Best Soil for Lophs

[doxneed2c-me]

Interesting thanks for all the help. I had a busy day today planting Trichs and will more on to more pesky things this weekend. I might wait to get my gibberellic acid first before planting the lophs.

Edited April 15, 2014 by doxneed2c-me

[katu]

G'day Dox, I use a mineral mix myself, lets say 30-40% 5mm gravel, 20-30% sharp sand, 20-30% pumice, maybe 5% potting mix and lime/dolomite to make your mix alkaline. The potting mix is optional, if you can't get pumice perlite is OK but would much prefer the former. All of the minerals I wash to remove fine particles and the soil if you choose to go there I would sift for bark as over time will compost down a up the acidity of your mix. My advice is to read "the stone eaters", which someone has already provided a link for. Apart from the wealth of knowledge it provides some pretty pics of these baby's in habitat. Not a lot of "soil" . Kada's garden has also got some great info regarding different soil mix's. Hope this helps.

[watertrade]

i was unpotting some seedlings the other day and remembered this thread. I took a picture of what my mix looked like 'then' it varies all the time depending what I have on hand. and where the plant will be . this one very 'rocky' as I had been having troubles with little rot patches - never fatal. just unsighly and hard to sell. I did find this mix was mealy bug friendly too. i.e. the mealy bugs liked it = bad

Edited April 19, 2014 by watertrade

[C_T]

for those new reading, hte title is misleading, as;

the best soil for lophs IS NO SOIL AT ALL!

they sit in a layer of rocks and... finer rocks. add non- organic material around, aka coarse sand, i see some clay.

Edited April 19, 2014 by C_T

[doxneed2c-me]

So I should put lime in also or are we talking about limestone. I have lime but worry I will kill my loph seedlings. I have not planted them yet as I just received my Gibberellic Acid and a friend of mine had low germination rates with the loph seeds from the same source so I thought it might be useful to use the Ga3 on them first. I do have a soil mix ready but I will add lime if I really should add lime. Currently it is sand, lava rock, gravel, coarse sand, perlite and limestone gravel, it has perhaps 5% rapid draining potting mix in it also but I am not concerned about their being too much organic material as that rapid draining mix was probably only 1/2 soil and the rest was inorganic so I added a small amount to the mix I made.

On that note I have super kabuto in the rapid draining soil mix I got from the store and had 100% germination rate and they seem incredibly happy. They will be switched over to an even faster drying mix once they mature a bit but they are still in there plastic bag greenhouse for now.

What other cacti do people suggest be in super fast drying mixes.

Edited April 22, 2014 by doxneed2c-me

[hostilis]

I use 20% organic material usually and have not had any issues with rot.

[doxneed2c-me]

Should I include lime in my mix.

[hostilis]

I wouldn't put gardening lime in the mix. If you do use limestone or crushed egg shells/sea shells, ect...

[slayertat]

I was just having a thought , that if loph responds best to soiless mediums than how would it fair using traditional hydro mediums, maybe a mix of this http://www.growstone.com/soil-aerator-2/,

expanded clay and there is a new coco product out now by NF called coco chips wich has superior drainage? they also do a 70/30 coco perlite mix. then just feeding nutrient once a month or something like that. I could set up a trial but id rather not risk it lol

[hostilis]

I've sown lophs in coir/sand/pumice. So I'm sure it would work fine.

[slayertat]

hmm i might give it a go

[hostilis]

It may not be optimal, but worth a shot with at least a couple.

[slayertat]

my only concern is how moist the coco will stay, but if the percentage is low enogh it should dry reasonbly quickly while still giving the plant a decent feed