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The Corroboree

GoOnThen

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Everything posted by GoOnThen

  1. GoOnThen

    Grafting tips and tools

    Thought a thread with grafting tips and tools would be handy so please post any tips on particular stocks, scions or ways of being more efficient. I will start with a couple of things that I am doing now with Pere stocks. I am now using 50mm square tubes for my Pere and grow them in straight cacti mix. I make a wire support tray for them that fits in a seedling tray using 50mm wire mesh so they don't fall over. The tray I use are solid ( hold water ) and I place a capillary mat in the bottom so the pots sit on it so I can water by just adding water to the tray. I made a decision a while ago that I no longer wanted my grafts at all different heights so I started cutting at the same length. This ended up being a positive in a number of ways. One being that you don't have height issues with lights ( unless you are grafting columnar cacti ) also they all get the same amount of light especially if you are stacking them in close together. I also have found that letting the Pere grow to around the same height before cutting them to use I also get the tops all around the same height to use as cuttings for the next tray and so by doing a tray of grafts I start another tray of cuttings. I found measuring and cutting a pain even using a gauge to measure was a help but when you do a tray at a time it still wasn't as efficient as I wanted it to be so I made my little cutting stand made out of 316 stainless steel. I now pre cut the whole tray and then take a slice off the top five at a time ( replacing the slice ) and the graft onto those and repeat. It take max of five minutes to cut 30 Pere. I like to use full razor blades as I find them easier to hold and seem to be sharper than others that I have tried. I spray my blades and wipe with paper towel between each cut. The other tool is what I use to hook the small seeding out of there pots. The whole tray then goes into a tub with a little water in the bottom for a week or so. This is kept in my grow room but not under direct light for that week. I will add more to this thread later please add your own thoughts, tips and ideas. Cheers Got
  2. Hey all I have the following seeds up for grabs Seeds supplied by smigsbigfigs 8 packs of Scop x Pach 5 packs of mixed Trich All packs a 150+ seeds You must post in this thread which seeds you want and pm me your details to receive these seeds. Cheers Got
  3. GoOnThen

    Giant pumpkin contest!!

    I haven't been around for sometime and I feel very guilty as I promised a trophy and it hasn't eventuated due to life and business madness. What I can do is send you two pumpkin Kings a nice fat Len pup each. If Stillman and Waterboy could send me your addresses I will send them of once I cut them. I will cut them in the next month as the weather here is still a bit damp. Good luck to you mad pumpkin growers for this seasons comp. Cheers Got
  4. GoOnThen

    Wanted: Bruce in Perth

    Hey mate. I will be having a big clear out of a large amount of my collection in the next month or so and there will be at least one morphing Bruce in amongst them. Cheers Got
  5. GoOnThen

    Cacti collection for sale

    Mate I haven't been on here for a while and I started reading this thread and I was sad seeing you selling your plants and then I continued to read and it is like a ray of sunshine. I truly hope this works out for you. Of all of the people that I have watched grow with there collections here you are at the top of the list to deserve this. Cheers Got
  6. Peering through the mist: systematic review of what the chemistry of contaminants in electronic cigarettes tells us about health risks http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/14/18/A little more light reading http://ecigarette-research.com/web/ Cheers Got
  7. HI all I haven't been around much lately but I will be back more regularly soon I hope. One of the reasons I haven't been here is Mrs Got and I made a pact in January this year to give up smoking for good. So on Mrs Got's birthday we tried to stop smoking but we only manged to get down to about five a day over a few days and realizing this wasn't going to work (we had tried this way before and just kept smoking) we stopped totally. By lunchtime we were not happy campers and things just got worse as the day went on to the point that I started wondering if ether of us would survive the day without one of us being stabbed with a sharp object. We work together so there was no getting away from each other so we new we had to do something if we were going to see this through. We had bought a couple of disposable no nicotine e-cigs and even though they gave us some help with the habit it wasn't enough and so I went in search for the fastest way I could get my hands on some e-cigs with nicotine. There was nowhere in WA but I found a online store which had what we wanted and so I bought them and had them express posted. They arrived before lunch the next day we chucked them on charge for and hour or so ( that's all we could wait for) and had our first puff on them. After a few tokes we both looked at each other in disbelief. These things actually worked we could not believe how much different we felt literally within 10 minutes we actually felt normal. From that day nether of us have touched another cigarette and we both are just not interested in smoking any more. I had smoked for over 35 years and Mrs Got had been at it for around 30 years and we had tried most quit smoking aids and any success always ended in going back to smoking. I know this reads like a sales pitch and in some ways it is as I am a true believer that E-cigs or what I am using now is commonly known as a personal vaporizer are the best way by far to give up a habit that was slowly killing us. All of the negative reports that keep on being published by all sorts of headline chasing people don't bother me at all as I have read many positive reports, spoken online and in person to Vapers and read personal reports by so many Vapers that all feel the same as me that they work and there is no proven evidence that they are harmful if used correctly. If they did find that there could be some issues we would more than likely ween ourselves of them quicker than we have planed but they are always going to be better for us than smoking. If any one wants more info on E-cigs/ Vaping I can post links and make suggestions on where and what to buy and I am happy to give any advise that I can. Cheers Got
  8. GoOnThen

    Western Australian fertilisers

    I think the regulations were changed in the last year or so. You cant buy the normal liquid ferts here any more ether. I have been using hydro ferts a fair bit and so has a lot of other people that I know so you can actually use a fert with the NPK that you want. I use NPK blue for my main house garden but the stuff that they sell now isn't any where near as good as the old stuff and it isn't even blue any more. Cheers Got
  9. I was given a Kalanchoe beharensis leaf a couple of weeks ago to propagate but I am finding conflicting information on the best way to propagate to achieve the most plants. The leaf is about 30 to 40 cm long but I cant find any definite info on cutting it up ( not for the beharensis ) Any one played with this plant? Any info from someone who has had luck with it would be cool. Kalanchoe beharensis I love this plant. The leaf size and texture is very cool. Cheers Got
  10. A few weeks a go I decided to sow a bag of 1000 mixed cacti seeds ( Botanical archive ) expecting an average germ rate I sowed all of them in a small tray. About a week later i had well over half germinated I then had a fight with mold caused by some bits of crap that was in with the seeds. About three weeks later I think I would have at lest 500 seedlings in my small tray with a lot of noticeable differences but at this point I really have no idea what I am growing but I do know that they are going to out grow the tray very quickly. It will be interesting to see what they have thrown in their mixed seed bags. I plant to graft at least one of each different seedling and then see what happens Here is a pic of what they look like now I have also started sowing some of the hundreds of seeds that I have plans to sow over winter. Nitrogens seeds and a couple of pots of Astro's Astro Japanese hybrid seed mix x 100 Last is this lot. I am going to give away one of these grafted onto pere to the first person that tells me ( post in this thread ) what the seedlings are. ( Australia only ) I will graft a lot of the Astro's, Nitrogens and the unnamed ones and then the plan is to keep updating this thread. I haven't been very good at keeping seedlings alive past 12 months so I have made a lot of changes to the way I have been doing things and so hopefully I will be able to keep updating with growth not death. Cheers Got
  11. Just thought I would share some pics of a cake that my very clever wife made for our 6 year old daughters birthday. All of the cake is edible and It was eaten by 25 six year olds last Saturday Cheers Got
  12. GoOnThen

    mamillaria bocasana fred rotting

    Get it out of the pot and start cutting the rot off. When you have got the last of it sterilize your knife and take another thin piece. If you end up with a piece big enough to root dust it with sulfur. If you only end up with small pieces graft them. You can graft very small pieces onto pere. I don't have much time at the moment but i will try and get back to this later. Cheers Got
  13. GoOnThen

    Pelecyphora Aselliformis?...Peyotillo...

    I love all of these with their cool spine formations. As Senor Jefferson mentioned you need to always check out the synonyms as we are talking about cacti when one name isn't enough. Mammillaria pectinifera Synonyms: Pelecyphora pectinata, B.A.Stein 1885 Solisia pectinata (Stein) Britton & Rose 1923 Pelecyphora aselliformis pectinifera Rumpler 1885 Pelecyphora aselliformis pectinata Nicholson 1888 Pelecyphora aselliformis cristata Watson 1899 Pelecyphora Aselliformis Synonym: Ariocarpus aselliformis (Ehrenberg) Web. in Bois, Dict. Hort. 931 (1898). Mammillaria aselliformis (Ehrenb.) H.P.Kelsey & Dayton 1942 Mammillaria asellifera Monville ex Weber in Bois, Dict. Hort. 931 (1898); Anhalonium aselliforme F.A.C.Weber. in Bois, Dict. Hort. 931 (1898); Pelecyphora aselliformis grandiflora Haage Jr., Kakt. Kultur 2a:206 (1900)]. Turbinicarpus pseudopectinatus Synonym: Pelecyphora pseudopectinata Backeb. 1935 Mammillaria pseudopectinata Neolloydia pseudopectinata Pediocactus pseudopectinatus Thelocactus pseudopectinatus Normanbokea pseudopectinata, Pelecyphora pulcherrima Sabatini (Nom inval.) 1991 All of the above is from Cactus art Cheers Got
  14. GoOnThen

    zygocactus seed giveaway

    Yes please I have an evil plan for some of these:) Cheers Got
  15. GoOnThen

    Show off your freaks

    Cool would love to hear how it is possible to get this in legally. I didn't want to sound like a twat but I would have hated to see someone else lose their collection. Cheers Got
  16. GoOnThen

    Show off your freaks

    Make sure your house is in order mate other wise one day one of these could bite you on the arse big time. Have a read of this thread if you haven't already. http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=35583&page=1 Beautiful plant. Please propagate it so other Aussies get the chance to grow such a rarity. Cheers Got
  17. Flowering must have a lot to do with the maturity of a plant/cutting. I have seen number of times cuttings taken from old plant flower even if the cutting is small. I have had a Yowie flower when it was only about 40cm tall and Mike was only about a meter tall. I also have a big Pach that was a six foot cutting that has flowered every year. The first year it would have been lucky to even have roots. What surprised me was it has flowered from pups that have grown since i have had it but the pups were from up the column a bit not from the base. In habitat a big column will eventually fall over or the tip will snap off and the piece that lands on the ground will often root and pup and so the cycle will continue. So in theory some of those habitat plants could be hundreds + years old. I would also think that there is a lot more Trichs in there habitats that have come from Cuttings ( plant material ) than from seed. This is only a logical thought without any research on a Friday night. Edited on my computer because I really suck at typing on my phone and I hadn't finished. Cheers Got
  18. GoOnThen

    lights and propogation

    I new I had written stuff about seed propagation recently. Check out this thread guy's http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=36647&hl= Cheers Got
  19. How big is the courtyard Foo ? How much shade are you wanting to give it ? I might have something that will do the job. Cheers Got
  20. GoOnThen

    lights and propogation

    I have never used CFL's so I cant really help with the stand off distance. Stillman was using Cfl's but I cant remember what sort of wattage they were there is a thread around here somewhere with his setup. I will see if I can find it. Heat is not really a issue from my experience unless there is to much bottom heat but even then they seem to handle a fair bit. My grow area is in my shed and it will get to and stay at 45 deg c on hot days. I only run a small oscillating fan in there that runs 15 minutes every hour but I have only been running it for a couple of months I used to only have a computer fan in there. I have a number of shelves and most have two 4 foot 37 watt fluro's over them. The shelves are 1200mm x 400mm. The shelf that those lophs are on at the moment has 3 x 4 foot 37 watt fluro's. Mold is often from the seeds themselves and you will find some will grow mold every time you sow them unless you clean them fist. I sowed heaps of seeds before I came across some that were contaminated. You can also get mold on you mix surface even if it has been sterilized if it is exposed to the air. Even if you keep lids on containers or you use bags every time you open them you can let mold spores enter. Most molds can be stopped if you spray them with hydrogen peroxide and you can also try letting the surface dry out a bit but you need to be careful if the seedlings are very young. I also have been using a pre emergent fungicide ( Fongarid ) I don't know whether it is making any difference but it hasn't caused any problems so I will keep using it. I cant remember how old those Lophs are ( I will try and work it out ) but I can assure you guys that they are a lot older than they look as in the past I have tended to stall all of my seedlings for one reason or other. These days I am doing things a bit diferantly wich has helped a lot. I will post what I am doing soon but I need to find some time to write it all up first. Fly screen is supposed to be about 15%. Your girlfriends white cheesecloth dress is probably about 50% if it the nice thin material. Cheers Got
  21. GoOnThen

    Grafts -Photos & Updates

    afungitobewith Have you had that name tucked away for a while and was just waiting for somewhere to use it or did you just think of it. Good to see you here mate. The graft in the 6th,7th, 8th and 10th pics are Turbinicarpus swobodae ( thanks to Ceres for the seeds ) I would think that anything that makes a pere really pump is going to have a major affect on the scion. A pere just watered and grown in a standard mix can do some strange things to certain scions so pushing growth can certainly cause a scion to pup like crazy. All of those grafts above have only been fed low N fertilizer admittedly a fair amount of it but I want flowers so you do what you got to do . Cheers Got
  22. GoOnThen

    Wretched pestulence in SoCal - need help

    For mealy bugs I agree on using a systemic and confidor ( IMIDACLOPRID ) seems to be the one that most growers use. I have never used the tablets but I would be interested to hear if any one has used them in pots. I have used it as a soil drench and it works really well. Make sure you don't have mites as well. i made the mistake of thinking that all of the damage was from mealies and it wasn't I also had mites and confidor doesn't kill mites By the time I worked out what was going on every thing was a total mess. The only positive I didn't loose any plants they are just very badly scarred. If in doubt treat for mealies and mites. Its not going to do them any harm but it could save you a heap of grief. Cheers Got
  23. GoOnThen

    Grafts -Photos & Updates

    Some recent grafts done in October. And a couple of the older ones Cheers Got
  24. GoOnThen

    lights and propogation

    For a lot of different cacti seedlings the old fluro tubes work perfectly even to the point of having to run cool whites and have the a fair distance from the babies. We are talking about cacti seedling here not pot. Stay with the 16 to 18 hour run time. I haven't as yet heard of anyone using 24 and finding any advantage. For a seedling setup you really only need some 2 foot or 4 foot fluro's. Even new ones from bunnings are cheep and you don't need big wattage ether so even if you are using CFL you can just use cheep ones. There is so much info around on the net on people germinating and growing cacti seedlings under lights and I would think that at least 90% are under fluro's of some sort. These are under 4 foot fluro's and the would be around 350mm away from the lights. These have never seen sunlight as yet only fluro lights. Cheers Got
  25. My understanding is its down to particle size which then relates to the air pockets in the coir the same as any other mix. If its made up of small particles that are all the same size then very minimal amount of air can get down and through the mix and so it will dry slowly. By adding irregular shaped product to a mix like perlite, pumice, course sand ........ it will drain faster. Same happens if you use a product like coir that is made up of different size pieces and by its nature it is light and fluffy it will dry relatively fast. If you then add something like perlite to it the it will probably dry faster than a potting mix with the same amount of perlite added. This is all based on what I know from my family working with coir and my own trials but as I have said before you must try it in your conditions as it will behave differently like most mixes under different conditions. Cheers Got
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