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The Corroboree

Sterilitily and grafting


Distracted

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I personally wipe my blade between cuts with isopropyl alcohol sprayed on a bit of tissue paper. I do it more as a preventative measure, which is how i like to tackle all pest and disease related things on my plants

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Distracted i very rarely sterilize my blade and the only time i have had problems with rot etc when i graft cacti is if it rains for a few days

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yep, is a matter of better safe tan sorry! i usually use isopropyl alcool but wen i dont have it ...i dont use it , but if i try to save a cactus with problems i want to be suro to sterilize blades at every cut

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When grafting I sterilize my knife once only at the beginning of the session.

The knife I use for taking cuttings to plant gets washed about once per year and never sterilized.

It's probably less risky to sterilize more often but you may be wasting effort.

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Well just to be different, I sterilize prior every cut. Which is most likely overkill but if it increases the chances of success just a little bit it is worth the very small extra effort in my opinion.

I also use a large, good quality chefs knife for most of my grafting work, so due to the length of the blade I can do a number of cuts using a fresh, clean part of the blade each time. I sharpen the knife before every graft session too. If I need great precision I use a surgical scalpel.

Maybe in a couple of years when I have so many lophs I'm using them to throw at pesky kids that won't get off my lawn I'll realise I can stop sterilizing all the time. Haha! ;)

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The only time I see it a necessity to sterilize is when removing rot and infected portions of a cactus as it can easily spread with the blade. It is good to sterilize as others have mentioned to help prevent things rather than as a necessity for grafting but it does get tedious. I also see more failures from ambient weather conditions than I do from something caused by a dirty blade, but that's just my 2 cents.

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I sterilize before every cut and use a new scalpel blade every session when I'm grafting. I'm super anal about it though so i tend to overdo stuff like that just to be real careful. I've had grafts start out strong and grow super fast for like 4-5 months and then all the sudden just stop growing. Then I did an autopsy on them and turns out there was just a tiny little bit of bacteria in the junction at first and it just took a long time to take hold. Then the infection rotted the connection of the two cores and nutrient transport stopped. It was weird, happened to a couple of them.

Edited by hostilis
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