Preventing a micropup from drying out?

[modern.shaman]

When mass sowing bridgesii seeds I had a seedling that seemed to be albino/variegated so naturally I grafted the seedling onto a pereskiopsis. The seedling very slowly grew what appeard to be a 'monstrose' head that was spineless followed by another to make a penis head. However after a few months of stalling a single spine appeared and a few weeks later it pupped. The problem is that the pup seemed to have dried out and 'died' back. I've now had this graft for about 2 years now and it has only lead to frustration waiting for it to pup again. Recently upsized the pot and placed it outside where temps are high. It seems that a new pup is starting to grow from the old 'dead' pup.

I'm not sure if anyone has ever encountered this problem with their grafts before but any help would be appreciated. It doesn't need to be with trichocereus but any other species. I've considered putting the graft in high humidity but believe it will just lead to rot. The graft doesn't get full sunlight and has ample water so I may just wish for the best with this pup.

[Philocacti]

Hey modern shaman,

I've had this happen a few times with pereskiopsis as the rootstock and 1 time with a cuzcoensis as the rootstock.

I had an ariocarpus that was grafted to pereskiopsis for 1.5 years suddenly shrink and dried out. And I had an albino pelecephora do the same thing. This happened last fall and I still have both grafts but nothing happened so I presume they're dead. I'll just leave them and see if they revive again.

I had an ariocarpus on cuszcoensis that dried up and died (so I thought) and about 2 years a new tubercle started growing from the dried up dead ariocarpus graft.

I think your best, if you don't want to leave it on pereskiopsis is to graft it on your favorite columnar stock.

[Berengar]

I'd just force feed it insane amounts of nitrogen to force it to pup and grow. Personally I don't think humidity chamber would help much, it's probably dying from the inside because of it's defective genes.

[modern.shaman]

Berengar I think you are right about it possibly being to defective and is just dying. The pup grew about 2 mm and stalled and seems to be drying out again. I'll keep this going but don't expect anything to come from it.

[trucha]

Philocactus might be on to something. Pereskiopsis tend to have short functional service lives.

It might be worth transferring the graft to another stock.

Defective genetics is why people employ grafting in those instances. It is not necessarily a dead-end but might take time to establish itself.

It is extremely common for some mutant seedlings to take several years or more to get to a point where they start growing acceptably. Kermit (at Oasis) told me his shaferi monstrose had remained stalled at the size of a penci-tip eraser for either two or three years -- so long that was almost discarded with the soil just prior to the same year that it decided to explode with new vigor and produce the fat lineage now well established in horticulture.

Don't give up on this. Maybe it will go nowhere but it is worth being patient and watching.