It's not small, it's thin!!

[Alkron]

A few of my TBMs' pups are thin. Will they fatten up? Is this normal growth or is it due to lack of light/nutrient?

P.S. I've tried the pawpaw on this one's frost bite burns, we'll see.

[bit]

A few of my TBMs' pups are thin. Will they fatten up? Is this normal growth or is it due to lack of light/nutrient?

P.S. I've tried the pawpaw on this one's frost bite burns, we'll see.

Light seems to be the key factor in fatness

[ENtiTY]

May need an increase in light intensity maybe? Pup looks a bit etoliated in comparison to the mother section, though that growth may just be part of the mutations form.

[Evil Genius]

Bit is right! The plant looks like it has been grown in the cellar! That etiolated growth is its way to say: full sun, please! bye Eg

[Vertmorpheus]

Or is it that simple?

Following pics are all of typical short clumping TBMs. All grown under same light/water/food as the rest... yet two are reduced to two ribbed long forms despite this. ie these were standard clumps and now are going wriggly despite the same light as the rest, that remain normal enough.

Thinking maybe as weather cools down, it reduces mobility of some compounds/materials used for thickening etc... typically lining up timewise with lower light levels for most growers, so the latter gets the blame in every case when maybe it shouldn't?

All a bit chicken n egg, I know, but it ties in somewhat with the overseas esp EU piccies of the "long schlong" forms of TBM vs our almost always clumpy puppy footy-esque ones... even though plenty of those pics come from dedicated long term cac n succ collectors with kickarse glasshouses n lighting regimes...they still seem to get the tall skinny ones more often. maybe the temps (upper, lower, average, who knows) they have to deal with over there come into it, regardless of how well lit they are?

Mine and a couple other ppls I keep an eye on all tend to "drop ribs" once temps/humidity verge on frost time (sorry shruman, shoulda warned you the F word would come up). Maybe its a timing thing, the plant is geared to lose ribs to HELP it stretch in reaction to (expected) lighting levels. Then maybe if you can get it to do that and then get it into quite warm n humid temps again (ie some Swedish guy shitting his lederhosen and putting his collection under glass again, n bulbs) it regains some of those ribs... look at the pics online of the "long" forms and you usually see they gain n lose ribs all the time, thin n fat section. Possibly all of that, PLUS some dodgy maths to do with rootmass, nutrient, whatever.

Having said all that, my diagnosis would be not enough light But I see it happen in those with plenty o light when it gets to be wintertime.

VM

[Vertmorpheus]

bugger. one second. also one there of the base n spines of the long bit, also another "tririb" tbm that gets LESS light overall than the scrawny one, but stays a touch warmer on average.It also came up from down south a li lwhile ago, so would have experienced a sudden warm shift of a couple weeks once it arrived here.. Also, despite impressions the "lean" of the weird skinny pup isn't due to lighting angle, even when it spent a month in peak growth facing away from the light, no change. I hope it's just working on dropping to two ribs, stretch for a bit then grow another few ribs...grow me a tall form. Another thing I notice with the longer than average pups on these things is the smaller than usual spines (often tiny) usually right at the base, not reappearing further up... so they tend not to pup as readily as the spikey football ones, which have a better incidence of aerioles to pup from higher up the plant (relatively) closer to the growing tip, etc.

Also, my TBM blue myrtle frankencock plant is in deeper shade again than ANY of these, and with the ridiculous growth rate of the new pups on that, I'd expect those pups to stretch WAY out... but it stays warmer with a lil less wind exposure

Sometimes the most evident variables are the easiest to blame! Anyone willing to put a nice thick fat pup under bullshit under lights and then refrigerate it for a couple months? Could be educational.

Weirdness.

VM

Edited July 20, 2008 by Vertmorpheus

[Ace]

Put her in full sun once spring arrives. She wont like extreme cold so keep her in a cool shed with no water over winter to avoid rot or leave outside and avoid rain if you dont get too cold there. Alternatively, set up a fluoro (or even better a HPS) indoors and grow decent sized pups year round. Also, dont be scared to feed her once things warm up and she is setting out pups again. Just watch the over watering - I have one that almost rotted to death due to a little too much regular watering even while she was in full swing with pup formation (the tiny pup turned black before she even burst out the side).

[indigo264nm]

^^^I found when I had my HPS running that unless you make sure its in a confined space with good reflection it can get really skinny and stretched. My cacti grow better on my back deck where there is basically full sunlight all day.

So yeah give it more light like everybody says... oh and I've also noticed sometimes the growth of pups can become thinner if the cactus needs to be potted up.

[Ace]

Good point Indigo. I have my 175w HPS (rather small/weak light) hooked up inside a modified chest of drawers turned cacti cabinet, so there is only about 2ft by 1ft and around 3 ft tall (of which around 20cms is taken up by light, around 30cms of open space [to avoid heat/light burn] and the rest cacti - both tall and short). Walls painted flat white for max reflection, large computer fan for heat reduction/air circulation. Everything in there grows like it's on 'roids! I'd highly recommend HPS for cacti, only thing is they are very exxy to buy (looking around a couple hundred $) and are a little costly to run. Light produced is a damnsight more than fluoros per watt, and the spectrum seems to be pretty spot on, so I find they are worthwhile (especially thru winter) for year round growth.

But you can't beat mother nature and a decent day in the sun during summer

[MORG]

Mine grow the same and have spent most of their time in low light.

They got a bit of full sun last Summer but too fast and got a bit torched. Be careful! Acclimatise them gradually, Helios can inflict wanton damage to ill-prepared flesh.

[2b]

I agree with MORG on this one. I have a collection growing in low light and I've got thin and fat on the same plant. It's funny i was wondering why this was so over the weekend. It seems the fat ones grow a skinny one, the skinny one then grows spines then another fat one bursts out.