frigidii bridgesii

[Inyan]

Tersheckii (seed bearer) x Macrogonus (pollen bearer)= F1 TM

Macrogonus (seed bearer) x Tersheckii (pollen bearer)= F1 MT

Tersheckii (seed bearer) x Pachanoi (pollen bearer)= F1 TP

Macrogonus (seed bearer) x Pachanoi (pollen bearer)= F1 MP

Pachanoi (seed bearer) x Tersheckii (pollen bearer) = F1 PT

Pachanoi (seed bearer) x Macrogonus (pollen bearer) = F1 PM

Those are the types of crosses I might try myself if I was trying to develop a more cold hardy and larger cultivar/hybrid.

I would also try growing out several thousand seed from each individual species in search of the coldest surviving member from each pure species. Sure, it could take a bit of time, but you could get 10,000 seed of each species to play with for a few Euro. Not a bad expenditure of your money if that is your goal.

You might then consider something like F1 TM x F1 MT or F1 TM x PT for your F2 cross. Its a time consuming process and the average person doesn't have the patience for something like this, but if you love hybridizing and growing plants you don't have much to lose as you will be having fun regardless of the outcome or how long it takes. Keeping good records is of course a must and any seedlings being subjected to cold to determine fitness should also have cuttings taken to ensure that the genetic potential isn't lost. Keep good records and those that appear to have the least amount of damage can always be breed to each other via cuttings that have not undergone the stress of being subjected to the cold. Just in case you find that you have accidentally killed off your entire stock trying to see which one is the most cold hardy stock. Personally, I'd like to see some red, violet, or purple tossed into the mix as well to add some color, but thats just my preference.

[mutant]

Well Auxin, my comment was not about some cacti surviving in -18, but about the temperature itself!!

Here it's cold, when we have a possibility of -3 for the next 2 days... something seldom, very seldom....

I have a list somewhere with cold hardy cacti and succulents, but thats not what you're looking for, huh??

plus, I am not in Oz, I am not in some mediterranean climate, I am in the heart of the real miditerranean.

Why haven't you thought of using the -30 or -20 hardy cacti as stocks for whatever species you wanna use???

And, heck, why do people dislike Opuntia so much as stock??? Some opuntias are unbeatable in cold hardiness...

[yeah, OK, the shape is not very practical or even capable of carrying a heavy scion which is growing long and heavy in no time...]

BUT, it might be the way of doing it....

[Auxin]

Those are the types of crosses I might try myself if I was trying to develop a more cold hardy and larger cultivar/hybrid.

Yeah, based on what Pisgah said about macrogonus being relatively cold hardy I already decided if the shops I buy from get any in stock I'll likely get them and start a big growout of them one year into this bridgesii project. Naturally if the hardier macrogonus and the hardier bridgesii flower thered be some interspecific hybridization goin on And while I would be unlikely to do a growout of terscheckii I do have three seed grown terscheckiis which I would like to breed with others, and I have 15 or so seed grown pachanois which could be bred. And I'm starting a few of the libertycaps bridgesii X pachanoi and pachanoi X bridgesii hybrids. So in time there will be ample breeding material.

Do you suspect I was right in my guess that F1 hybrids from a single cross would be likely to show less variation than plants grown from non-hybrid store bought open pollinated seed packs? In hybridizing peppers I never saw a whole lot of variation in F1s, it was always F2 where the fun started. If I can get the libertycaps hybrids to flower I'll be selfing and crossing them and growing out tons tho

I have a list somewhere with cold hardy cacti and succulents, but thats not what you're looking for, huh??

Good list Here, I'm growing several on that list

Why haven't you thought of using the -30 or -20 hardy cacti as stocks for whatever species you wanna use???

Oh I have. The reason I havent done it hardly at all yet is because my every attempt at grafting a seedling top to another seedling hypocotyl has been a failure and I just havent got around to grafting larger seedlings/plants in a more traditional way yet... with one exception.

And, heck, why do people dislike Opuntia so much as stock??? Some opuntias are unbeatable in cold hardiness...

[yeah, OK, the shape is not very practical or even capable of carrying a heavy scion which is growing long and heavy in no time...]

Glochids. I Hate Glochids!!! That being said, the one case where I grafted a trich seedling to a -20° hardy cactus it was a Opuntia stock, O. engelmanii I think, I found it as a 8 cm seedling with a cylindrical base pad so I grafted the top of a damaged T. peruvianus seedling on. My hypothesis being that if it is kept in the same pot it might flower in the 1-3 years it took its Opuntia relatives to flower rather than the 7 years a Trich might take on its own. It got significant growth in and should start getting big next year, see pic. I havent yet stumbled upon O. fragilis growing here.

I have some seed for several very hardy Pediocactus species including the local native P. nigrispinus, peres grafted Echinocereus triglochidiatus mojavensis plants, seeds for other Echinocereus species, and the -32° hardy Escobaria vivipara so I'll have ample opportunity to try such experiments. The Echinocereus triglochidiatus mojavensis will likely be next, I plan to degraft them in a few months after they make fruit and I could leave big stumps so I could graft something on them while still on Pereskiopsis and get some fast growth in before the peres is spent. The resultant plants may never grow very big but might go to flowering faster and should be hardier. hmm glad you got me thinking about that again, I should plant some extra bridgesii X pachanoi LC002 F1 seed so I'll have something to graft on the Echinocereus triglochidiatus mojavensis stock.

Edited December 25, 2008 by Auxin

[Inyan]

F1 can be exciting, but you have to grow out a very large number to make it exciting with many plants. You are correct in your statement that F2 x F2 will yield you much more diversity and this is where large numbers are indispensable. You can get by with low numbers in the F1 cross. Not your F2 cross.... you will need large numbers to get anything worth your while. The idea being of course to create something that is not easily repeatable by others and thus your after the best of the best of the best. You know this already though from the sound of it. So, I'm preaching to the choir, but its fun to chat and shoot idea's back and forth nonetheless.

[George]

Could try that grafting trich to cereus rootstock for better root hardyness.

How will that influence it's magic though.

Nevermind, I see this has been discussed quite in depth already.

Edited December 27, 2008 by George

[Inyan]

Grafting can influence disease resistance, phenotype, etc. I'm more interested in the rare chimera formed with some of these grafts myself though. Grafting can also influence what pollens a particular flower is susceptible to as well. I'm betting that chimera forms between more closely related species would of course have the largest potential for allowing cross pollination of species though. I'd love to see a L. jourdaniana chimera with any of the other Lophophora species myself. I've often wondered why more people aren't interested in intentionally trying to create chimera. Yes, most if not all chimera are accidents, but who's to say that they can't be intentionally created via normal grafting procedures? If 1 out of 1000 grafts had the potential of becoming a chimera given a certain technique then that is a good success rate as far as I'm concerned. Especially so if that chimera was done utilizing stock that one actually would like to see a chimera form from. One idea I've had is to try grafting a scion to a stock and then take that completed graft and cut it lengthwise to graft to another graft done in the opposite direction. This would form pizza like slices of grafted tissue as one progressed with each layer having tissue from a different scion/stock in a checkerboard like fashion. In this manner, you could keep grafting and re-grafting for as many years as it took. Yeah, I realize that it might not be the most aesthetically pleasing creation, but for me, the fun is in the trying. A single chimera would be worth it if it was between two species or genera that I actually wanted rather than something that I happened to come upon from chance.

Auxin,

Your bridgesii (seed bearer) x pachanoi (pollen donor) =F1 bp and your pachanoi(seed bearer) x bridgesii (pollen donator)= F1 pb. Those seedlings crossed to each other via F1 bp (seed bearer) x F1 pb (pollen donator) = F2 bpxpb should indeed yield some interesting results.

Of course you could reverse the cross and most serious hybridizers would also try F2 pbxbp as well as pbxpb and bpxbp. I'm more for you trying to find someone you can hybridize with of course which makes things easier. For instance, if you know someone who can collect and gather some tersheckii pollen or some other such pollen that you might desire you can increase your variables a bit more. It is often standard practice to offer up a small portion of the resulting hybrid seed to the person who is sharing the pollen with you. However, sometimes you can find someone who is willing to do a straight swap of pollen. Still, lets say you have pollen from your F2pbxbp and you offer that up in trade to someone who has tersheckii pollen. Me personally, I'd be interested in the seed from the cross done both ways and I'd try to set up an agreement that any seed produced from said pollen would be shared both ways. This enables you to move along much faster than you might otherwise, but again... a fair amount of trust is involved in this as you are trusting the person to give you the proper pollen as well as a properly labeled batch of hybrid seed back. This is further compounded by the knowledge that the person trading with you realizes that the F1 seed will be difficult to tell in many cases from pure seed and hence if they are unethical and simply want your more valuable hybrid pollen for their own use... you can see where you could end up wasting a few years. It is imperative that you trust the person you are trading pollen with for this reason. You are also trusting that they are adept at cross pollination and preventing contamination by another foreign pollen as this might spoil your own designs and work. This is why many hybridizers would rather take longer to gather their own pollen and grow their own specimens as they know that if any mistakes were made, at least it was their own mistake and not intentional or the unintentional and well meaning blunder of someone else who may have thought they knew what they were doing.

Nice Opuntia graft by the way Auxin.

[Auxin]

Grafting can also influence what pollens a particular flower is susceptible to as well.

OK, now my assumption upon hearing that (something I wondered about but never heard from a credible source until now) is that if any such alteration of breeding compatibility potential would move the scion toward being more compatible to the stock and possibly related species. That assumption is based on the most simplistic conceptualizing about the mechanism but I know things might be more complex. Do you know of instances where a certain stock would make a scion more or less prone to interspecific/intergeneric hybridization in general rather than just increased hybrid potential toward the stock species and closely related species and genuses of the stock? I suppose an example of what I'm trying to ask is if a Opuntia stock were to give a Mammalaria scion an increased ability to hybridize in general, allowing it to be crossed with Echinocereus or some other that it wouldnt normally breed with and is nowhere near related to the grafting stock?

Another question is about flowering. Many cacti just take way too long to flower IMO (hey, I'm patient but I also like to finish projects in my lifetime ) Little ones can be accelerated by Pereskiopsis enough that they reach their natural flowering size and flower in a year but Pereskiopsis doesnt do that for larger cacti. Are you aware of any techniques by which cacti can be influenced to flower earlier than they normally would? K. Trout is of the opinion that to get trichs to flower when grown in pots its essential that the root structure remain undisturbed for several years but pictures and descriptions of that effect seem to indicate they would have been of flowering age anyway so rather than accelerating flowering it was just giving the proper conditions. Hypothesis I've been pondering for induction of early flowering are based on grafting techniques with sexually mature tissue. Either crafting a pup onto a stock of something which has already flowered or grafting a nodule of sexually mature cactus onto the side of a immature cactus to provide a source of the pro-flowering hormonal signals. Do you know if such techniques have worked or do you know of any other techniques which could be used? Thanks

[Pisgah]

Few nights ago got down to -13 outside, -9 inside the cold frame. I lost all of my bridgesii seedlings that I was testing for hardiness. No damage to Kimnach pachanoi, Davis bridgesii (pachanoi?), MG pach (macrogonus?), PC pachanoi, puquinensis, or any of my peruvianus. There was, however, slight tip damage to all my bridgesii, including PC x ss02. I'm not going to let it get any colder than this.

[spunwhirllin]

Are you talking celsius Pisgah?

I've had many survive into the the teens Fahrenheit,never sub zero though.

Bridgesii seedlings seem to be the least hardy in my experience.Mac and pach pull through just fine.

Sorry for your loss.

[Auxin]

Fark man that sucks. How big were they and how long since last watering?

It might end up that they dont develop their full hardiness until older, in which case seedlings and young plants should be pampered so only half die of cold until they get older.

Boy I hope I didnt mess up by starting with bridgesii, I counted 85/108 seedlings this morning.. probably more by now

[Pisgah]

That was Celsius. Sorry, should have been clearer. And really, this all fits within my acceptable loss scenario. There were a number of the seedlings that split open at the base (thinnest part) that will pull through and reroot I'm sure. And the damage to the tips on the mature bridgesii is mostly superficial. Should encourage good pupping come spring.

I understand now why styrofoam cups over the tips is a good idea.

[mutant]

Eeeeeeh... what's chimera? Tell me it has to do with stock melting into the scion... or what?

[Auxin]

Chimera is when at the union point in a graft the cells from both cacti get mixed together and the mixture grows as a pup, forming a mutant plant thats a mixture of two cacti. Sometimes they stay a mixture and make a trippy monster, other times one cell line wins out. I got a Ariocarpus fissuratus + Pereskiopsis spp. chimera that was a awesome little ball of fur and tubercles but the Ario won out and now it looks like a marble with baby Arios growing out all over

For the record that one instance of chimera I got was also one of the rare times I used sap from a Pereskiopsis leaf to 'glue' the scion on and I rubbed the scion around a fair bit to get out bubbles, maby thats how the cells got mixed.

[mutant]

Awesome, that must have felt great!!! Thanks for the explanation

[planthelper]

we had frost where i live currently a few weeks ago repeatedly, coldest was minus 5 deg C and the 12cm tall seedling pedro shows no sign of damage at all. all my brugmansias though show considerable damage...

can any of you tell me what are the most cold tender plants which still get cultivated in your local area?

like this i think, we could get a better picture of what is possible at any given location.

in my area people grow phoenix caraniensis, fuchias, and camilias, to name a few.

some fuchia cultivars showed considerable damage, after that frost,

what grows in your place auxin, osprey, what could be considered to just barly survive your climat???

[Auxin]

Hard to say because people in my area arent very adventurous and I mostly keep to myself

I'm zone 6b/7a dry [1]

Several species of yucca are seen across my town and they have survived the particularly cold -21°C or worse episode recently (worse than most winters, one report claimed a -26°C low) on the other hand I have never once found an agave of any kind in this town, so the cut-off is likely between the two.

I've found several plantings of an Opuntia spp. I suspect to be O. engelmanii [2] (I've never caught them in flower) but I've seen few, if any, other Opuntias. The suspect O. engelmanii plantings survived the -21° night and only took damage after that when it got wet and went into a freeze/thaw cycle. I 'liberated' two pads so maby this year I'll catch the flowers of the bastard things

For several years my town maintained a row of some sort of palm trees but they all finally died about two years back.

Brugmansias are sold in nurseries here for indoor growth only and I've never seen one outdoors.

In my own experiments I've had both Gynostemma pentaphyllum (a zone 8 plant) and Heimia myrtifolia grown in 15 cm pots and transplanted to the ground survive one winter with piss poor growth the following year and death on the winter after that. They must just be on the wrong side of the border of hardiness. Last year, may or so, I planted out a H. salicifolia grown into a 16 L pot into the ground in a small crater I lined with rock and filled with maple leaves before winter. It kept its foliage up until night temps got below -15°C or so, a few days ago a month past the -21° night I bent a stem 30 cm up from the ground and it bent rather than snapped so I think it survived- I should know more in 2 months.

Before winter I found this unlabeled critter in our nearest equivalent to a botanical gardens, it looks tropical and over a year old, seeds are nearly black, 9mm, and nearly spherical.

Edit: almost forgot, I got what was labeled a T. pachanoi that looks like a T. scopulichola and last year left out a clone of it, it didnt die until the single coldest week of the winter.

Edited January 28, 2009 by Auxin

[planthelper]

that sounds very cold auxin, just reading this i had to put a sweater on..

the yucca's you mentioned are a good indicator plant, and i have seen them as one of the most tender but surviving plant in for example seoul.

those -21 ceg C or even more are the absolute killer, and even if it goes down that much only every few years, it will still sour your dreams.

it sounds to me like you, would be happy to take that risk, and so would i, as a big heimia plant which produced lot's of herb, but was eventualy killed by mega frost, can easely be replaced, and poses a much better choice than a struggling plant in a medium size pot.

i tried to overwinter a salvia divinorum outside, but the -5 deg C killed her, she did though survive -2 deg C before that.

this salvia was planted out, but the one kept in a medium size pot was killed already by the minor frost...

i like the idea of surrounding the plant or cacti with leave mulch, and the soil with compost/manure, as this methode works realy well.

when i was a kid, i always got intrigued by the fact that the farmers manure heap was never covered by snow, so maybe we should take this, a step further, and develop the auxin's cacti freez protector!!

two tubes get slided over the bubble wrapped cacti which needs frost protection, and the space between the tubes get's filled with manure/compost! now it's up to the chemist to come up with a mixture which is not too hot or cold, and a design.

[Auxin]

My god I hope -21 doesnt start happening every few years, I'll loose my zone 7a status!

(last winters low was -16°C and before that -15°C... damn liberals are causing global cooling! )

But it did prove that it can happen which has made me a little nervous.

For insulating cacti I figured to wrap them with used plastic bags and then maby christmas lights for the coldest weeks if they become unmovable. I had planned on keeping them in pots to keep them water starved enough to increase hardiness but I've been pondering on it and at some point in the future when I find a genuinely hardy one, perhaps a terscheckii if nothing else, I may try planting it in a raised bed made with lots of rock- the idea being I could cover the raised mound with plastic to protect from snow/rain to keep the underground cactus stem and upper roots dry and hopefully giving enough soil depth so by the time roots reach moister soil its nowhere near as cold, since I only get a maximum of 3 cm of rain a month in winter here a covered raised bed may keep the deeper roots out of the wet zone of soil. It could end up being lots of work but a 5+ meter terschekii would probably raise my property value, not to mention how ferking cool it'd be if I could succeed with a row of bridgesii

And I will always maintain some clones in pots brought indoors so if it goes down to -25°C some day I can keep going.

[mac]

i work as a tiler, something common in the building industry are the low voltage underfloor heating pad kits they use in new houses

i have seen them used to heat bathroom floors & small rooms

because the kits attach together you would only need to get enough to cover X square meters

they can be cemented in & are a sealed unit protected from moisture

in theory you could use them under the rocks or & use a outdoor greenhouse to hold some heat in that rises from the rocks etc.. & wafer layers of insulating foam into a cement raised bed around the outer edge to insulate

it may be little more expensive but im sure it would do the trick in cold areas ?

a cheap option wrap a pot in a old water bed heating pad, & make a small greenhouse with East & West sides made from black plastic to attract heat during daylight hours

may be a cheap way to test a small area with a plant that is sensitive to cold ?

Edited January 29, 2009 by mac

[Micromegas]

wow man it's pretty cold where you live! Tho it's been 43+ for 3 days here and will be similar for a week or so and cacti don't like this much either, tho they will probably not die! What extremes!

anyway that plant you pictured is a Canna species, very common but lovely tropical/sub-tropic plant i imagine it dies back to the rhizome and reshoots. Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canna_(plant)

[Auxin]

Hey thats pretty cool mac!, I didnt know they made those yet, last I heard the equivalent was warm water circulating in pipes in the concrete. It sure would be handy cemented into the floor of a greenhouse, if the power went off the floor would provide time release heat to prevent catastrophic greenhouse failure (presently I use a bunch of water barrels in the greenhouse for similar effect).

Thanks Micro, as usual I didnt recognize a common ornamental If only all common ornamentals were hallucinogenic I'd be an expert

Edited January 30, 2009 by Auxin

[Inyan]

Just thought I would share this one for you from J.L Hudsman. These are the kind of photo's I like to see when I'm thinking of hybridizing.

[Auxin]

Small update

Instead of trying to pump fast growth out of them I grew them slower so theyd be sturdier and closer to the same size. Wound up with 92 little cacti, and commenced brutal cacticide.

I first made them dormant, then verified that sub-freezing temps above what my freezer will do wouldnt kill them, then established a temp that would kill a fraction of them. Then I cycled them through that temp once to kill all that would be directly killed at that temp, and again to kill any that were substantially weakened at that temp, then I moved to a lower temp and did the same, I went one step lower and only got through one round before realizing I passed some tipping-point and killed virtually all of them- seems I went 1-2° too cold. In the end there was only 1 survivor (I was aiming for 4 to 6).

Temps are in F (-2F = -19C)

 

2010Series #192 1-3 cm seedlings (Horizon Herbs seed stock) segregated into two groups #1 (45) & #2 (47). Groups 1 and 2 subdivided into sub-groups 1a (22), 1b (23), 2a (23), 2b (24). Groups 1 & 2 made dormant by witholding water for 4 weeks in a lighted, 65-75°, low RH environment.100217-100221 Both groups placed outside through 5 sub-freezing nights. Lows were 26°, 26°, 25°, 22°, and 19°, respectively. No fatalities.100222 A single pot of 6 1-2 cm cacti from group 1b placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 6 to 10° for 10 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 30 min, then moved back to RT. No fatalities.100223 Group 1a placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 6 to 10° for 15 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. No fatalities.100224 Group 1b placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 6 to 10° for 15 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. No fatalities.100225 Group 1a placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 6 to 10° for 30 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. No fatalities.100226 Group 1b placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 6 to 10° for 30 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. No fatalities.100227 Group 1a placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 1 to 5° for 30 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. No fatalities.100228 Group 1b placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 1 to 5° for 30 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. No fatalities.100301 Group 1a placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 1 to 5° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. Fatalities.100302 Group 1b placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 1 to 5° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. Fatalities.100303 Group 2a placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 1 to 5° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. Fatalities.100304 Group 2b placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 1 to 5° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. Fatalities.ca. 50% all-group mortality. Dead ones removed.100305 Group 1a placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 1 to 5° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. 100306 Group 1b placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 1 to 5° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. 100307 Group 2a placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 1 to 5° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. 100308 Group 2b placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to 1 to 5° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT. 100309-100311 Plants given a break to express extent of fatalities. Dead ones removed.1a (6), 1b (8), 2a (11), 2b (6). Total current survivors: 31100312 Group 1a placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to -2 to 1° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT.100313 Group 1b placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to -2 to 1° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT.100314 Group 2a placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to -2 to 1° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT.100315 Group 2b placed in ~40° for 30 min, and moved to -2 to 1° for 60 minutes, then replaced in ~40° for 40 min, then moved back to RT.Fatalities Numerous!100317 All subjects watered.Total survivors: 1

 

Now that I have one cold selection series under my belt, and saw that they can be killed off gradually with lowering temps I'm gonna plant 1008 more bridgesii, 60 T. macro. 'EG3', 140 T. macro. 'KK1422', 105 T. validus 'EG', 60 T. werdermanianus 'EG', 40 T. glaucus 'EG', and 40 T. peruvianus 'EG2' and cold select them all.. being a bit more careful this time (I'm saving a few seed from each just in case I'm not quite careful enough )

Thank god I still have a steady enough hand to plant 1453 seeds one at a time in a grid pattern.

[GingaNinja]

holy shit auxin, thats great work. 1 survivor sucks but is also awesome. Like an epic tale of survival, with a battered and bruised bridgesii decending from a snowy mountian hahah. movie material

1453 is intense, i struggle to look after 50 haha

[Auxin]

The Cactiator