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Philocacti

Ariocarpus kotschoubeyanus

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Since all the seeds of this species I ordered never germinate. I found a nursery in Germany, with EG'S help. I ordered 4 Ariocarpus kotschoubeyanus v macdowellii to a friend in Germany.

My friend stayed in Germany for 4 weeks. She watered frequently in an attempt to help. Yesterday I went to pick these guys up. And one of the 4 was rotting from the roots.

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I washed the healthy 3 from the wet soil. Since the weather here is hot as hell, they dried up in 10 min. Even the soil that I emptied from their pots dried up in this time period as well. So I potted them again.

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To be on the safe side, I won't water them for a week and I'm also introducing them to out harsh sun here.

I did a few areol grafts, from whatever healthy tubercles that were left on the rotting specimen. I tried grafting Ariocarpus areols twice before but didn't succeed. But since this one's a goner, it wouldn't hurt to try.

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I also grafted a firm portion of the root and hopefully something is going to take.

Any advice for better caring for this species would be appreciated :)

This species is my favorite by far, so hopefully I'll collect all kotschoubeyanus variations, at some point in time.

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On this website http://www.living-rocks.com/adult.htm, the author states that:

"In the wild all Ariocarpus, without exception, grow in a calcareous soil of some type, seemingly from choice. In most cases the calcareous material is limestone (calcium carbonate) although many populations of A. kotschoubeyanus grow on gypsum (calcium sulfate) mud silt flats, but some also on limestone"

Would it be a good idea to buy gypsum, and make a very diluted solution and water them with it?

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Thank you my friend.

I'll get gypsum that's used for building.

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I think gypsum is sold sometimes labelled as "claybreaker" with the intended purpose of adding it to soil to make it more friable.
I've used it in soil mixes for desert cacti, but you wouldn't want to add heaps, or you might find you've set your plant in plaster!

**I actually ground up Plaster of Paris casts, - PoP is gypsum that has been heated extremely high to cook all the H2O out, my assumption was that once the PoP had been hydrated and set, it was returned to it's "gypsum" state.

I've also experimented with added ground eggshells, which are 90%+ CaCO3.
There has been no way for me to quantify the benefits, but plants have been growing healthily with this in the mix.

I've never liked the way limestone chunks looked in pots, so was keen to try calcareous alternatives.
A gypsum/clay mix also seems to help produce cracks in the surface after watering, which looks rad. :-)

Good luck with your kotschoubeyanus grafting! look forward to updates.

I recently bought a bunch of Kots seeds fom Botanical Archive, in Italy, on Ebay. They have a great selection, including cultivars.

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I noticed that one of the remaining3 was sick, so grafted it and it took.

But it was infected with something that was eating it up from the inside. I think the infection ceased to kill the scion after I placed it in direct sunlight.

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Out the back under your meditation spot near hedge trimmers??

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One of my friends has been growning these for the last couple of years in north qld. He pretty much treats them the same as lophophora but adds a bit more drainage material to the soil mix and waters them a bit less than his lophs aswell. They just flowered recently so must be pretty happy

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One of my friends has been growning these for the last couple of years in north qld. He pretty much treats them the same as lophophora but adds a bit more drainage material to the soil mix and waters them a bit less than his lophs aswell. They just flowered recently so must be pretty happy

I'm still getting the hang of these guys, so I underwater the remaining 2 on their own roots and hopefully I'll learn more about them next growing season ;)

Out the back under your meditation spot near hedge trimmers??

I don't understand what you mean.

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My Ariocarpus mix contains a good proportion of crushed marble - something I can buy easily here - CaCO3, the same as limestone - they seem to do well on it.

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