Lophophora care over winter months

[Plant Pimp]

For the latter part of the summer here, my little loph has been on a windowsill recieving a few hours of direct sunlight in the late afternoon/early evenings. Now that the weather is getting alot colder, how should it be cared for over winter? Does it need a period of dormancy? If so how long? Could I just leave it in a room with the light on and water it every now and then? How well or poorly do they react to 24h light?

This is my first loph and I want to make sure it stays healthy for a long time to come!

Thanks for any info or tips!

[Rev]

Ours have invariably done better over winter and even summer under artificial light in our case fluoros. In winter i water about 3 - 4 times in as many months just so they remain turgid

even better on a heat mat

They continued to grow slowly indoors over winter

I wondered if it might mess with flowering as they are big enough but havent

then once the frosts were over they got sent to live with the other cacti outdoors and presto they flowered for the first time!

Thsi makes me believe they love long or indefinite hours of light and no dormancy to grow but a more natural fluctuation will make them flower.

[ 22. October 2004, 10:17: Message edited by: reville ]

[Osprey]

How about grafted lophs on t.pach?

If you have lophs grafted on big t.pach should they go dormant or be kept under flouros.I was thinking that leaving them out in the greenhouse on a heat mat to prevent freezing would be a good option

[Rev]

Pachanoi can take -7 C i think in dormancy whereas i dont think Lophs like it below 0 degrees C

I have read a little on matching cold tolerances bewteen stock and scion but i dont know much about this yet

Keeping the pach roots warm would prob prevent dormancy

[Osprey]

That is true.I was thinking that since the pach has been be-headed,it can't produce etiolated growth.the scion would get some light in winter and hopefully,cruise through dormancy with out freezing to death.

[planthelper]

etiolation aids probagation,

but stay away, because it's risky buiseness..., unless you know what you are doing..

etiolation causeses fast elongated , slim groth,

naturaly producing more plant & cacti rooting hormones!

i mean, an etiolated plant produces "own root aiding hormones"!!

etiolation = aid's root forming (with tricky customers, like brug sanguinea, or even with cacti).

[ghost]

Revele it is interesting that you mention that you think the lighting could mess with your flowering because I have always used artificial lighing during winter ( i use HPS for the older plants and compact fluro's for anythign under a year old ) to keep them growing throughout the winter, this works great to get them nice and big but I have never been able to make one flower, this year I have attempted to force them into flowering buy giving them 20 hours of day for the winter veg period which is an extra 6 hours than the past I am hoping the drematic change in photo period will force some to flower , I was also advised that I am better making it flower outdoors so I have also placed a few out there to see if that makes a diffence

Sorry to hijack the thread by the way to add to this topic last year was my first year planting lophs but I have grown other cacti for a few years now and through the winter I kept them under lower wattage compact fluros' they don't give off allot of heat so you are able to get them allot closer than the standard tube fluro's allowing for more lumenens, from what I have read I don't think lophs would handle HID lighting in the first year and a bit unless you used shade cloth