Mr. Bowser

Hey DTB, Looks like that soil isn't the best for growing cactus in general... lots of what looks like uncomposted bark and woody material. IME most store bought cactus mixes are shit for actually growing a cactus in... seems like the soil mix companies just throw all their left over crap together and add sand and perlite and call it a cactus mix. Sure they might barely sustain cacti like peres, selenicereus, hylocereus... but other than that you're better off making your own mix. Lophs like low amounts of organic material in the soil. Check out Kada's Garden website soil suggestions for loph soil suggestions under "mineral mixes" and remember that lophs typically grow in areas rich in limestone. Probably want to replant in better soil and keep dry while they heal. Good luck!

Thanks DTB! Took me a few times to get the hang of raising seedlings. The pebbles were sewn after the babies were pushing spines and hardened off.

Good that you are doing better with this batch, keep up the good work! Usually I germinate in the winter on a heat mat (24/7) and under fluoro lights to keep the temps and light stable... IME after they are germinated, they don't mind cooler nights that much down to approx 60F. Have definitely killed entire batches of seedlings because in closed containers they are easy to overheat (90F +). Keeping a seedling germination log with as much info as possible has been a great help for me. As EG said its good to divide up your seeds so you can plant several trial runs until you are satisfied with your set up. Personally, I like a bit of coco coir seedling mix (because it retains water and is easily wet-able) with perlite and very coarse sand (1mm in diameter) in approx 1:1:1 ratio, and top dress the soil with very coarse sand right after the seeds are sewn. The choice of seedling soil will depend on your climate and what season you germinate in.

I've shot overhead pics of my latest tricho seedlings, and labeled each with a number. Although this makes finding growth abnormalities a bit more difficult, I should be able to keep better track of which seedlings were grafted. From the Los Gentiles batch, there are quite a few runts (more so than the hybrids), one of which being quite pale (#7). If the seedling is albino or variegated is it overly obvious by slow growth and very light color? I've never grown an albino from seed. The other more runty ones still seem a bit too small for me to feel comfortable grafting, but they are growing very slowly and seem like they may take several more months to be large enough. Since they don't seem to be dying (yet) I'll probably just wait until a bit bigger to graft... The Serra Blue x SS02 batch has a two headed seedling (#72), and another oddity that Stillman pointed out ( either 8,9, or 10?)

Thanks for clarifying KT! Will probably need to grow and get up close and personal with them to learn to tell them apart better. Just another excuse to grow more cactus!

The oceans are experiencing continued warming over the past few decades. This has been proven. For those who don't know, water holds much more heat per mass than soil or rock, and covers a much greater surface area of Earth than land area. So while deniers can claim that land temps aren't showing consistent rise across the globe, that is irrelevant to the fact that changing temperature of the oceans has a profound effect on climate all over the world. At least where I live, over the past 20 years we have experienced noticeably warmer / milder winters with significantly (statistically!) less frozen precipitation and warmer low temperatures. The trend has actually changed our climate from 5a published in older 1990 USDA hardiness maps to 6a in newer 2012 maps. Maps are based on the lowest recorded temps during the winter season in the area, indicating an overall change from an annual min temp of -20 to -15 F (zone 5) to -10 to -5 F. You can google a comparison between 1990 and 2012 USDA hardiness maps. Not saying that all locations and micro-climates are experiencing such a dramatic warming or even changing... but there are clearly documented and statistically significant changes in climate all over the world. Are we really to believe that some conspiratorial entity is falsely reporting the temperature of oceans, falsely reporting the quantity of frozen precipitation in winter months (that everyone can see with their own eyes and easily refute!) and falsifying recorded high and low air temps across the country... and to what end???

From SS catalogue

Good work! Looks like the bottom graft took just fine (showing new signs of growth)! Just saw one of those 'leaved' opuntia's at the supermarket the other day, they look really interesting. Did you graft anything with the blue rubber band?

I've had the same experience with Kohres tricho seeds

Yes, this will work as long as the medium dries out in between watering. Growing cactus hydroponically indoors seems to require much less frequent watering since the water evaporates from the growing media much more slowly.

I have grown out an aloe seedling in hydroton & pea gravel. Watered by dunking in a bucket of nutrient water every day over the summer. Don't water it at all during the winter. Haven't compared to soil grown, however. Interesting idea, Mutant. I would love to do a side by side with the peres. or selenicereus, but at the moment don't have the space/cash to set up a soil table next to the hydro table with both an equal distance from my light. In my case, I like to keep the cactus outside during the growing season, but frequent unpredicted rain showers with soil can be disastrous even to trichos. I switched to hydroton and dunk them all in a bucket of nutrient water several times a week up to once a day when its really hot. Haven't lost any to rot with the hydroton. BTW, Mutant the selencereus you sent me are rooting quite nicely in coco coir seedling medium, and look very happy . I think controlling for nutrient delivery would be simple in a drip to waste system, but a bit more difficult in an ebb and flow with reservoir system (like I use) since it would require measuring the decline in reservoir nutrients over time.

For my tiny insect problems, I use about 10ml of limonene (naturally distilled from orange rinds) mixed with 10ml of IPA (99%) then dilute to 1 liter with H2O and spray this on the cactus. Seems to kill all insects, even heartier ones like ants

Wow Stillman, those seedlings are real beauties. The SS02 x Serra Canyon is my favourite me thinks! Thanks for sharing!

Also have a bunch of "Los Gentiles" peruvianus seedlings... the description sounds a lot like the "Serra Blue" phenotype i.e. fat blue stems, large fuzzy areoles. Will be grafting some of these to compare with the grafts of Serra Blue x SS02, SS02 x Serra Canyon, SS01 x SS02 and SS02 x SS01 hybrid seedlings.

Agreed. Sometimes both cuzco and peru will turn very blue with sun and partial shade... like you say Mutant, not necessarily from too much sun. I too have only seen the pics posted by Teo. I've got some Serra Blue x SS02 seedlings (including a two headed freak!), and plan on grafting a few to peres in the next week or so. I can post some pics of grafts when they are bigger.

Stillman, is the group of 3 seedlings close to the right edge (just below the very tall one) ? I know it would make everything so much easier if I could sew a straight line for shit Any suggestions to plump up the shrivelled one? I was thinking to keep that tray covered overnight for a couple of nights before attempting the graft... If its not taking in moisture from the roots maybe it will through areoles at night?

So the water wicks up into growing medium from channels, as opposed to the growing medium being flooded? Sounds like a good idea, and efficient with the water also! Haven't tried running lights 24/7. Sounds expensive. From what I understand of cactus metabolism, the plant is only capable of fixing carbon at night. The stoma are triggered to open at cooler (night) temps and if the temp is too high at night, they won't open at all. Not sure how the stoma opening is affected by light cycle, though I imagine giving them a few hours of "night" with cooler temps would be a closer match to their natural environment.

The spination & how the spines break off toward the base look very much like bridgesii to me. The SS02 clone is a fat bridgesoid, but the spines look a bit different on that one. Could be an SS02 x Bridge type thing or bridge x peru hybrid or just a really fat / mature bridgesoid cutting. We can get some awesome specifically bread tricho hybrids here so if it was seed grown a hybrid is a real possibility.

Just found a few interesting candidates for grafting from the last batch of tricho hybrid seedlings. Got a shrivelled runt, a two headed seedling, and one that looks like its been cinched in the middle. There are a dozen or so other runts, but they seem like they will survive at least until they get big enough for a better shot at grafting. Looks like the shrivelled runt's time is running out fast.

Nice work, you've got some serious skills and a killer collection! That spiral mutant (2nd pic) and crested loph are my fav... incredible

Hi Trimmeh and welcome! That's a beautiful collection you've got there! Have you ever gotten your dragonfruit to flower or bear fruit yet?

Forgot to mention that the peres are the only cactus sp. that seemed to thrive in my hydroponic setup. Put a t. cuzco in there, and even with decreased watering it was very unhappy until I pulled it out. I'll be trying a selenicereus cutting next once it has a developed root system. But I've only had good results with peres grafts with lots of water and ferts. If you've got a digital timer and could water once a week or something and/or change to a drier medium you could probably grow all sorts of other cacti in hydro. Like EG said, the pH of your nutrients is important to prevent rot. While peres seem to do just fine with water/nutrients pH 5.5 -7, my trichos and other less water loving cacti do better at higher pH around 7 - 8. Then again micro nutrient solubility decreases at higher pH... so I just foliar feed the trichos and other basic soil loving cacti with dilute micro nutrients (pH 6.5) at night.

Yea establishing hard/soft boundaries and safewords is always a good idea with roleplay and rough play. Your girl will ask? That's tits!

I've always loved the cougars , especially Asian ones.... tho that looks alot like my last one with the great head Agreed

Hey THC, I've been using an ebb and flow table under MH for some peres and grafts. CFL light should be fine for peres/grafts so long as its close enough to the top. I use LECA and the water level reaches about 90% the total depth of the media once per day. The peres seem to love it, and grafts grown on these peres also do well also. If I could water every other day, I'd do that b/c sometimes the peres get too water heavy in the leaves and fall over. But I've only got a daily timer and I'm too lazy to water them manually. I posted a pic somewhere on here, I'll try to find the link for it EDIT: heres the link