pereskiopsis - lost a whole batch last week and not sure why - I think I left them in the humidity too long - they got all squishy and shriveled up. I thought I had the bomb uber-humidity tech going by doing all the grafting in the bathroom with the shower turned on hot and the door closed - full humidity dome - and then kept them in the smaller humidity chamber for 4 days - a time period that has worked in the past for me - many had some yellowish rot around the base of the graft after while.. When I took them outta the humidity chamber the tips of the pereskiopsis shrivelled/contracted a bit too - I think they got over saturated and expanded, and then contracted - this may have messed up the scion's connection also.. Could be the weather too - getting chillier here, shorter days - still a Mediterranean climate but my grafts this summer took really well..

Nah you were on the list Bogfrog - I just mailed them from near Los Angeles last Saturday - to Oz and NZ I'm guessing 10 days would be typical

Right - the seed code! Didn't want to confuse the customs people, even though all are permitted species. It is: 1 - TPM x N1 2 - Psycho0 x N1 3 - Psycho0 x TPM 4 - TPM x (SS02 x pachanoi) 5 - N1 x TPQC 6 - (SS02 x pachanoi) x TPM 7 - TPQC x TPM 8 - TPC x Juules, SS02, & (SS02 x pachanoi) Hope these work out most groovaliciously for everyone involved - I had some germination issues with them to start with, but they are coming up now (super stoked!). The TPC cross has been the quickest germinator for me, but the (SS02 x pachanoi) x TPM is pretty well 100% germinated and growing strong even though nothing happened for like 4 weeks- curious to know what others find.

I've found that when I up-pot, usually the next year there are no flowers - then when it gets rootbound again the flowers return..

Nice to see some pics! I remember when Libertycaps made this cross - must have been a few years ago - didn't grow any out myself but I saw some pics of babies and they looked pretty cool. Your example is very nice indeed!

Alrighty - the seeds are in the air - first class to Oz and a few other countries - usually takes 7-10 days if I rememeber - happy growing!

Has anyone had problems with their tricho seed not being viable due to fertilizing while the flower is forming? I hadn't fertilized my plants in a long time (2 years) and added Miracle Grow to all of them a couple times during the time the fruit was forming - this produced vegetative growth and I was hoping for also bigger fruits on the cacti which were forming them. Nice healthy fruits formed with a good quantity of seed inside them. But I'm worried that the 20-20-20 fertilizer might have disrupted something in the seed forming process, though I would assume the cactus would use the fertilizer in a good way. Anyhow, I'm about 12 days in on a hybrid seed cross and no signs of life from it, and a week in on another with nothing doing. I harvested several other seed crosses and potted them up a couple days ago - should know within a week or so if they are going to come up.. Has anyone simply gotten un-viable fresh seed from a tricho? Someone sent me a batch of unviable seed a few years ago, but I didn't ask more about it - could have not been viable simply because it was too old or had been mistreated or some such..

Good news - the seeds have started germinating - woo! A friend of mine mentioned that sometimes cold is necessary to trigger germination as well - and it has cooled down here as of late.. It was really hot this summer - and these seed never cooled down much till recently at night.. Might just be time also - like EG said above.. Anyhow, the seed took over a month to germinate, and not all the crosses have come up yet, but on a couple crosses I'm getting very good germination rates.. I will conclude that fertilizing does not necessarily pose a problem - or maybe it did something wierd like make the seed grow thicker shells which kept them from responding to the environ quickly or something... Livin and learnin!

Still nothing doing - praying to the cactus gods currently.. You know though, I had some Roseii #1 open pollinated seeds last year that took several weeks to germinate - nothing was doing after a couple weeks so I threw a whole bunch more in there figuring it was a seed issue - about a month or so after that all the sudden I had a small lawn of Roseii - must have been 80% germination, but they took many weeks.. I had not seen that before, usually my seeds seem to sprout within a week or two.. it is late in the season here in the northern hemisphere - days are much shorter than they were in summer