Hey y'all. I moved across the country 6 months ago. I accidentally left these in the garage for about 6 months and I am curious if they are still consumable?
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Consumable?
- Thread starter rebis963
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After sitting in the dark, they'd likely be quite potent, but I wouldn't eat those mouldy-looking ones. There's sign of root growth, so you'll probably get fresh biomass pretty quickly after planting. Beware of sunburn on your cacti once they're ready to go outdoors - use shading for a couple of weeks while they get acclimatised.
It's also a question of whether the mouldy bits will succumb to rot - you'll have to keep an eye on them in case there's bad bits show which need cutting off.
Planting them horizontally might afford more stems than in the vertical format, at least for the ones with roots already sprouting out the side. The chunkier, ~bluish, short-spined specimen (3rd & 4th pics) that's already pupped once after cutting ought to be planted vertically for the moment.
Thanks for the responses. I cut these off of some of my other plants. I left most of my garden in the care of a good friend back home because I moved to a place with very harsh winters and wanted to get one winter under my belt. I will go back and get the rest of my plants sometime soon and keep growing. I just brought what I cut off with the intention of making a tea in our new home. All of these are really soft. I'm not sure if they will end up bouncing back if I tried planting them.
They definitely won't if you don't.
One of my specimens seems nearly immortal - I've done some terrible things to tiny chunks of it and they've still survived when planted and watered from time to time. Like this fella - whittled down to a 2 inch chunk, burned off all the areoles, chucked in the compost, started rotting, dried out for a year and then planted. Took six months to sprout and here it is nearly six months after pupping.
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A few carefully placed clean cuts might give a better idea of their health. Sometimes they can look bad on the outside, but a clean cross-section can be rooted or consumed. You can isolate healthy sections which don't have to be very long as Transform has shown above.
Yep, and I've successfully propagated from even smaller bits than that (same strain, though).
As you can probably see, I've cut and potted on one stem from that 2.5 cm thick chunk already.
Obviously, bigger pieces recover more quickly - but with the right specimen even a 15 mm slice would stand a good chance of survival with appropriate nurturing. My trick is to let them grow roots on a bed of fine grit (2-3 mm #) so they can get a bit of moisture while minimising risk of rot.
Be sure to let them callus over fully before planting, of course. And if you've some decent grafting stock, even tinier pieces can be propagated. Heres an 15 mm slice (left/above) - now grown to a 1.2 m stem. I only had ordinary office sticking tape, but it worked for holding this graft at least - my first ever graft, over ten years ago!
