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Suspecting sick peyotes

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Poekus

Rising Star
Two weeks back I bought a large number of lophs.

I already saw that the base part was a little lighter than the rest but didn't seek anything behind that.

Now today one of them was totally mushed. I got it out of the pot and even the root system was totally mushed.

Now almost all of them have a lighter base which is also a little softer than the rest so I suspect they were all overwatered (not by me because I didn't gave them a single drop yet and the soil is dry).

I cutted another one from the root and cleaned the root. I saw indeed some rot in that one as well. The root looks allright though.

I'm reading different things about that softer base. Some say it's water depletion the other ones say it's overwatering.

I attached some pictures. What would you guys advise? I'm really think to harvest them and dry them out fully to have some journeys on them instead of letting them all go to mush.
Then dry the roots fully and replant them to see if new pups come on. It are very big roots.

I have around 100 of them (4-5 cm) and it would be a nice way to document wet/dry ratios and yields, because there is very little info about that on peyotes (almost always the trichocereus are documented). In this way it can still contribute to the community somehow.
 

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the ones that aren't rotting look normal

do not cut/harvest! if you have to i suggest grafting healthy buttons from rotting roots above just harvest.

continue not watering and carefully inspect for tiny mites (lophs are very easily damaged by mites- and also root mealies)

how much light are they under?

good luck :)
 
Thanks for your reply dg, much appreciated.

They are in a small room with one window out of direct light.

The top two photos are examples of the worser yellowing and softening on the base.

I rearranged them yesterday in the trays and 8 of them have spots at the base which really look like rot (or in some cases tissue damage on the top like small holes in which you can see the fresh green flesh) . I separated those from the rest.

After reading almost the whole night about this problem the general consensus on other the cacti forums seemed to be that they are under watered. Which could very well be the case as the soil was cork dry and I didn't gave them water for 2-3 weeks.
Temperatures are like 17-20 degrees right know. So I decided to water 1/3 of them to see if there will be any difference. This morning 3 of them showed small bright pink fresh flower knobs :) .

The one that had that rot spot on the photo I decided to dry. The button was 4.1 cm in diameter and about 1.5 cm in height. It's dry weight was 8.61 grams and it's dried weight was 0.59 gram so the wet/dry ratio is around 7%. That 2-3 percent more than my experience with trichos.

The root of that one I cleaned and replanted. It had a purple like purple spot which I cutted out with a sharp heated knife.

About the grafting, I really want to practice with that but I only have big diameter san pedro's and torches, which probably are way to big for grafting a peyote onto. I was thinking to cut one of my new pedros and leave 10 cm at the base to put one of the biggest lophs or one of my clusters on. In all topics I found on the net about grafting larger lophs on pedro they all seem to match in diameter. Most topics are about seedlings on periskiopsis.

Do you happen to know a good alternative to miticides? I read about someone on a cactus forum that he used cinnamon powder. Some of my clusters could have those mites as they have some of the small pups covered in a rusty color and there were some kind of thin spider webs on some of them which I removed. They are in a separate room away from the single head lophs.
 
I have one loph in a sunny window sill- it has not been watered in several months and is doing fine. i wont water it again until my house is over 80*f


"About the grafting, I really want to practice with that but I only have big diameter san pedro's and torches, which probably are way to big for grafting a peyote onto. I was thinking to cut one of my new pedros and leave 10 cm at the base to put one of the biggest lophs or one of my clusters on. In all topics I found on the net about grafting larger lophs on pedro they all seem to match in diameter. Most topics are about seedlings on periskiopsis."

big pedros work best!
it might work of to graft at the base of a pedro- but the tip is better. in fact the pedro doesn't even need to be rooted for the graft to take and start growing
the scion doesn't need to be as large as the stock- the inner growth bundles just need to overlap in one spot.

as for the miticide- anything effective in killing mites can be so termed....cinnamon included it it works :)
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i've seen experts on other sites recommend dilute methanol for mites of sensitive cacti.
if you use an oil base product(they work great on mites) be sure to keep direct sun off the cacti for several days or they will burn
 
Thanks again!

I just went to a gardening center this morning and bought a cluster (8 in one pot) of what I think is a trichocereus species. It looks like some of the peruvianus I have. If so I'm going to use that as a multiple graft base.
 
Small update after some time. You were right Dg; the others were healthy, only two of them rotted, the rest is still in perfect health.

I tried to do some grafting with small knobs from the clusters but didn't had success yet. This mostly has to do with the fact that I don't have proper grafting tape yet and my cats popped them off and of course my inexperience as of yet.
 
glad most made it! :)

i've never used grafting tape.
did you read the grafting pdf posted here?
its on the first page of results in cacti section
 
Didn't read that one yet. Am going to do so and try some more. Thanks for pointing that out.
 
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