Pot size for mother plants / in ground spacing

[magical9]

Im trying to layout my backyard for optimal cactus propagation. I have some questions on pot size. I have 65 6-12" stumps of various trichocereus mostly consisting of 3 different types of bridgesii. I plan to use these stumps as sort of pup factories. What I would like to do is harvest 12-18" tips from these "pup factories" and root them whenever they grow out.

My questions:

1) If I keep all my mother plants in pots, what size pots would be preferable in order to allow for enough room to grow out no more than 4ft tall columns. Is depth or width or both important for the pot size? I imagine if Im harvesting 12-18" tips that there probably wont ever be a huge amount of columns therefore I could get away with tighter spacing. Is that a correct assumption?

2) If i skip pots and go with in ground planting, then what spacing would be sufficient in this situation? Could i get away with planting 1 stump per square foot assuming I keep the plants pruned and in check?

[djmattz0r]

You'd probably see better growth if you can plant them in the ground if your climate allows. If you needed to do pots I would say somewhere between 3 and 5 gallon pots so they have a nice root mass to grow off.

1 stump per square foot will be tight but I'd assume it would be fine if you are keeping it pruned. I have my cacti planted about that close but some of the ones I plan on flowering I will probably have to move from the others. Only time will tell...

Good luck, that's a lot of stumps!

[magical9]

You'd probably see better growth if you can plant them in the ground if your climate allows. If you needed to do pots I would say somewhere between 3 and 5 gallon pots so they have a nice root mass to grow off.

1 stump per square foot will be tight but I'd assume it would be fine if you are keeping it pruned. I have my cacti planted about that close but some of the ones I plan on flowering I will probably have to move from the others. Only time will tell...

Good luck, that's a lot of stumps!

thanks for the feedback man.