L. Williamsii drama

[great_blue]

Hello All,

I am not sure why, but my one L. Williamsii has recently developed a very soft region directly above the soil line. It is very soft, and moist, as you can see one of the tufts appearing wet within the circled area on the right.

I really hope there is something I can do to save it since it is so large and I like having it around. I do not over water it because I borderline neglect the thing. It was hanging out next to my basil plant for a while on the eastern facing window sill in my uninsulated mudroom.

Should I uproot the whole thing, cut off the soft region and sterilize the area with iso? This is the only thing I can think of at this time, though I hope some of you more experienced cacti folks can lend some advice.

Hope all is well within the Nexus!

 

[dg]

i'd treat for pests and leave it be- no water

if the soft area spreads or gets worse maybe graft

 

[great_blue]

Hi dg, thanks for the advice. Treat for pests in what way? I will surely not water it for a while.

 

[dg]

pyrythiums
methanol

treat it like you have mites or root mealies(or other tiny sap sucker)

 

[great_blue]

Ok I hear you. It is definitely getting worse, and fast. I have nothing to graft to so I may take a trip to lowes and buy something. Will any columnar variety work?

 

[dg]

they usually have mytrillo cactus- a good stock

i have little exp grafting to anything other than pereskiopsis and trichocereus

 

[great_blue]

Ok I will give it a look tomorrow. I really hope I dont kill this thing, it would be a shame. I have trichs that I am growing from seed but they are only a year and a half old at most and are too small to consider grafting. This one was doing great too.

I know they have some cereus peruvianus. That could probably work eh?

 

[great_blue]

Here's a pic...

 

[pinkoyd]

I don't think the Cereus will work because of the shape of it's cross section. You want something that will cover the whole underside of the Loph. Those blade-like ribs would leave too much of the Loph cut exposed I would think.

 

[Hieronymous]

NO!

Don't use that Cereus as grafting stock.

When a Cereus is cut the centre is very narrow but that is not the main issue.

The problem is that skin of the stock is much lower water content than the tissue underneath it. When cut the soft inner tissue retracts and the skin doesn't retract or shrink much at all. This can leave the skin up to 1 cm above the vascular bundle after it's dried out and retracted.

If you graft that Loph to a Cereus, you might be lucky enough to align the vascular bundles of the scion and the graft but the loph will get pushed off & the graft union will separate as the tissue inside the Cereus shrinks.

Normally most would select a trich with a larger cross section at the area where it's cut and then trim back the skin of the trich to stop it from pushing the scion off as it shrinks and settles in to its new growth habit.

If that were mine I'd uproot it gently and let it dry for a few weeks. While it's out of the soil you can check for root rot and treat it properly for pests. It really looks like it has mites or something sucking on it.

If the roots or the bottom of the Loph are rotten then let it dry out while you source a trich for stock. If the roots look OK you could treat it for pests and maybe re-pot it.

 

[dg]

^ nice post there

 

[great_blue]

Guys, I dont even know if grafting will be an option anyway. It appears to be rotting away at a very alarming rate. The brown mush above the root line is, well, mush. Its very goopy and I feel like I am at a loss

Do I just harvest this thing above the root line and hope it grows back?

 

[great_blue]

Forgot the pic...

 

[Hieronymous]

Yeah that's why I suggested you dig it up.

It doesn't look good, but I have saved cactus worse than that. Sometimes if they have healthy roots they can recover.

What I've done in situations like that is cut away all the diseased tissue until I get to clean healthy tissue. For the last few cuts new blades or a sterilising solution to clean the blade is recommended.

After you get to the point where all diseased tissue is gone dust it (the whole plant, roots and all) with some sulfur or a tomato dust that has sulfur mixed with an insecticide.

Then let it sit to dry out for about 2-3 weeks and re-plant it but don't water it for at least another week. The delicate rootlets get bruised and broken on transplanting so they need to recover or they could rot where they are injured.

I can't guarantee anything it could go either way. Most times a cactus will only shoot back from an areole, but some rootstocks will send up pups from the roots if there are no areoles to shoot from. I wouldn't have believed that could happen until a Lophocereus I rescued sent up a root pup. I've watered rotten cactus with dilute H202 to help overcome the rot after treatment with sulphur and drying out ect. Water will need to closely monitored to ensure a complete drying out phase after each watering.
Hydrogen peroxide in the garden


It's hard to see from your last picture, but if you feel there is enough to make a tip cut without hitting any rotted tissue, it might be an idea to cut it before you operate on the rootstock.

All exposed cuts should be sulfured/tomato dusted immediately if you don't have a suitable plant to use as stock. A tip cut can grow roots, and will survive a few weeks if you intend to graft it. It's best to graft ASAP though.

If there is not enough to graft a tip cutting then just gouge out all the rot and treat it as I mentioned above. Lophs have plenty of areoles to re-grow from so you might be lucky.

Good luck man

 

[great_blue]

Thank you so much for your suggestions and help guys. I don't have any grafting stock so I plan to look for some of the sulphur to buy and put over the new tissue once the diseased sections have been removed. I'm at work so it'll have to wait until later. I poured ISO over the exposed parts last night. Idk if that would help though. Just figured it couldn't hurt at this point.

There is enough for a tip cut, but like I said, I don't have any stock to graft to. So I hope it pulls through. I tasted some of the flesh I pulled off and it was very bitter, so that is a good sign at least! I have no experience with consuming these cacti, so would a button of this size be usable for a moderate experience?

 

[dg]

no- keep growing

 

[great_blue]

haha thanks.

 

[DiMiTriX]

mmm it seems done to me.. you can try to graft it in a myrtillocactus geometrizans would be a good choice imho.or u can just graft the areolas. i dunno if u can graft that little slice of the top :?