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Grafted seedlings directly to Trichocereus
- Thread starter Wakinyan
- Start date
Mitakuye Oyasin
Esteemed member
Cool. Show us some progress photos as they grow.
Wakinyan
Rising Star
downwardsfromzero
Boundary condition
I'm wondering, what substrate do you start your seedlings in? I've checked all your posts and couldn't find any mention of this among them.
Wakinyan
Rising Star
downwardsfromzero said:
If your asking about how I start my seeds and what kind of soil I use... I've experimented quite a bit with that with Trichocereus seedlings. I've grown them in pure 100% peat for instance. I've also grown them in a pre-mixed composted Black Cow formula right out of the back, composted chicken manure, garden soil with no amendments, etc. I finally settled on using ProMix or my back up... miracle grow for all my Trichocereus seedlings and plants. Mind you, I still find myself amending them with things like additional bone meal, blood meal, etc. and I still use liquid fertilizers like fish emulsion and more liquid miracle grow and often a bloom booster formula is added such as Scotts super bloom... often mixing the later two. If all three fertilizers are mixed as you have seen in some of my posts I often end up with a murky greenish yellow grey muck. My Trichocereus seem to love it.
However, If my Trichocereus can't handle heavy feeding, heavy watering, etc. then I generally don't keep them in my collection very long as natural selection takes them out. Natural selection in this case being the environment I choose to grow my specimens in.
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Mitakuye Oyasin
Esteemed member
When you say (provided you take care of any pups or offsets that should arise.) you mean getting rid of pups that the scion might put out to keep all energy directed into the graft?
Wakinyan
Rising Star
Mitakuye Oyasin said:
The scion is the grafted seedling. The stock is the larger cacti that directs its energy into either pups or the grafted scion.
In the case of the stock pupping, it takes strength from what could go into the grafted scion and the smaller scion may stay alive, but it won't necessarily grow. If the scion pups however... never fear as the scion is being pushed and those pups may or may not continue to grow as that scion is pushed, but they can be saved for propagation via further grafting if nothing else.
Clear as mud?
Mitakuye Oyasin
Esteemed member
Thanks for the info. I'm still learning.
Wakinyan
Rising Star
No problem my friend. We are all still learning. I'd love to inspire more people to graft as I'd like to have more specimens to pick from. Another of my goals in all these posts is to hopefully answer some questions of posters and have them grafting at least as well as I graft. I'm a firm believer that anyone can do the grafts I do as I've taught these style grafts to 5 year olds who performed them under my supervision without a hitch.
Mitakuye Oyasin
Esteemed member
Recently grafted some Trichocereus Bridgesii onto some Trichocereus Pachanoi.
Wakinyan
Rising Star
Mitakuye Oyasin said:
I love it! :thumb_up: The more proficient we get at grafting the easier it becomes to share with others as we end up having so much more of any particular specimen we fall in love with than we might hav via cuttings and such. As any small piece can literally give birth to hundreds of cacti if we only have the stock.
I'd love to see your graft if you have the time to share it or anyone else's for that matter. I learn from others when they share such pictures and sometimes I'm able to give tips that might help as well. Suffice it to say we all have our styles though and as long as it works 95-98% of the time I think that is good enough for most of us.
Mitakuye Oyasin
Esteemed member
I use super glue sometimes because it is sterile and tape to hold down the graft until it grabs on.
Wakinyan
Rising Star
Mitakuye Oyasin said:
If you use super glue and that dries super fast then in effect you can remove the tape almost immediately after the super glue dries in a few seconds?
My fears with this method would be... :
1. getting super glue between the union as it could make a graft that would fail.
2. removing tape or parafilm for that matter can upset a graft and cause it to fail when it is young.
I do know that is an old trick I have often read about, but I can't honestly say I've seen it implemented with any great numbers of seedlings or grafts. As always, I would love to see pictures of your process step by step as this is actually one of the few methods I have not been able to master yet. Whether it is due to me being too clumsy or simply technique... I'd love to see your form with this method.
With parafilm... I don't have to worry about any sticking of my material to the scion or to the host for that matter as the scion simply grows through the parafilm. Ensuring I don't have to remove the parafilm, but if I choose to do so I can do so after the union has resulted in a nicely growing scion.
My method with the parafilm gives me on the low end a 97.5% success rate right now. I have seen 100% success rates, but no one can count on those kinds of rates if you ask me. Where there is a will, a graft will find a way to fail. None of us is perfect 100% of the time nor are our grafts going to be perfect 100% of the time. We can strive for perfection though. Nothing wrong with that....
