More colorful Trichocereus and another reason to graft

[Wakinyan]

Most of these grafts are just a few months old... makes you want to graft?:thumb_up:

 

[Quetzal7]

cactus porn !
Can you explain what's goin on thou, or link to tek and explanation?
it looks amazing !!

 

[Wakinyan]

cactus porn !
Can you explain what's goin on thou, or link to tek and explanation?
it looks amazing !!

Here you go my friend.

The long story short on these variegations is that like begets like in the cacti world. This means if one of the parents is a mutant, freak, variegate, crested, etc. then a larger percentage than average is going to carry that trait. Now, if you have a variegate as one parent and a crest as a parent then your going to have both those traits in some of your cacti seed. If both of your parents are variegated freaks carrying monstrous/crested type genes then you have upped your chances even further for these traits to appear in your seedlings.

Now why learn how to graft and get proficient at it? I graft many of the freaks in my seed beds at 2 weeks of age as they often don't have enough chlorophyl to survive on their own. Now, sometimes those variegates and even albinos will later develop or show chlorophyl and thus the develop over time the ability to grow on their own. Those that develop over time the ability to grow on their own would never of had the chance to do so had I not take the 5 minutes required to learn how to graft. The bottom line, if you can read this post you have the necessary skills to learn to graft as good if not better than I do.

Grafting while easy, is a learning process. Many of my first grafts failed as I was impatient and wanted to peak at the union or else I simply moved or bumped my grafts.

Parafilm is a tool I found that made grafting much easier for myself and others I have taught. I won't list all of the merits of parafilm, but I will list a few.

Number 1: Parafilm never has to be removed. Simply place and forget. The cacti will grow right through it.

Number 2: Parafilm creates enough humidity that no additional humidity is needed if the entire surface of the cut stock is secured with it as well as the scion.

Number 3: Parafilm allows you to actively grow and water your seedling grafts throughout the entire process never having to slow things down or cause even a short delay in growth due to not watering which is often needed for seedlings with this stock at this size.

Number 4: I have had my grafts literally dumped in large numbers upside down and still had 97.5% of my grafts take. Try that with some of the other grafting methods with seedlings this size and tell me how your grafts are doing.